Curses, Urban Legends and Football

Our generation’s wildest curse theory on internet is the Kardashian curse that claims individuals experience declines in career or personal life after romantic relationships with members of the Kardashian-Jenner family. In my opinion, it is just a hoax and curse theories have always floated around, with little to no substantial proof. However, in the world of sports too there have been numerous curse theories and urban legends, football is not an exception. Whether it be the curse of Chelsea’s jersey no. 9 or Manchester United jersey no. 7 or Mbappe curse, a viral football narrative focused on Kylian Mbappe being the reason for the failure to win the UEFA Champions League by the club he plays for, these narratives and theories make sports interesting to watch, especially when one is waiting for the curse to be broken. Nonetheless, there are two cases, which have boggled my mind. Take a look.

Curse of El Cilindro

Rivalries among football clubs are common but the story which I am going to narrate will make you think to what extend this bitterness, jealousy and hatred can go. In Argentina, the Racing Club won the Intercontinental Cup in 1967; fans of their fierce local rival Independiente broke into the El Cilindro, the ground of Racing Club and allegedly buried the corpses of seven black cats around the grounds to hex the club into eternal bad luck. It resulted in Racing losing numerous matches leading to trophy and title drought. After hearing about the rumours and witnessing series of misfortunes, the fans of the club performed exorcism but to no avail and in 1980, coach Juan Carlos Lorenzo had the pitch dug up to find the cats but workers only found six skeletons. In 1983, the club was relegated to second division and in 1999, it filed for bankruptcy. Everything changed in 2001, when during its stadium renovations; the final seventh cat skeleton was uncovered. That same year, Racing Club won the league championship title, ultimately breaking the 34 years old curse to rest.

My sceptical mind made to do a little bit of internet search. The story seems to change every time I read. It is true that they dug the stadium but the exact year varies. In some version, it is not even cats, but frogs and in some version, to neutralise the curse, seven toads were buried. I do not know whether to call it a placebo effect, psychological play or their eventual success was due to upgradation in football facilities, training and coaching skills. Anyway, whatever the actual story of the curse is, El Cilindro is one of the most unexplainable mysteries in the football history.

 The Curse of Béla Guttmann

Sport Lisboa e Benfica, commonly known as Benfica, is a professional football club based in Lisbon, Portugal, that competes in the Primeira Liga, the top flight of Portuguese football. They have won the UEFA Champions League (then known as European Cup) back to back, 1960-62. However, after 1962, the club has reached eight major European finals but lost every single one. Why?

In the early 1960s, Benfica was the most formidable team in Europe. It was led by the  Hungarian manager Béla Guttmann, they won back-to-back European Cups (now the UEFA Champions League). They famously defeated Barcelona 3-2 in 1961 and a legendary Real Madrid side 5-3 in 1962. After this monumental success, Guttmann approached the Benfica board of directors and asked for a salary increase and a title bonus, which was well deserved. However, the club's president flatly refused. Furious at the disrespect, Guttmann packed his bags and quit on the spot. As he stormed out of the club doors in 1962, he allegedly cursed,

   “Not in a hundred years from now will Benfica ever be European Champions again!”

What initially seemed like an angry rant turned into a terrifying reality. Benfica remained highly dominant domestically, but every time they reached a major continental final, things went disastrously wrong. After witnessing series of failures, the club took the curse so seriously that ahead of the 1990 European Cup final played in Vienna (where Guttmann was buried), Portuguese football legend Eusébio whom Guttmann had once coached visited his grave. Eusébio knelt down and wept, begging the ghost of Guttmann for forgiveness and to lift the curse. Sadly, it didn't work; Benfica lost the next day.

In 2014, the club even unveiled a massive bronze statue of Béla Guttmann at their stadium holding his two European cups, hoping a tribute would appease his spirit. But, the drought continues. As per Guttmann's timeline, the hex will not expire until 2062.

 

 

 

Receding Hairline Among Naga Men

Every society is ageist in some way or the other. There is an extreme glorification of youth, made worse by mainstream media then and social media now. Hence, facelift surgery, fillers, collagen, retinol etc are terms which we hear more often than acetylene. Ageism is faced mainly by women, for women the expiry date comes faster compared to men, that is the belief set by the society. However, with all the advancement in beauty sciences, if one has the money then looking forever 21 is nearly possible. 

We talk about women and their efforts to look and stay young and beautiful. On the bright side, it is working. These days, women are aging better than man. Gone are the days, when we heard, age on their (men) side. Signs of aging are not confined only to wrinkles and liver spots, weight gain and receding hairlines are also indicators of aging. And talking about receding hairlines in men, I have noticed that the older Naga generation was less concerned about it and has embraced their baldhood, if there is any word as such. However, latter millennial and Gen Z men are taking preventive steps or seeking treatments to fix the issue of receding hairlines.

