A Celtic win tonight is the most important thing in the world. Sort of …

Regular readers will know how much I love Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, his classic memoir of growing up as an Arsenal fan. There’s a chapter that resonates deeply with me today.

By this point in the book, Hornby has been an Arsenal fan for a decade. All he wants in life, more than anything, is to see his team win the FA Cup. They had lost the 1978 final, but by some miracle found themselves back at Wembley the following year to face Manchester United.

The problem was that the final clashed with his last year at Cambridge, where he was attempting what he describes as a “mediocre degree.”

To make matters worse, the UK was in the midst of a General Election. With his finals and this monumental match set against such a turbulent national backdrop, Hornby did something all football fans will recognise, yet which non-fans might see as mad.

He made a trade-off. He told himself he’d accept a failure in his degree and a Conservative election win if Arsenal would just lift the FA Cup. To whom he made this offering is unclear, though Hornby later joked that if he’d known Margaret Thatcher would go on to govern as she did, he might have held out for more than just an FA Cup – maybe even a league and cup double.

This is something every football fan has done, at least once: we make mental bargains, trading away success or even major life events in exchange for an important win.

But as fans, we rarely speak about it – there’s something deeply personal about these irrational deals. Yet they reveal how much we’re willing to offer up for something as seemingly trivial as a game result. Football means that much.

Tonight, Celtic play a crucial match. There’s also an election in the US.

And for many months, I’ve been talking on this blog about the US Presidential Election and how consequential it is for the entire world.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the outcome could affect every one of us on this planet, with issues like the US’s stance on global warming alone having implications far beyond America’s borders. Yet, I haven’t found myself offering up Celtic’s potential victory for the right election outcome – nor the other way around. But it does make you think: if I could make one of those outcomes a certainty, which one would I choose?

There’s an easy intellectual answer, of course. Any sane person would sacrifice a football result for the good of the world. But football has a way of gripping you on a primal level. There’s a gut response that says, “I want Celtic to win tonight just as much.” I want to be at Celtic Park, engulfed in the raucous atmosphere, watching our team get these three points. It’s a deeply emotional investment, and that’s hard to simply “trade away.”

And there’s a part of me – a bitter, resentful part – that feels frustrated with how the citizens of the United States have put the rest of the world in this precarious position. Some have done so out of sheer spite, others out of selfishness, and yet others out of simple ignorance.

A twisted corner of my mind thinks, “If they’re going to choose this, they should suffer the full consequences.” It’s a dark thought, but it speaks to the bitterness that arises from watching the whole world impacted by a few key voting blocs in one country.

Of course, I’m relieved that I don’t actually have the power to trade one for the other. I’d hate to be at Celtic Park tonight, watching the game unfold, with the latest poll numbers showing the election going the wrong way. I’d end up wishing for the worst possible future for everyone – all for three points in the Champions League.

Hornby writes about superstitions too, and how we all cling to little rituals before big games. For years, he and his friends each had to eat a sugar mouse before an Arsenal game, convinced that breaking the tradition might jinx their team.

We all have our equivalents. Scarves worn only on match days, socks put on in a particular order, routines followed with religious precision. These rituals are rarely spoken about outside the circles of those who share our passion, but to us, they’re crucial.

The election, though, feels less suspenseful than tonight’s game.

Trump’s polling has stubbornly hovered around 46-47%, even after adjustments made to account for previous polling errors. If Harris can edge over 50%, the win should be secured, potentially with a comfortable Electoral College margin. (I’ve bet on 319 plus.)

Still, I’m prepared for some nail-biting in the days to come.

As for Celtic’s match, I genuinely think it’ll be tight.

Our opponents are formidable, and we’ll need every edge, every bit of luck, every advantage that we can get however narrow.

So at the risk of sounding irrational, if you’ve got a lucky scarf make sure you wear it. If you have a pre-game ritual, make sure you stick to it. If you’ve got a tradition, follow it, please, to the letter and make sure that you don’t jinx this for the rest of us!