You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy! ™
The World Cup.
We call it soccer. Everyone else calls it Football.
Around the world it’s known as the “Beautiful Game”.
Perhaps it is beautiful for its simplicity. The game consists of a spheroid that you kick and shoot at a goal. The spheroid should be made of leather or plastic. But in many third world nations that spheroid is little more than a tightly stuffed sack, or bundle of clothes.
Perhaps it is beautiful game for its ubiquitousness. The game is played from China to Brazil to England. White. Black. Yellow. Red. The players may look different, but the game is essentially the same.
It is the world’s game played by thousands, and watched by billions.
Perhaps it is beautiful because of its societal relevance. Every four years the beautiful game becomes a global common denominator. Countries stop fighting amongst themselves to pull together for its team. Countries fighting each other, temporarily channel that animosity onto the pitch where 11 men become the heart and soul of a nation.
It is a game that transcends a game, ultimately becoming so much more.
Welcome to the World Cup 2010.
Some Americans say soccer is boring. Too much passing. Too few scores. 90 minutes to arrive at a 1 to 1 tie. Ho Hum!
I use to be among you. “Like watching paint dry,” I might have thought. But that was then, and this is now.
Now I’m not saying soccer is my favorite sport. It is not. It doesn’t even come close to the NFL which is my Cadillac of sports. But I have learned to appreciate soccer, which is more enjoyable to me, than hockey.
You want to talk BORING?
Submitted for your approval: Baseball.
4 Balls. Constant stepping out of the batter’s box. Foul ball after foul ball. Walks. If stagnation was a sport, this is it.
Every now and then, a bat hits a ball.
No wonder my kid quit baseball in favor of soccer.
They say nothing is harder in sports than striking a round ball with a round bat “Square.”
But think about what it takes to score a goal.
The field is 100 yards by 45 yards. There are 11 men per side all trying to keep you from scoring. You cannot use your hands to advance the ball. If the ball does advance into the scoring zone of this 100 yard pitch, the ball must squeeze by an 11th player who can use his hands, while standing in a 24 by 8 foot net.
It is a very difficult task. The fact that they score at all is amazing. The beauty comes in that execution, and teamwork.
It is a game of spacial relationships and passing into that zone where a man will ultimately be. It is a game of steadfast athleticism and constant creativity.
This is the nuance of the game that the American football fan often over looks.
They say NFL football is the ultimate team sport, but you could make a good argument for soccer.
The USA played England on Saturday. This match-up was announced 6 months earlier. The banter was ferocious from bar stools in New York to commentators in London. The Brits scored quickly. The Yanks seemed doomed. But then a weak U.S. shot on an English goal keeper named Green who misplayed the ball and the tides turned.
Suddenly the inventors of the game were being pressed by their one time colonists.
The Americans are hardly as skilled, but they are fast and athletic. They seemed to want it a little more. They sprinted to every ball and controlled balls in the air. They laid out English footballers at every opportunity.
With the sound of a thousand bees buzzing in the 40 degree night, the USA pressed on. With an array of increasingly dyspeptic shots of the metro sexual David Beckham on the sideline, the Yanks exerted their will. With the British announcers whining about sub par performances and better talent, a funny thing happened; the USA soccer team grew up. The team stepped up. Team USA upped the ante. A scrappy bunch of Yanks, tied the contest and almost won a game that is played by thousands and watched by billions. The USA came away with a tie, in a game where scoring a goal is very difficult to score.
The New York tabloids headline proclaimed: USA WINS 1-1. A draw with England is a win for the USA.
While this was all taking place, somewhere on a pitch in Chattanooga, my 11 year old son is at an Olympic Development Camp. He thinks he is learning tactical skills between pizza parties and swim breaks. But what he doesn’t realize is that he, and other 11 year olds like him, are being scouted by regional coaches. The idea is to identify the next wave of Footballers, the next Landon Donovan that the world might cheer.
A few years ago, my son’s Italian soccer coach told me something very interesting. While we stood on the beautifully manicured grass of the sprawling Williamson County Soccer Complex before us, he said, the USA will be a world power in soccer in the next 20 years.
I laughed.
Why would you say that, I queried. The best American athletes play football and basketball. The rest play baseball. No kid is going to leave these sports to play soccer.
“Maybe,” said. “But look around,” he says in a thick Italian accent. “Look at all these fields and all these kids. Soccer is the new little league. When America decides to do something, it does it better than the rest of the world. They will promote this sport and attract the best athletes with the best equipment and best fields.”
Having lived here my whole life, I don’t quite understand his point.
“Look. 30 fields. Hundreds of players. There probably isn’t 30 fields this nice in all of Italy where I grew up, and here you have the grass so beautiful, equipment so good. This is just one soccer facility in one county. There are 50 counties in Tennessee with a facility like this one. There are 50 states with counties that have development programs like this one. When the USA decides it wants to be a soccer power, it will only be a matter of time before you are a soccer power.”
That’s when I understood.
The beautiful game. As simple as a child with a ball on a field of dirt. As complex as two nations taking out their aggressions on a field of honor, fighting with cleats rather than bazookas.
It’s truly the world’s game, where world champion actually means something.
Maybe one day soon, my son and the USA will carry that honor, and the American public will figure out the beautiful game is quite beautiful.
And that is crazy.