Bangladesh’s Lessons from the World Cup Final
We need to internalize a deep psychological and sociological dissection of our national mentality regarding the lessons from the World Cup Final.
Football is not just a race of twenty-two people behind a ball of leather it is essentially a living reflection of a perfect collective psychology.
Just when the final match of the 2026 Football World Cup was composing an epic of impeccable strategy and sacrifice on the world stage, it made our Bengali society stand in front of a piece of mirror.
The biggest tragedy of our core mentality is the extreme lack of team mentality, which is completely opposite to the core philosophy of football.
Where eleven people fight together as one soul on the field, in our society everyone wants to survive like an isolated and arrogant island.
Jealousy is a disease in our blood that does not want to let anyone rise easily, but rather society is eager to pull them down as soon as someone makes a little progress.
This suicidal jealousy only gives rise to a blind and selfish struggle instead of the passing game on the football field.
Like the shab’s shrimp figure, our social progress today is stuck in a maze, where when one takes two steps forward, three pull him down.
This culture of downward pull repeatedly brings our collective potential to zero.
Society or state—everywhere today, personal interest’s triumph, where the ego and profit of the individual have become greater than the welfare of the individual.
The mentality of sacrifice that sees the team’s victory more important than scoring one’s own goal in football has completely disappeared from our minds.
We live in a vicious circle of unnecessary jealousy, where the failure of others becomes our only source of joy and happiness.
This jealous attitude does not allow us to form a cohesive and strong team.
In our social structure today, the love of loneliness has taken an extreme form, where everyone is busy with them and is completely indifferent to the happiness and sorrow of others.
This extreme individualism is forever blocking the path to collective achievement.
The weakness of leadership is stumbling us at every step, where arrogance and display of power have become more important than competence.
The work of a skilled captain, where everyone is tied together by a thread, has become a cheap tool for asserting authority in our case.
Our so-called managers have a strange tendency to reject guidelines or instructions, which does not allow us to build a systematic organization.
When everyone wants to follow their own whims, then no specific plan can survive there.
Disobedient behavior and indiscipline have spread to every level of our society, which is a crime like getting a red card in any football team.
This culture of breaking rules is constantly breaking the backbone of our collective strength from within.
Untimely work turns all our initiatives into failure, where one hand leaves no trace of the work of the other.
If there is such untimely work between the defense and the forward on the football field, defeat is inevitable.
The conflict of authority has turned every one of our organizations into a battlefield today, where the greed for position is much greater than the interests of the country or the party.
As a result of this biting, we always deviate from the main goal.
Due to the authoritarian attitude, we do not hesitate to turn the logical opinions of others into dust, which gives rise to resentment within the party.
In an ideal party where everyone’s opinion is valued, our society is busy practicing dictatorship.
Due to this disregard for the rules, we are constantly scoring our own goals, which is a national shame.
This culture of shooting ourselves in the foot is more tragic than any football tragedy.
Our life is like a game without passes, where there is a blind and desperate attempt to keep the ball or possessions in our own possession.
We do not have the foresight to understand the simple truth that passing to others is to our own advantage.
We consider breaking the rules heroic, but football teaches us how a small offside or foul can change the fate of an entire match.
This tendency to disobey the rules has not allowed us to form even one team of eleven out of a billion people.
In our society, everyone wants to be a striker, as if they can grab the spotlight and applause all by themselves.
But if everyone wants to score goals, how can there be a midfielder who can pass the ball?
In this blind obsession with the attack, our defense has become completely empty and defenseless, as a result of which we all collapse at the slightest blow.
If the defense of life is weak, we forget that the opposing team will score at any moment.
This mentality of not giving anyone the slightest concession is constantly pushing us towards an extreme conflict.
Just like in football, we have to shake hands after a tackle, there is no place for that generosity in our society.
An intolerant mentality has turned our society into a gunpowder pile, where relationships end forever with a slight difference of opinion.
This intolerance is the main obstacle to building a healthy team or society.
With an unforgiving heart, we are only burning in the fire of revenge, which is constantly polluting and narrowing our souls.
It is difficult to find a big-hearted person today who can forgive and take the mistakes of others into his chest.
We are blinded by false ego and cheap minds, yet when we look at our achievements, we see nothing but utter emptiness.
This fake arrogance has blocked our path to learning something new or correcting our own mistakes.
Today’s senseless society has forgotten to differentiate between good and evil, which is further accelerating our overall decline. Where flattery is valued more than talent, nothing but decline can be expected.
Because of all these reasons, we are revolving in an eternal cycle of failure, from which we cannot find any way out. Our pathetic condition is due to not learning from the pages of history.
For years, our achievements have remained in the void, yet we are always in the first row in festivals and celebrations. This hollow self-satisfaction is leading us to a greater decline.
This stubborn mentality of boycotting education will forever keep us as a backward nation on the world stage.
If we do not learn from this historic final match of 2026, then no one will be able to prevent our final defeat.
In conclusion, it can be said that only the mutual trust, perfect passing and selfless sacrifice of those eleven players on the football field can change our society.
Let us forget personal interests and jealousy and adopt the collective philosophy of football in our lives, only then will we find liberation.
(The Author: Essayist, Literary Writer, President- Freedom International Anti Alcohol, Email Address: eddanwar@gmail.com)