I did a surface level research (not intensive, to be honest, I do have the time to write a thesis on this issue) on what causes receding hairline in a man. What I learned was, receding hairline in men can be caused by genetics or hormones, lifestyle or environment, medical conditions or medications. Experts have pointed out that 95% of men with a receding hairline is driven by two main factors, genetics, where one inherit the tendency from either mother's or father's side of the family and the DHT hormone, man's body naturally converts testosterone into a byproduct called Dihydrotesterone (DHT). If one is genetically sensitive to DHT, then this binds to receptors in the scalp's hair follicles. 

While genetics is considered as the top reason, certain factors can speed up the process or cause temporary shedding that makes the hairline look worse. Some of which are chronic stress, vitamin deficiencies and traction alopecia. Sometimes, hair thinning along the front is a secondary symptom of an underlying health issues like, thyroid imbalances, scalp infections and side effects of medications. It is worth noting that almost all men experience a shift in their hairline between the ages of 17 and 29. That is called maturing hairline, where there is a transition from a rounded, juvenile hairline to a slightly higher, more defined adult hairline which usually move back about 1 to 2 cm above the temples. This is completely normal and does not indicate you will go bald. It is only when the recession continues past this point, unevenly deepening at the temples, and is often accompanied by thinning at the crown (the back of the head) then it can be term as receding hairline.

But at the end of the day, like we always say, it is better to seek professional help if we are seeking for a detail analyses.

 

The Dark Corners: Online ‘R worded’ Academy

Content Warning: This post contains discussions of sexual violence, including drugs and *ape. Reader discretion is advised.

The definition of safe and healthy relationship is built around consent, alongside several other things. When I read about Gisele Pelicot, apart from admiring her bravery, it made me question the world we are living in, the relationships we share, the crime stories which never seems to cease but above all, how much the phase, ‘fact is stranger than fiction’ remains relevant.

Coming back to Gisele Pelicot, she was the woman in France who discovered that her husband had been drugging her and *aping her while she was sleeping for over a decade and she was clueless. What made this case more horrifying was that she discovered that he had been inviting other men, total strangers, into their home to also *ape her while she was unconscious and for years, she had no idea what was happening to her. She was of the belief that she was in a loving marriage and trusted the man she was with, this is so heart wrecking. Overtime, she began to experience memory lapses and weight loss and confusion. Considering these symptoms, she was led to believe that she was developing Alzheimer’s. It was only in 2021, when her (then) husband was arrested for filming women up their skirts in a supermarket, the truth was revealed. The police searched through his digital devices, they uncovered a library of abuse. There were 20k photographs of Gisele that were carefully catalogued over the years. Investigators believe that not only was she assaulted by her own husband, but between 2011 and 2020, she was assaulted by at least 72 men.  Her husband Dominique Pelicot had been drugging her with sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medications and then recording those assaults and saving those videos. When the case went to trail in 2024, the verdict was, 46 men were found guilty of rape, two attempted *ape and two sexual assaults. Dominique, the husband received a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, may he rot in the jail and in hell and beyond hell for eternity.

Hold on! It is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Korean Nth room incident was horrifying but it was not the season finale.

CNN did a month’s long investigation, which revealed that there is a much larger, more hidden ecosystem built around several abuse of unconscious partner/ women that exist online, and one of those websites apparently received 62 million hits in one month. Why it is termed as ‘Online *ape Academy’? These websites act like an academy where men go to learn the details of how to drug and *ape their sleeping partners, they specifically learn what drug (some of it can be purchased online, they are typically odorless and tasteless), how much drug, how it has be done, how to check if she is unconscious, how to make sure it cannot be traced (maybe digitally or manually), how to make sure she doesn’t remember anything, how to record, how to post it online (some perpetrators live stream the act), how to sell it online, how to coach other people on how to get it done. As obvious, payments are often made in cryptocurrency making it very difficult to track. Looks like such online community builds a sense of brotherhood where abuse is encouraged, lauded, and celebrated and their ultimate test of such learning is the execution of such hideous acts?

Statistics show abuse and violence against women are perpetuated mostly by person known to them. Psychologists are of the opinion that such acts spring out not from a sense of desire but by sense of entitlement and control. There can be numerous debates and discussions on how to end this cycle, or at least prevent its amplification. When technological advancement meet twisted minds the result is often dangerous, no say on that, but I find a small ray of hope when men too start speaking against such abuses with an assurance and assertiveness that they are not and will never be one of abusers.