The world cup qualifiers is a great opportunity for football fans across the world to show their patriotism for their countries. Football fans get emotionally involved in these games, as if they were playing themselves. They want their teams to be glorious and bring pride to their nations.
As fun as watching these world cup qualifiers are, they can be a dangerous time for fans. A science study showed that on the day of the UEFA Euro 1996 qualifiers between Holland and France, more fans died of a heart attack. They looked at the official death toll on the day of the match, and compared them to the days before and after and found a huge spike in deaths on the match day! The reasoning behind this occurrence is that this was an important match for fans of both nations, and the importance they placed on the match caused their stress levels to increase significantly, leading to heart attacks for a lot of fans.
The takehome message is you can be patriotic and invested in your nation, but you should also be aware of rising stress levels, or you could end up like some of the 1996 French and Dutch fans.