COMMENT: Sport doesn't really mean anything... but it matters so much!

Club Americas striker Emanuel Aguilera fluffs his lines from the penalty spot as our man Tom Vickers watches on in a Mexico bar...

It's Sunday night at a sports bar in Chihuahua, Mexico.

The local pool tables are packed with players and the televisions are showing the game between two of the country's most popular teams, Cruz Azul and Club America.

The match is being played in front of an empty stadium due to reasons you won't be unfamiliar with right now.

The match between Club Americas and Cruz Azul was played behind closed doors... but still generated plenty of excitement and drama

The COVID-19 pandemic is starting to have an impact here as well as at home and this game that is being shown live is the final one before Liga MX puts itself into self-isolation, like so many other leagues around the world.

And so perhaps this game captures the attention of the pool players a little more, because they know what they about to lose.

The game, almost as if knowing it needs to go out on a high, doesn't disappoint.

Cruz Azul take the lead, to a roar of approval, but, with seconds to go in added time, VAR (yes, they do have the pesky Video Assistant Referees in Mexico, too) spots an infringement in the Cruz Azul penalty area.

Franklin's Gardens is set to sit empty for a fair few weeks

The referee marches over to his pitchside monitor and awards the penalty.

Club Americas have a late chance to level.

Pool balls stop being potted, the television is the entertainment (remember that?) of choice now.

Emanuel Aguilera steps up but his penalty is saved by the outstretched arm of the Cruz Azul keeper and the bar goes wild, mirroring the delight of the Cruz Azul players who mob their hero on the field.

There will be no football at the PTS Academy Stadium until at least early April

It is a moment of sporting drama to savour.

A moment to remember why you love sport.

The elation on one side, the agony on another.

It brings everyone on each side together in despair or delight.

And for that moment, none of the pool players are thinking about their problems.

For me, it takes over my thoughts of flying back to a world where these moments just don't exist right now.

To flying back to a land I love that finds itself a shadow of its sporting self.

The result of the game may not matter in the greater scheme of things, but the moments do.

It is not life and death, but it helps you deal with life and death.

Great sporting moments are bridges in life.

They help you move from one minute to the next with a smile on your face.

And for me, and so many others, that matters.

I don't know what to expect on my return to England.

But I do know that there is unlikely to be any of the rugby union, football and other sports I hold close to my heart for some time.

For me, this moment, on my final night in Mexico, held plenty of meaning.

It is something to cling to when the tunnel to a return to what we call our sporting routine seems so long.

And for that, I am once again so grateful for sport.