Are pre-match rituals more exciting than actual football games? Perhaps scientists ought to ask the fans | David Goldblatt

A recent study of Brazilian football fans monitored their heart rates before and during a big match and concluded that the collective rituals of the day were more emotionally intense than anything else.

Football should be understood as simultaneously a collective ritual, a public theatre of identity and a long-running participatory soap opera, in which the game itself is just one element of the liturgy, the drama and the narrative.