When the ball rolls, there is only one thing more sacred than all: Fatherland!

On July 9, 2011, the Republic of South Sudan was born, becoming the youngest country in the world. The morning after independence, the South Sudan national football team played its first match in history, on a dusty, messy dirt field in the capital city of Juba.

In October 2005, when the Angolan national team won a ticket to the World Cup in Germany, hundreds of thousands of Angolans poured into the streets singing the song "We are one nation".

What do these people have in common? Between the footballers who carry guns and live on the edge of life and death in South Sudan and the Angolan citizens who have endured years of anxiety, violence and an expensive life despite living on the world's poorest continent?

In 1994, Brazilian writer Nelson Rodrigues wrote a famous book “The Fatherland under the studs. The new chronicle of football”. What Rodrigues wrote did not create a revolution but it was concisely realized in a valuable sentence: The Fatherland under the studs. The history of modern football spanning 3 centuries illustrates that saying, where the stature of the round ball is enough to create a glue that binds the nation.

Modern football, no matter how much it has changed in terms of rules, still retains the original spirit of camaraderie and sacrifice. When the ball is played among friends, it gives the players a sense of belonging to a group, to something. When the team represents a country, it gives pride in defending a common value. A common identity. A Fatherland.

It is not only in third world countries like South Sudan or Angola that the feeling of belonging is expressed strongly. Wherever the ball is rolling, the need to show that you are part of a flag is also boiling.

When it goes too far, it takes on the ugly face of extreme nationalism, at a mild level it can be hooliganism, football violence, racism, at a more severe level it can be war between countries, like the "100-hour war" between Honduras and El Salvador in 1969.

But in the vast majority of cases, it carries the spirit of solidarity and social transformation. At the 1998 World Cup, when far-right politician Jean Marie Le Pen criticized the French national team for having too many non-white players, Lilian Thuram responded with strong pride: “I am not black, I am French”. When the ball speaks, there are no more boundaries of skin color, faith or religion, only one thing remains above all - the Fatherland.

In the era of the flat world and globalization, when traditional borders and classical concepts of nationhood and sovereignty tend to become blurred, the urge to re-establish and protect another “border” in spirit through football is even more urgent. It is not an exaggeration to say that a country cannot be considered complete without a football team (or another sport) to protect its “border” and fight in its name.

The United Nations, the world’s largest political institution, has 193 members, but FIFA has 209. The difference is not just in numbers. There are territories that do not have full sovereignty, such as Aruba, Tahiti, the Caiman Islands, Taiwan, Palestine… that are not recognized by the UN but are members of FIFA.

When they come to football, these members are not only looking for the most popular sport on the planet but also looking for a space that has its own identity. And they are welcomed with open arms.

As a sport, football has no borders. But when “the Fatherland is under the boot”, countless borders are created. That is actually a good thing because in a way, the world of football has now become a world of “border” wars, wars with noble, humane and popular values.

That is why football always creates a special attraction and endless passion.

Witnessing the U23 Vietnam players writing a fairy tale yesterday afternoon and the explosive emotions of millions of Vietnamese people afterwards, one can clearly feel that truth./.