​Is there a God? Is there a meaning to our insignificant time on this one planet in a universe of billions? Does other intelligent life exist, and is there a trick to finding the perfectly ripe avocado? All such questions pale in comparison to the one I’ve been secretly carrying inside for over a decade now, always wondering if it’s so obvious and everyone already knows, never asking for fear of embarrassment. Today, I dare to take that step.  Today is the day I finally ask: Why do male professional footballers celebrate goals by taking their shirts off? 

In school, I used to have this friend who would, at any and every given opportunity, take off his shirt. If the weather wasn’t hot enough to provide an excuse, he would plead in need of tanning, and if it was cloudy, or winter, then he would want to show off some bruise or mark on his back. Either way, it was never surprising to behold his naked torso, and I always held the suspicion that he, in a very naïve, young-teenager-kind of way, thought it somehow would impress the girls in the school (though, despite many ambitious claims on his part, I never truly could confirm that this plan ever worked). If he lacked technical, mental and physical ability to succeed as a footballer, at least he had that exhibitionist characteristic I decidedly lacked. 

Maybe that’s why I have trouble understanding goalscorers who rip their shirts off even before the ref has awarded the goal. Who are they trying to impress? What are they trying to accomplish? Don’t they understand that, in the age of personal brands, being unique is what’s lucrative and/or successful, and that Balotelli has held a trademark for the naked upper torso celebration ever since his Hulk pose? They’re not special, or even more (or less) muscular than any other footballer out there. And they haven’t got more chest hair than Giggs.  Doing it as a protest against an immoral shirt sponsor is a thought that I’ll bet hasn’t ever entered their minds (Frederick Kanouté is the exception to the rule, here). Though it certainly entered the sponsors’ minds, which I’m guessing is why it’s now a bookable offence (in addition to, or under the guise of the time-wasting aspect, pick according to conspiracy theory-proneness). Getting your sweat-drenched shirt off at full pace isn’t even a very simple thing to do, and definitely much too elaborate to be pure instinct. Here I’m judging by what an incompetent mess I become when simply trying to take off a sweater. 

So why, then, do they do it? Have these young, handsome fellows, or their brains, connected a feeling of ecstasy so closely to a state of undress? Have they simply mixed up the kinds of ‘scoring’ they want to do? Do they wish to ensure themselves and the spectators of their masculinity, before having at least a handful of fit, panting and screaming young men piled closely on top them? Or has it become a self-perpetuating cycle, where kids grow up seeing their idols do it, then replicate the behaviour only for new copycat kids to feel ‘inspired’? Are they trying to impress that girl from school they fancied years ago?

As I missed my opportunity at becoming an elite footballer at age 12, after, at the end of a joyous summer, deciding that also spending transfer money on indoor football shoes would remove important funds from my candy-and-video games budget, I may never know the reason for this phenomenon. But I secretly still have hope the one day, on a muddy football pitch somewhere, with aging people even less agile than me, I will score a screamer that will awaken the shirt-lifting reaction in me. And then, finally, I will know the answer to one of universe’s greatest mysteries.