The Old Drumbeat in the Middle of a Major Tournament Season

Every major tournament begins with the same sound. Not the opening whistle, but the sound of tens of thousands of feet pounding the stands — a steady rhythm like a festival drum, rising long before the ball rolls.

I have heard that sound for nearly fifty years. In Seoul when I was young, in Shenzhen during my working years, and through a screen when the whole world was locked within four walls. Every time a major tournament returns, I ask myself: does anyone still hear that old rhythm, in an age where everything is measured by speed and views?

This month, as national teams enter the machinery of a major tournament, the platforms begin knocking at the door. Breaking news runs first, analysis follows. Numbers are placed before people. And I — a reporter who follows teams — still sit in the familiar corner of the stands, waiting for the old drum to rise above the noise.

There is something newcomers to this profession often fail to notice. A major tournament is not merely a series of matches. It is a collective state of mind, lasting weeks, sometimes months, in which an entire nation breathes to a single rhythm.

In the places where I have worked, people hang flags in their windows. Cafes turn on the television from morning. Children wear jerseys to school. Strangers look at each other and nod, simply because of the same shirt. That is an emotion no spreadsheet can capture, and it is also the thing most easily forgotten when people look only at the scoreline.

I once thought I understood football. Then I realized I understood only a very small part of it — the part on the pitch. The rest, the larger part, lives in the stands, in the dressing room, on buses at three in the morning, in the eyes of a young player looking up at an empty stand.

A major tournament exposes all of those parts at once. And that is why I am still in this profession at sixty-five.

During a major tournament, people usually talk about tactics, lineups, and stars. But what I notice most are the smaller things: a player sitting alone at the end of the bench, a coach standing still for a long time after the match ends, an old fan wiping away tears when the home team scores. Those moments do not make the front page, but they are the soul of the tournament.

Every major tournament comes with a busy transfer window. In recent years, a new force has appeared that makes the entire market look again. I spent many months observing the wave of European players moving to leagues in the Gulf. Contracts were signed with wages that made people rub their eyes. Stars who once shone in Europe's top leagues put on new shirts, thousands of kilometers from home.

What few people say out loud: those contracts are not football, they are marketing. Clubs do not buy a player to solve a tactical problem. They buy a name to sell an image. A tourism ambassador, an advertising face, a reason for people to remember a country.

I do not say this to criticize. I say it because I have watched too many players come and go without leaving a trace on the grass. They are welcomed with lights and fireworks, then fade into silence. Their names appear on billboards more than on scoreboards.

Every transfer window is a farewell, but the heart of a club never leaves. I wrote that sentence years ago, and it still holds. What I would add now is this: sometimes the farewell happens before the player leaves. They leave football before they leave the club.

There was a young player I once followed in a lower division. He moved to a big club, signed a three-year contract, then sat on the bench for nearly his entire first season. In his second season he was loaned out. In his third he disappeared from the football map. No one writes about him anymore. But I still remember the way he tied his boots on his first day — slowly, carefully, as if preparing for the most important match of his life. He wears a new shirt now, but I still remember the way he tied his boots on his first day.

That is why I never write about a transfer using only numbers. A contract is a person. Behind it is a family, a dream, a fear. When people look only at the fee, they miss most of the story.

Alongside the transfer wave, another invasion is unfolding far more quietly. Data analysts are stepping into the dressing room. They bring laptops, models, predicted numbers. And they are changing how people think about football.

I do not oppose data. Data helps people see what the naked eye misses. But I worry about one thing: the conclusions of data are often detached from the real rhythm of the match. A model can say a player ran less than his teammates, but it cannot say that player was holding a position to block a pass no one else saw.

I once sat beside a young analyst at a training session. He pointed at a screen and talked about a midfielder's pass-completion rate. I asked whether he had noticed that the midfielder always passed toward the left wing whenever the team was trailing. He fell silent. That is something a computer cannot record, but someone who has sat in the stands all season sees clearly.

Data is useful when it serves people. It becomes dangerous when it replaces them. And in modern football, that line is blurring.

There is one lesson I will never forget, and it has nothing to do with data. It was the summer in Russia, in 2026, when I was invited to commentate on a major match. In the first half, I mispronounced the name of a Spanish midfielder three times. Social media immediately mocked me. That night I sat alone in my hotel room, too ashamed to sleep.

