Today: an infantile Infantino World Cup final.

But once, when football was still something serious — something respected, not merely a convenient interruption between the commercials and a Shakira show — somewhere on the Iberian Peninsula…
…it was a scorching summer, and there was a semi-final to be played.

Portugal against France.
Without Ronaldo.*

Let’s move to the not-so-distant battlefield where these titans were fighting: Lisbon.

The match is underway.

A thick, sticky heat has swallowed the streets. The afternoon sun burns without mercy, but nobody cares. Not now.

People are packed into bars, cafés, neighbours’ apartments — wherever there is a screen and somewhere to stand. They fall into tiny collective trances, interrupted only by explosions of shared joy or sudden waves of fury.

How many times, porra, has the referee already died a slow and painful death under the weight of Portuguese curses? How many times has he been sent to the deepest pits of hell?

And the French? Foda-se, their football is enough to make someone scream:

Isso me irrita pra caralho!

Impossible to count.

Apart from that, Portugal is a gentle and peaceful country.

There will never be a better moment than this one (perhaps except the final itself) to escape from prison, rob the national bank, or peacefully overthrow the president and seize power.

Nobody would even notice.

I am sitting there in Lisbon, listening to a silence so complete that it only breaks when the whole city shakes — every time France gets a questionable free kick.

And in this heat, in this atmosphere crackling like Tesla’s laboratory, I suddenly realise I desperately need a beer.

Even a small one.

Is that really too much to ask, for God’s sake — to have a beer on a hot summer evening?

The match is on.

Forget it.

People are sitting in the entrances of their old, crumbling buildings, watching with absolute concentration. Listening in silence. Freezing with horror. Or screaming at each other and tearing their hair out.

Just like in Poland — millions of football experts who have never been asked for their opinion.

Old cars are chasing each other through the streets in packs. Every radio is turned up to maximum volume — because otherwise you hear nothing. And you hear nothing because every other radio is also turned up to maximum volume.

Flags, arms and pure decibels are sticking out of every window.

I am already tired of the whole day, the heat, and the madness surrounding me.

And I am simply thirsty, because nobody was able to get me that fucking beer.

So I make a desperate, final and irreversible decision:

I’m going back to the hotel. Or rather: to the campsite. Or, to be even more precise: to a bench at the campsite.

The only campsite that meets my requirements (zero stars are perfectly acceptable, as long as the price is right — free) is somewhere on the outskirts, quite far away from the city.

But luckily, there is a tram.
The tram is a magnificent means of transport. What people you can meet there. How many things happen outside the window. And how many things happen inside.

What adventures you can experience.

A mixture of smells, beliefs and strange little worlds. And there is no place where you can be thrown out for so little reason as on a tram.

All it takes is the wrong accent. The wrong skin colour. Or simply speaking German.

But let’s leave politics aside, because sport brings people together.

And when it comes to the tram, the most important thing for me is that it is cheap.

Damn, if only it were possible, you could travel to the end of the world by tram and still have enough money left for the return journey.

If only there was somewhere worth returning to…

Anyway.

I’m going to the campsite.
And since the route leads outside the city, I am already outside the city.
As happens in southern countries, darkness arrives quickly and early.
And we keep moving.

We.

Meaning the tram driver, myself, and the radio.
Turned up to maximum.
Because who, with any sense at all, would be travelling by tram while Portugal is fighting for everything?

Even though I don’t speak Portuguese, I know exactly what is happening on the pitch.

The score. The minute. And why the opponents are, obviously, curva.

And as we travel on, as emotions reach their absolute peak, and the commentator is about to explode together with the radio…

…the match ends.

Our tram driver — a man who looks like a Portuguese born somewhere in the old colonies — is still driving, still throwing insults, still waving his hands.

And then suddenly, with the scream of metal and brakes, he brings the tram to a halt.

He jumps out of his seat.

Runs outside.

And disappears into the darkness.

“Hello…?” I call into the empty space ahead.

“…Fuck, fuck, fuck!” is the only answer. An echo.

Portugal did not win.
The tram driver never came back.

⸻

*At Euro 2000, Portugal had their so-called “Golden Generation”, with players such as Luís Figo, Rui Costa, Nuno Gomes and João Pinto.

They reached the semi-final, where they lost to France after the famous penalty awarded for Abel Xavier’s handball in extra time.

When Portugal played that semi-final in 2000, Ronaldo was 15 years old and was probably watching the match on television (if he had one). Four years later, he was already one of the stars of Euro 2004.