Mexico beats Croatia and the entire team is beheaded!

At its beginnings, the ball game (Pok Ta Pok in Mayan) wasn't considered a sport, but a sacred activity to discover the will of the gods; in some cultures, the losers lost their heads.  Some believe that this is where the first bets might have taken place, with people putting valuable objects at risk for their favorite teams, even if that was a profanation of the ritual's true goal.  It symbolized the struggle between the powers of day and night, light and darkness, with sacrifice and decapitation, as can be seen on the walls at Chichen Itza, and described in existing Mayan texts like the Popol Vuh.

The large numbers of spectators sitting along the walls, behind the players divided in two teams who stood face to face, are the essence of what we now know as bleachers.  Along the walls, the point was for the ball to be constantly moving, without going beyond certain points; players could hit it only with their elbows, hips, knees, buttocks, head and shoulders; triumph was incontestably awarded, at any given moment, to the team that got the ball through a hoop.

In today's soccer games nobody physically loses their head, though some heads are figuratively lost to passion and emotion, giving way to senseless red cards; however, the essence of the game is still there, and in some cases winning or losing is a matter of life or death, at least for those inclined to betting.

Mayantravel.net