The following week, I reviewed the qualifying footage of all thirty-two teams. I noted how to pronounce the names of seven hundred and thirty-six players in their local languages. I learned to read Icelandic, Croatian, and Senegalese names. I understood that a wrong name is a disrespect to a person and their journey.

Isco taught me that a name is not just syllables, but an entire person. Since then, I never write a player's name without checking its origin and native pronunciation. Every article of mine includes a small passage about the family or background of the central figure. That shame made me humbler in this profession.

That shame also taught me that football is a story about people, not about numbers. When I write about a player, I try to learn what he eats before a match, whom he calls after scoring, what he fears most. Those details appear in no analytical report, but they are what make readers remember.

A major tournament is when those stories are told the most. But it is also when they are most easily drowned out by the noise of the media.

There is one autumn I will never forget. It was 2026, when stadiums stood empty for seven months because of the pandemic. I went to a ground on a late afternoon, after the team had finished training. In the dressing room, I met a twenty-one-year-old midfielder. He sat alone on a bench, looking at the floor, and whispered to me: "Uncle, with no fans, I don't know who I'm playing for."

I sat down beside him. We were silent for a long time. Then I encouraged him to write an open letter to the fans. He wrote it. That letter was shared fifty thousand times. My article combining it became one of the most-read pieces of the year.

The empty dressing room that day still carried the smell of grass and someone's tears. That was the moment I realized a reporter's role is not to record sadness, but to help people overcome it. I shifted from narrator to companion. I learned to listen to players speak of fragile emotions, and to use the first person to connect with readers.

Two years later, during the World Cup in Qatar, that player's agent revealed to me that he would be loaned to a club in the Netherlands in the winter window. I kept the information secret for three weeks, waited for the contract to be signed, then published the exclusive. Immediately afterward, a group of fans accused me of lacking transparency. I organized an online Q&A, listened to them, and understood that collective interests must come before individual ones.

Since then, I weigh the impact of every article on all parties: the player, the family, the fans, and the newspaper. I created a small column to explain my working process, and became a bridge between club and community whenever disputes arose. I learned that a reader's trust is built over years, but can be lost in a single headline.

When new media knocks noisily at the door, I still hear the old drum from the stands. That is the sentence I remind myself of every morning. New media has speed, platforms, algorithms. But it often lacks one thing: patience. It wants to conclude immediately, judge immediately, name immediately.

I am different. It takes me years to understand a player. Months to understand a team. Seasons to understand a fan. And I consider that an advantage, not a weakness. The new generation of reporters chases the ball; I chase where the ball has already rolled.

This does not mean I reject new media. I read it every day. I learn from it. I adjust my voice to fit younger readers better. But I do not trade depth for speed. I do not sell my soul to an algorithm.

There is a truth those in the industry rarely say aloud: readers do not remember fast articles. They remember deep ones. They remember stories that make them stop and think. And those stories take time to tell.

A major tournament is when speed reigns. Everything happens faster, more intensely. But it is also when patience becomes more precious than ever. Amid a sea of breaking news, an article that makes people pause is a gift.

I go to the stadium not to score, but to keep the rhythm for stories. That is my job, and I do it with all the respect I owe to the people who taught me how to listen.

There is one thing I always ask myself whenever a major tournament closes. What remains after the lights go out? The trophies go to museums. The goals go to memory. The names go to history. But what about the people?

I think of the young players who sat on the bench throughout the tournament, the silent heroes of logistics, the old fans who have followed the team for decades. They receive no honors. But they are the submerged part of the iceberg. Without them, there is no tournament.

A stadium may change its name, but the singing of the stands is never copyrighted. That singing belongs to everyone, and no one can take it away. That is what I believe, after nearly fifty years in this profession.

So when the next major tournament arrives, I will again sit in the familiar corner of the stands. I will again listen to the old drum. I will again look for the stories no one else notices. Not because I need to be remembered, but because those stories need to be told.

Football will keep changing. Data will keep growing. Money will keep getting bigger. But as long as one fan stamps their feet in the stands, as long as one young player ties his boots slowly before his first match, the old drumbeat will remain. And I will still be there, keeping its rhythm.