Even if you play football for Real Madrid, it’s difficult to create sports all by yourself. Fortunately for Luka Jovic, last seen in a certain amount of trouble for misinterpreting Serbian social distancing rules, he has a furry pal to help him out.
Animals-doing-sports often raises some philosophical questions about the nature of sports. Here is no exception. In this case: Is friendly sports sports? Must there be an edge to the competition to render it worth watching? Worth participating in? The lack of interest in, for example, preseason games suggests that must be the case, as does the vicious nature of the most storied rivalries in sports.
But then, what of the simple sporting pleasure of playing keepy-uppy with a friendly pooch? Is that not sports? Since Jovic’s dog is a dog, I assume it has zero notion of winning whatever game it thinks it’s playing; the play is in fact the point. But isn’t that true of all sports, anyway? I’m choosing to elide the question, since during a pandemic everything is sports, and I’m OK being a coward about it.
P.S.: I tried this with one of my dogs and she looked at me like I was a disgusting idiot who should get her a treat. Typical.