1:0, czyli ludzie jak bogowie
1:0, or People Like Gods

Summary/Abstract: Of the many ways of explaining the popularity of sport, the author proposes the ethnological interpretation which reaches to the mythological sources of the phenomenon. It is obvious that sport is a classification, a division into “we” and “they”. This classification, however, is not created by laws which function on a daily basis. Western sport teams are usually multi-national, while Polish ones, although a foreigner or two can appear, seem to be much more uniform – but how many true Warsaw residents play in the Legia team? The greatest importance is ascribed to the national colours which decide who is “ours” and who is not. Sport is ruled by laws analoguous to those of a carnival and football is the queen of all sport; it is here that a radical reversal takes place: hands, used everyday (cf. the number of idiomatic expressions connected with them) are replaced by feet. A football match is a reversal of the Promethean feat. The collective effort of the team creates a situation advantageous for one its members, who, with his legs, must conquer the only “normal” person – the goal-keeper, who relies on his hands, while the loot (the ball) is left on alien territory, the “other world”. The player who shoots a goal is, therefore, a anti-Prometheus, who returns fire to the gods. We are dealing here with a reconstruction of chaos (on a social scale, much smaller than the cosmic one) in order to repeat once again the act of creation.

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