In my childhood, I did not understand the significance of what the Americans were doing in basketball when they held matches called "playoffs". Where two teams meet in the playoffs 5 or 7 times, with the team that wins more matches winning the title. The glory went to teams who survived the longest.

In the beginning, I thought that the playoffs were just useless prolongation to make more money and that whoever wins the first match will definitely win in the end. But football explains what the other side of this coin is like.

In the 2012-2011 season, the Swiss team Basel managed to beat Bayern Munich 0-1 at home in the round of 16 of the UEFA Champions League. But, the Bavarian giant returned in the second leg and won by seven goals to 0. Bayern then continued until the final, when they lost by penalty shootout against Chelsea. If it was down to one match, Basel would have advanced as one of the biggest football surprises.

In the 2014 World Cup, the German national team played the best football, according to everyone's testimony, but in the final match, they did not play their best matches,

Germany had difficult circumstances surrounding them with the injury of midfielder Sami Khedira before the start of the match, and the start of an inexperienced player like Kramer, who in turn suffered a concussion during the match, but in the end, Germany won.

When talking with American basketball fans, the discussion is never about the champions deserved the coronation or not. They are well-deserved champions, as they give their opponents more than one opportunity to compensate. Therefore they are the best overall and the repetition of matches is what makes everyone always convinced of the local league champion, or the Champions League title winner.

The World Cup and the EURO system always allow for surprises to overthrow the strongest teams outside the tournament, and the history of titles changes - perhaps due to a referee error - which sometimes makes the defending champion focus on the controversy instead.

If Brazil was the best team in history in 1982, as many claimed they were, and they were given more than one chance to prove that against Italy. Brazil might have won most games in Italy, which means Brazil would have earned that title without an objection. Or maybe Italy would have won, and in that case, it would be unfair to call 1982's Brazil the best team in history.

With repeated chances, we'd know who is the deserving champion without objection.

League titles are fairer, as is the case of the European Champions League for the presence of home and away, as for a tournament such as the FA Cup that depends on one confrontation even in the advanced roles in it, we see weak teams make it to the final.

It remains unfair to those who play beautiful football, to be deprived because of 90 minutes, and it remains unfair to those with small budgets to ask them to submit two matches for history in front of a team that is stronger and more capable than them in everything.

But in the World Cup, in particular, it's very unfair that all efforts are buried because of a match.

All of the above remains just an attempt to see things from a different perspective. What I described as injustice, some describe as the secret behind the beauty of football, and they are right.

In Conclusion

It's a Delima really. Do we focus on making the game fairer or more entertaining? A fairer world might be a world where Greece doesn't win the 2004 Euro title,

Less than a week ago we saw North Macedonia kill Italy's chance to make it to the World Cup, the occasion was quite the surprise and a great example of the "beauty of football". But, would this still happen if there are home and away matches, or fairer, a playoff system like in basketball?

Do you want the world of sport to be fairer or more entertaining?