Tonight Manchester United’s players will take to the field of the Friends Arena in Stockholm to compete for a trophy that has for a large portion of this season been foremost in their minds.
For months it has been obvious that the Europa League was this side’s target, as they stuttered through the domestic season with a laser focus on this backdoor into the Champions League.
The events at Manchester Arena on Monday night, with which we are all now acutely aware, will have brought a harsher focus into view for this squad.
When people lose their lives so needlessly, it changes how we prioritise things, regardless of who we are. For many football fans and players, what happened on Monday will have hit especially close to home.
The parallels between pop concerts and football may not seem obvious initially, but they are there. Both are congregations of celebration, both are attended in droves by people more akin to disciples than anything else.
For many, music and sport are a substitute for religion. Art forms which make us think, debate and feel.
Why music, sport and solidarity matter at a time like this | @DionFanning on #Manchester's resiliance https://t.co/Mw13qgLS2p
— JOE (@JOE_co_uk) May 23, 2017
And those attending the match in the Swedish capital tonight will be doing so with the same intention as those who attended Ariana Grande’s concert on Monday: to experience joy, to cheer and to feel part of something bigger than themselves.
It is because of this that tonight’s game, in a weird way, simultaneously means everything and nothing.
It means nothing because the events of this week highlight the triviality of football. It is just a game, whether you win or lose.
But it is the power that football wields – that it represents – that renders this match more meaningful than it could ever have been before.
Manchester United’s players will likely not welcome the tag – nor do they deserve to be burdened with it – but their presence in this game alone represents a symbol. A symbol of celebration, of togetherness.
Wow! Tony Walsh's tribute to #Manchester at tonight's vigil would fill you with pride no matter where you're from pic.twitter.com/SM00Vdzsxm
— JOE (@JOE_co_uk) May 23, 2017
A symbol that those who perpetrated Monday’s attack truly hate, that they seek to destroy, but never will.
Many say that football is a distraction from the grind and monotony of our daily lives, granting us the means to escape for 90 minutes and lose ourselves.
But what people regularly forget is that football is also a mirror to daily life. The mundane, the inane, the highs and the lows. Grasping victory from the jaws of defeat and falling on your arse when you thought you were home and hosed.
More importantly, though, football is an extension of the best of what life has to offer, of what life gives us: community, the strength of society and the possibilities it grants us.
Without this sense of community, football simply wouldn’t exist. The sport itself is an encapsulation of what is possible when people come together and work towards a purpose.
https://twitter.com/SportsJOE_UK/status/866969616337313792
Modern football, whether you like it or not, is a global game. And while there are many problems with the sport on an administrative level, it is one of the few meritocracies remaining in the world. The best rise to the top, regardless of religion, race or class.
Most of all – either by design or unintentionally – modern football represents multiculturalism at its best. Across the world you will see it; people from all areas of the globe, from all walks of life working in harmony.
It is an example to us all that our differences mean little compared to those things that bind us: love, joy, pain and community.
So whether Manchester United win or lose against Ajax, it is actually irrelevant.
This team, in taking to the field this evening and representing the city with which they have shared so much happiness and heartache over the decades, will stand as a symbol for all that makes this game – and society – special.
