As I sat in tears yesterday in front of my computer screen watching Liverpool lose at home for the first time in nearly four years, I wondered why I have so much emotional attachment to a group of men kicking a ball in Merseyside, England. Why do we get so attached to sports teams? Why do we allow our emotions to be dictated by a set of people who don’t know us?

It’s fascinating that so many people across the world all unite to watch a sports team perform. Some sports teams are so big they could be considered religions because of the sheer number of people that support the team. Why is it that when a rival team loses, we feel the need to take it out on their fans? That’s bizarre, right? Just think about it, imagine if we started making fun of Nike customers because they got less sales than Adidas one quarter.

 But there’s something special about sports. It’s the unpredictability, it’s the fact that we never know what’s going to happen. It’s better than anything scripted for intangible reasons. You may feel bad when your favourite character dies in a TV show but when your team loses that’s a completely different feeling. Those are real people, you know in your heart that the loss is collective, there are fans across the world who are feeling the same pain as you.

As belief in God faded away and religion took a backseat in modern society, humans needed something to believe in, something to get behind. They needed a constant. No matter what is happening in my life, there’s an odd solace I find in the fact that I know Liverpool are going to play again next week. Sport has been there for me in my darkest moments like no one else because when you sit down to watch sports, you’re transported to England or Spain or Los Angeles or Tokyo or wherever the match is happening. There’s something magical about that. Liverpool lost at home but life will go on. Just remember, you’ll never walk alone.