Can something be heartbreaking and hilarious at the same time? In football, definitely.
Everyone's emotions have been put through the wringer this week with the Champions League semi finals concluding, and nowhere was this summed up better than in one Dutch pub on Wednesday night.
After watching Liverpool upset the odds against Barcelona the night before, Ajax would've been wary of Tottenham going into the clash at the Johan Cruyff Arena, but two first-half goals from Matthijs De Ligt and Hakim Ziyech quickly laid any anxieties to bed.
With Bob Marley's 'Three Little Birds' blasting over the tannoy as the second half started, there really was nothing to worry about.
Except, of course, we now know there was a whole lot to worry about, and nowhere was this captured better than in a video of De Godenzonen fans counting down the final seconds of the five minutes added time in a bar, right up until the moment Lucas Moura broke their collective hearts...
Bar in Amsterdam counting down to full time...
— Ben Haines (@benhainess) May 9, 2019
10...
9...
8...
7...
6...
5...
4...
3...
🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
Yowzer.pic.twitter.com/xsm856pTan
See? Heartbreaking... but hilarious.
As a fellow fan, everyone can relate to the pain that comes with a last-gasp goal, especially one as damaging as that... and yet, have you ever seen a more perfect distillation of the way sports can take you from boastful pride, to anxiety, to utter desolation.
And you get all that just from the tone of the countdown, even if it's in another language. You get that from the understandable foolishness of the person who cheers at the end of the countdown, as if their hopeful chanting from one random pub determines the end of the match, not the referee's whistle.
You get that from football. It's brutal, but funny.
Source : 90min