The 40-Year-Old Victory

This past Sunday, 43,506 friends and I got together at Yankee Stadium for the home opener of the New York City Football Club, the city’s new Major League Soccer team. The distinguished guests included my brother and his two sons, ages 20 and 17, who are just as obsessed with the game — perhaps even more so — as he and I are.

For my nephews, it was a dream come true. After years of following and supporting soccer clubs in leagues around the world, they finally had one of their own — a hometown team. But for my brother and me, with nearly a half a century of playing and following the game under our suddenly snug belts, it meant a lot more than that. For us, this was a long-time coming.

When I was growing up, soccer was definitely not cool. And being a soccer-mad kid in small-town America during the 1970s, that meant that I was definitely not cool.

The Hard Years

Playing soccer was always a pleasure for me, the only time I felt truly comfortable in my own skin. But liking soccer — let alone playing it — back then was an invitation for every sod-head in school to question your gender, sexual orientation, and allegiance to a free-market system. It was hard enough being short and obnoxious, but my passion for the beautiful game was irresistible bait for bullies.

As I grew older, I continued to encounter resistance from the ignorant at every turn. And the flailing form of the sport in the United States during the 1980s didn’t make it any easier to carry the flag. As the original North American Soccer League was drawing its last breath, I was faced with the option of attending a good college that only offered a student-run “club” soccer team or a more modest academic institution building a new, officially organized soccer program.

I remember the moment I made my decision. The coach of the fledgling program had accompanied my father and me to a Major Indoor Soccer League game in Toledo, Ohio. After seeing that spectacle, a heart-wrenching abomination of the game I loved (think Flint Tropics, but with soccer), I opted for academics over an organized soccer program. At the time, it seemed like soccer would never fully be accepted here in American, at least not with the passion and purity with which I embraced it.

In a way, at least for me, this realization was a checkpoint on the way to adulthood. For as long as I could remember, I had dreamt of playing in the Bundesliga — Germany’s professional soccer league — when I got older. But growing up in the 1970s in rural New York state, I never even had the opportunity to wear a jersey with my name on the back let alone receive the kind of coaching and training necessary to fulfill such a dream. I had to move on.

The Changing Times

Now, on the verge of turning 50, I still periodically play soccer (perhaps even tomorrow, if I can coax my fickle calf muscles into accompanying me). And my passion for the game has continued to blossom.

Having a sometimes steady stream of income has afforded me the privilege of attending six World Cup tournaments over the years. And cable television has brought leagues from around the world into my home on a regular basis. I now watch about six games a week, which is a massive improvement on the weekly 60-minute summary of a single Bundesliga match featured on PBS’ Soccer Made in Germany — the only regularly televised soccer available when I was growing up.

Soccer has come a long way since my youth. Not only here in the United States, but around the world as well. My nephews, both of whom started playing at an early age, and in well-organized programs, don’t realize how good they have it. From the amount of soccer that is available to watch and play on a daily basis around New York City to the quality of that soccer, their 21st century soccer is certainly a long way from my 1970s and 80s soccer — even with all the fanfare of the original New York Cosmos.

And attitudes towards the game have changed immensely as well. ESPN’s Rory Smith recently wrote about the long-anticipated arrival of the sport in America, noting how it has been “imbued with a sort of counter-culture cool.” Yes, the same game that ostracized me throughout my formative years has now helped make my nephews the cool kids (in fairness, they’re both rock-solid human beings on all fronts, so I imagine they’d fit in well even without their footie fanaticism). And not only are they both better players than I ever was, their knowledge of the game — thanks to the recent explosion of soccer literature and documentaries, along with a steady diet of EA Sport’s FIFA video game — has already surpassed my decades of hard-earned wisdom.

There are still some anti-soccer holdouts, though. A good friend of mine has been teasing me for years about my love of what he has always considered an obscure and foreign game. He often reminds me of Homer Simpson’s paraphrasing of the old joke: “Soccer is America’s sport of future — and always will be.” Well, the joke may be on him. Guess what sport his son likes to play? Yes indeed.

And you will still come across the occasional old-guard sports journalist with a similarly stale attitude. These crusty clowns fail to realize that insular views have been disappearing faster than their aging audiences. It’s no surprise that they’re most likely found on talk radio. Radio…remember that?

