The 86th minute
Why do we believe in coincidence? Because we are suckers for drama
There’s loss. And then there’s cruel fate. The two are completely different creatures. This duality is playing out in the post-mortem of World Cup exits, which draw no less passion than the wins. That Ivory Coast, DR Congo, and Senegal’s hopes of reaching the Round of 16 have been dashed, is one thing. That each of them took a goal in the 86th minute to this end, that’s something else, ain’t it? That’s the universe copy-pasting the exact same dagger, at the exact same tick of the clock, like it’s hellbent on making Africa cry.
Statisticians will shrug. Because they deal in the Law of Truly Large Numbers. “The million, million, million…to one chance happens once in a million, million, million…times, no matter how surprised we may be,” said the ‘father’ of statistics, RA Fisher. But most of us are in the Shakespeare camp. We feel coincidences. We can’t just let them go. It could be carrying an umbrella every day for two months without rain, leaving it home once, and that day brings a downpour. Or it could be calling your father after meaning to ring him for weeks, only to hear a stranger answer, and tell you he collapsed moments before the phone rang. Fortune is always onstage. Sometimes playful, sometimes vindictive, forever manipulating entrances and exits.
Romeo reaches the tomb minutes too early. Othello believes the wrong story at the wrong moment. King Lear recognises the truth only after it can no longer save him. That’s the difference between loss and cruel fate. Loss straightforwardly says, you weren’t good enough. Cruel fate taunts, you were almost there, then the universe showed a finger. Probability theory doesn’t account for how human beings experience events as stories. The first African team taking a blow in the 86th minute is a football result, the second an oddity, the third is a cosmic pattern, a hex, a curse.
What if three European giants also get knocked out in the 86th minute? Who eats humble pie then? Ummm, not Shakespeare. He would simply call it Fortune spinning her wheel. Coincidence may be the last acceptable superstition. We no longer blame eclipses on angry gods, but happily meme that Minute 86 is haunted. Football has helped us be medieval villagers again, gawping up at the scoreline, and whispering, ‘Well…that’s a bit odd.”
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
