> Gladiators are 2000 years old

My point, exactly.

> they didn't represent anyone.

Of course their did. People had their favorites. Community had champions.

Besides, 11 people representing a country is just a ploy to entertain people. There is zero level of relationship between the players and the rest country.

Anyway, the point is moot. It doesn't change the basis of the mechanism: entertaining the mass so that they divert they aggressiveness.

> Besides, 11 people representing a country is just a ploy to entertain people. There is zero level of relationship between the players and the rest country.

Aside from the legal requirement that they be citizens of the country they play for, and that once a player represents his country in a competitive match, they are bound to represent that same country for the rest of their lives, barring some extraordinary situation where the country itself breaks up or ceases to exist.

Artificial requirements to make the illusion of a connection stronger.

I think your assertion that people who were born and grew up in the same country bear 0 resemblance goes against a lot of modern statistics.

They do but not more or less than footballers, bakers or your neighboor. There is nothing special about football except the idea that it's special.

I really don’t see what makes the concept of national football teams any more artificial than the concept of nations in the first place.

I don't think anyone would disagree with you there.

> There is zero level of relationship between the players and the rest country.

Oh I so dare you to go to Brazil and say Neymar doesn't matter. Actually, don't, I don't want to be (indirectly) responsible for your maiming...

Yes, it's very efficient mechanism to control the population.

People have a strong illusion their connection is real

To make my point plainer, who are you to say it isn't?

"who are you" implies I should have some special status to give my opinion.

But the fact remains that they don't run after the ball themself. They don't make any effort in this competition. They don't even have any personnal relationship with the players.

I don't deny it's fun.

You should have fun.

But it's no more real than a movie.

We are all connected.

But we are connected to some much more than others.

See: mother + newborn.

Do you remember coming out of your mother's vagina?

Is that relevant?

Chariot teams were very politicized in ancient Rome and very much represented people and ideas.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/blue-versus-green-roc...

You mentioned Olympics but you missed out on the original Olympics which were very much all about that international (sort of as they were city-states) competition with a truce set up to allow for a relatively safe event.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Olympic_Games

The gladiators might not, but the chariot racers in the Hippodrome did have teams/factions, with fans loyal to each: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot_racing

That said, you're right that it wasn't "international", but then again "nations" themselves aren't that old.

> but then again "nations" themselves aren't that old.

Nations are, nationalism and nation-states (which are different but related phenomena) aren't.

No, the whole concept of national identity is very recent, starting from early 1800s for some parts of Europe. Longer than that you had tribal factions or regional identities and that is it.

> No, the whole concept of national identity is very recent

No, it's not, though some current national identities are. The idea of Israel as a nation (distinct from either a state or regional identity), for instance, is at least as old as the Old Testament.

How was the unified Greek state different if you don’t mind me asking?

which era are you refering to? ancient greece was not a unified state. the common denominator what the city. Athenians were clearly not considering themselves like belonging to the same group as Spartans.

If the Romans were smart, they would have had Gladiators and Racers actually representative of provinces.

Or better yet, invent football and do the same.

Nationalism didn't exist at the time, but ethnocentrism certainly did :)

Medieval jousting and single combat had international tournaments for hundreds of years. From before The Hundred Years War in the 1300's through to the 1600's at which point the events started morphing into what would be recognised as modern equestrian sports.

>The 'oldest currently active international sports competition' is actually the annual hockey game between the Royal Military College (Canada), and Westpoint - or so I'm told.

International cricket pre-dates that. The first official international was between Canada and the United States in 1844, with 10 - 20,000 spectators. The K.A. Auty Cup is still played from time to time.

Perhaps a case could be made for cricket helping prevent nuclear war, as India and Pakistan manage to play each other in the various forms of cricket, though there isn't any love lost between the fans.

There were times when India or Pakistan lost, people would burn cities in madness.

I guess we have civilized quite a bit.

>burn cities in madness

Yeah that never happened.

Travel is something of a prerequisite of international sporting events. So, 1870's is very early in that context as people simply moved around less.

That said, medieval jousting for example had what amounted to a multi national sports. It's just the nations where tiny.

> 'international sports' don't really go back that far, surprisingly

That's absurd. Google "Olympic games" and then Google "peloponnesian war".

Yes, there were a few 'games' some time ago, but in the context of history it's nothing.

Ongoing international games as we understand them are a new phenom, dating back to the mid 19th century, and then only a few games.

The modern Olympics are not that old.

There were almost no such games for most of antiquity until late into the Enlightenment.

Again, that's absurd.

The ancient Greek Olympic games lasted for close to 1200 years. Unless your definition of ongoing is longer than that, I think they qualify.

The ancient Olympics carried a truce enforced by Zeus, unless your definition of international doesn't include "independent political entities who engaged in war" I think they qualify.