The game that changed the world?

When it comes to matters of life and death, despite Bill Shankly’s quip, football pales into significance.  But games can change things.  Following England’s World Cup win in 1966, Prime Minister cynically and opportunistically called a general election, which his Labour Party promptly won, allegedly on the feel-good factor that the population had about the status quo.  In another case, football has caused war (though there were underlying factors too), when after a dubiously officiated World Cup qualifier in 1969, El Salvador launched an attack on Honduras, home of the victorious team.  The conflict lasted four days before cease-fire was enacted, though it took another eleven years until a peace treaty between the two was signed.  There was talk in 2002 that if the Serbian-Montenegrin team won the World Cup (not beyond the bounds of possibility), the union between the two nations might be preserved out of a shared patriotism.

Now, against the odds, Greece has progressed to the quarter-finals of the European Championships after they beat Russia to do so.  Prior to Saturday’s game, the Greeks looked out of it, with one point from their first two games and Russia looking formidable.  The next day was the Greek general election, in which the centre-right, pro-bail out New Democracy won the biggest share of the vote (and got a turbo-charged extra 50 parliamentary seats for finishing first), though for the last two weeks it seemed the left-wing, anti-bail out Syrzia bloc was sure to top the polls.  Did the jubilation at beating Russia and progressing in the competition translate into a certain tolerance for the bail out conditions? 

The poem that starts with “for the sake of a nail” and ending up with the kingdom being lost is applicable here.  Had more Greeks than any other cast their ballot for Syrzia, Greece could have been forced out of the Euro, pressures on other weak economies and banks would have intensified, the Euro project could have fragmented completely and plunged the world into a depression through the spiralling chaos.  Was that Greece – Russia game a defining moment in world history?