The power of football and footballers

There is no doubt that football is the biggest sport on planet earth. The amount of people enjoying the sport every week is enormous world over.

Footballers are heroes, football clubs – like Manchester United, Real Madrid and Paros Saint-Germain – have more in common with multinational companies than with sport organizatilns. Good or bad? It dorsn’t matter it is the way it is. Everywhere I go, prople watch football on screens it doesn’t matter if it is in Africa, U.S. or Asia/Pacific these days. Football id everywhere.

So when a national football hero retires from serving in his national team – at least in a football crazy nation like Netherlands – it is a big thing.

Sat in a mocked up living room in the middle of the Amsterdam Arena pitch with your family, watching goodwill messages from your peers – it is an unusual way to sign off an international career.

Wesley Sneijder was given this very farewell after ending his 15-year Netherlands international career with a victory over Peru.

The midfielder played 62 minutes of the 2-1 win, but after the game was seated on a sofa with his wife and two children to watch pre-recorded messages from former team-mates and managers.

The crowd in the stadium also held aloft banners celebrating the 34-year-old, who began his international career in April 2003 and ends it with a national record 134 caps, in which he scored 31 goals.

I think it is great. We should always remember our heroes and ehat theybhave done for their clubs and countries.