A time to laugh, a time to cry amid football's triumph and tragedy
You couldn’t help but smile, even as you could imagine others recoiling at what they would regard as a gross trivialisation of the recent horror visited upon Paris. What possible meaning or significance, they would feel entitled to ask, can a mere football tournament have in the face of such grotesque barbarity and suffering?
On the face of it, none at all, is the obvious answer, until you pause to consider what it was that sent the IS bombers and shooters to the Stade de France and the Bataclan last Friday night. To paraphrase the good god Shanks, sport and music might not be matters of life and death – and, no, they’re certainly not more important — but the millions who have fallen under their spell can testify from ample personal experience that both are life-affirming and life-enhancing, sometimes magically so.
