I woke up two minutes before my alarm went off at six o’clock. Six in the evening, that is. My lengthy Sunday siesta was planned in advance. I needed to stock up on sleep to properly relish the next 16 hours or so — the biggest day on the sports calendar for 2024. As a sports fanatic, to have two grand finals coincide is a blessing. To have three is nothing short of a miracle. July 14 (spilling over into the early hours of July 15 according to IST) was supposed to be a triple treat — the Wimbledon men’s singles final between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic serving as a long, layered appetiser, the European Championship final between Spain and England offering an explosive second course, and the Copa America final between Argentina and Colombia making for a sufficiently intense dessert.
As it turned out, all three encounters were eminently entertaining without being instant classics. In each case, the slight favourite came out on top, while the desperation of their opponents resulted in crucial mistakes. In each case (and this is quite the rarity), the side I was rooting for prevailed, capping off a quickfire treble for my fandom, the likes of which I may never experience again.
Champions confronting a shift in momentum
The pendulum of sporting momentum is a strange, fickle thing. But sometimes you can sense its shift, especially when it is about to go against you. When Alcaraz spurned the first of his three championship points against Djokovic in the third set, I let out a scream. Years of watching Djokovic derail Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in full flow were enough of a warning. The Kryptonite to the Supermen of tennis, I could almost feel Djokovic’s gaze narrowing, his pulse steadying. Within a few minutes, the third set had gone into a tiebreak. Alcaraz, untouchable for more than two hours on Centre Court, had floundered.
The clock showed 70 minutes when Cole Palmer entered the fray at Berlin’s Olympiastadion. Something churned inside me once more. Spain were in command, leading through Nico Williams, but Palmer’s purposeful strides were ominous. Before I could size up exactly where Palmer would fit into England’s dinner table of a formation, the Chelsea prodigy had equalised, firing home from the edge of the box. England had been staring into the abyss for most of the second half. Now, with their captain Harry Kane reduced to a spectator (on the bench), they were staring at hope, a familiar sight for the Three Lions at Euro 2024.
A litany of grievances had been voiced about the quality of pitches in the US for this summer’s Copa America. With a little more than an hour gone at the Hard Rock Stadium, the tattered turf in Miami claimed its most decorated victim. Lionel Messi slipped on the grass mid-sprint and twisted his right ankle. No sooner was he subbed off than tears were streaming down his face (I just about held back mine), his ankle swollen like a balloon. For Argentina, the hard way would have to be the only way again. And this time with their talisman unable to help them. Colombia, the most electrifying team in the competition, had been handed a lifeline. The men in yellow suddenly seemed as nimble as I was nervous.
Up against the champions’ instinct, the losers on the day were also united in their response
It is human to look for patterns everywhere. On most occasions, it is also wrong. Sometimes crucial things happen without giving us scope to trace their causality. The explanation, in such cases, is outsourced to chance, fate, destiny, all of which function on retrospective logic. But in each of these three finals, there was no need for chance, fate or destiny. For there was the champions’ instinct to count on — the untrainable knack to know how and when to step up one’s game to decorate and decide a final.
Alcaraz did so after switching ends during the tiebreak — his clarity of thought shining in tandem with the sun. With Djokovic pining for an opening, Alcaraz returned to basics, dishing out his massive serve and nuclear forehands to close out a set and a match that threatened to spiral out of his control. The drop shot that set him up for his fourth championship point bore the confidence of a man who was back having fun after a brief staredown with his internal demons.
Some five hours later, Alcaraz’s compatriots would repeat the process of elevating themselves just when a stalemate was starting to loom. With the dead heat of 1-1 in a final, most teams in Spain’s place would have played for extra time, attempting to regroup before a renewed assault. But this is a Spanish unit that is constantly probing. A few stray passes from England and La Roja could smell an opportunity. When it eventually fell to substitute Mikel Oyerzabal, he grabbed it with all the gratitude of an early Christmas present. The 2-1 scoreline flattered England. Spain, by far the team of the tournament, were back in their comfort zone.
For Argentina, rising to the occasion took the longest. Partly because kick-off had been delayed by the shambolic organisers who let in fans as if they were molecules of oxygen. Then, during the half-time interval, Shakira delivered the performance of the night, moving with more agility and oomph than any player from either side. But come the second half of extra time, Argentina regained zen mode. Like Alcaraz and Spain before them, they played to their strengths, creating quick transitions and stretching the Colombian backline for the newly arrived Lautaro Martinez to run into. One such run from Martinez brought him eyeball-to-eyeball with Camilo Vargas. For the tournament’s top-scorer, the result was never in doubt. Having broken the deadlock, Argentina argued, ambushed and agonised their way across the finish line, just how they enjoy it most.
Up against the champions’ instinct, the losers on the day were also united in their response. None of Djokovic, England or Colombia stuck to their game plan after being dealt with a hammer blow. Djokovic could not avoid unforced errors, England forgot how to pass the ball and Colombia haggled with the referee like a lottery winner who had just found out he had been duped. Each of the three losers had a greater need to win — Djokovic to break Margaret Court’s record of 24 Grand Slams, England to clinch their first trophy since (the heist of) 1966 and Colombia to go from the perpetual understudy of South American football to its protagonist. Unfortunately, for all three, their exertion during their respective semi-finals (all of which were more draining than those of their opponents) took an additional toll, as the quicksand of glory slipped through their grasp.
This was a day for the overdogs, for the cocktail of talent and tenacity to sizzle when it mattered most
As a fan of sports, I was put through the emotional wringer, suffering with Alcaraz, Spain and Argentina, and breathing heavily every five minutes. My partners in crime were two friends whose texts kept me going through the day (along with some nocturnal sugar rush). The first one gave me virtual company through the tricky third set in London and the entirety of the Euros final. For spells during which Spain and England waited for each other to spontaneously implode, our texts felt more interesting than the match, with words moving across the screen faster than the ball. My other friend and I (battle-weary supporters of Argentina for as long as we can remember) executed the WhatsApp version of Antonio Gramsci’s “pessimism of the mind, optimism of the will” — “Argentina look vulnerable down the middle, Colombia can cash in anytime… There’s no way Messi is losing another final.”
We wavered and wilted, even wallowed in stages, but ultimately, we won. Our skill on the day was merely to pick the right corner and watch our favourite champions do their thing. On another day, the same set of winners could easily have finished second best, succumbing to the vagaries that define elite sport. But this was a day for the overdogs, for the cocktail of talent and tenacity to sizzle when it mattered most. For Alcaraz, Spain and Argentina to prove how the champions’ instinct wakes up right before the alarm of defeat starts ringing.
