As I got further and further from that phase of life, I thought I outgrew the easy moralism that I received as a student. I could not have told you the first thing about Homer’s Iliad or Tolstoy’s War and Peace, but I could talk at length about the allegory of the Slough of Despond in the First Part of Bunyan’s classic. It was popular with my teachers because it provided straightforward moral lessons. It is an allegorical novel that follows the protagonist Christian as he makes his way through the world to the afterlife. I attended a strict religious school as a young man where John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress was studied in great detail every year of secondary school. Indeed, I am at my most comfortable in this environment of footballing umbrage. I can get behind that sort of opprobrium though. They tut-tut, shake their heads at the effrontery of those foreign fellas pressuring the referee, and adjourn to the study for conversations about the purity of sport on the playing fields of Eton with cigars and sherry. It magically transformed progressive, globalist citizens of the world into Victorian gentlemen complete with top hat, tails, and a great deal of moral outrage. The best thing to come out of England’s run in the latter stages of this World Cup is the hue and cry the media raised over Colombia’s use of the dark arts. Argentina fans are not an easy bunch to please, and the team’s antics on the pitch can sometimes leave the public disgruntled. There was a lot to dislike about Argentina’s conduct at this World Cup, and it’s important to remember they have a long history of defying moral boundaries.
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