A League of Our Own

I tried following Major League Soccer (MLS) when it arrived in 1996, on the heels of the United States hosting the World Cup. It was tough, though. The product was scrappy and sloppy, and the marketing — aimed at soccer moms — was all wrong. Like so many before them, this new league was run by American sports guys — not soccer people — so they tried to reshape and repackage the game for what they felt American audiences would want, not realizing that the game was inherently beautiful and all it ever needed was access to American eyeballs.

I gave MLS another look after the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The famous French striker Thierry Henry had just arrived along with a new soccer-specific stadium parked across the Hudson River from New York City. Henry was a joy to watch, and I was sincerely impressed with the overall progress of the league. But that beautiful stadium proved to be a bridge too far for me — and for many of my fellow New Yorkers. The commute was longer than the match — in both directions — and the club seemed to go out of its way to avoid marketing itself here in the city. Such a shame.

Then New York City Football Club (NYC FC) arrived on the scene, just after the re-boot of the recently re-booted New York Cosmos broke our hearts. The Cosmos had promised to play at the highest level of the game right here in New York City, and then suddenly announced that they would join the equally re-booted North American Soccer League (now a lower-tier league) out on Long Island. Even more of a shame.

Fortunately NYC FC wouldn’t repeat those follies. Funded by the same forward-thinking group that reinvented Manchester City in England’s Premier League, this new MLS team promised New Yorkers a world-class club — from youth development and community service to designated players and a soccer stadium right here in the New York City. The stadium is still in the works, and the front office has already had more blunders than a Jamie Carragher highlight reel, but they certainly have delivered an all other fronts.

I was quick to sign-on as a NYC FC Founding Member, along with my brother and his boys, becoming one of the club’s first season ticket holders. Finally, I — we — had a local team we could support.

The Big Day

Which brings us back to this past Sunday, and how I found myself walking to the 86th Street subway stop on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. It was an uncharacteristically cold and windy March afternoon, and I was decked-out in my NYC FC hoodie with a Kwadwo Poku (a young Ghanaian midfielder signed by the team earlier this year) away jersey underneath and NYC FC socks keeping my toes warm. I was on my way to watch their first home game at Yankee Stadium, the club’s temporary home until they can secure some real estate for a soccer-specific stadium within the city.

Five blocks away, I spotted a guy with what appeared to be a NYC FC hat. Then, just outside the stairwell to the uptown platform, I saw a woman with a NYC FC scarf. But the platform itself was quiet and empty, like the soccer culture of my youth. As I waited for my brother and nephews to arrive, a train came and went, with strangers giving me a curious look — the same kind of look I used to get when sporting soccer jerseys years ago.

Then I heard someone shout: “Come on NYC FC!” And man purposefully strode past me, wearing a NYC FC scarf and shirt, carrying what looked like a NYC FC flag. Others started to emerge, adorned in the club’s sky blue colors. Logos here and there. Fans eager to see the game — my game. Suddenly there was a buzz in the air.

That’s when it hit me. It was surreal, a feeling somewhere between a dream and déjà vu. Soccer had finally arrived, in my lifetime, and I was part of it. No more “almost.” No more “when.” No more “sport of the future.” This was real. This was happening. A team, playing just a few subway stops from my home. New York’s team. My team.

My validation and vindication, the smug satisfaction that I had been right about this game all along, was interrupted as my brother and his sons arrived on the platform to head up to the stadium with me. They were sporting the colors as well, and more than ready for this historic home opener.

We reminisced about the night we touched down in Natal, Brazil, for the 2014 World Cup. Shortly after landing I turned on my phone to discover an email from NYC FC announcing that the club had signed its first player. We had no idea who Jeb Brovsky was at the time, but we began chanting his name — much to the confusion of the Brazilians around us.

Nine months later, we were at the team’s home opener — with more than 43,000 other fans. Our seats for the 2015 season turned out to be incredible, as was our experience at Yankee Stadium. The team delivered a solid performance, beating last year’s MLS Cup runner’s up 2–0 with NYC FC’s Spanish superstar David Villa scoring the club’s first home goal right in front of us.

It was an unbelievable moment for someone who — years ago — had all but given up hope the game would truly take hold here in America. This was it, this was happening — soccer was finally here, and it was ours. All the bullying and insults of my youth, all the hours practicing in the backyard, all the emotional investment in trying to stay connected to this game — it was all suddenly worth it, like a Vegas jackpot victory that was years in the making.

I was exhausted by the time I got home. The wind, the cold, and the excitement had left me drained. I felt like I had played in that game, a game that I started with my brother in our backyard some 40-plus years ago. And I had finally won. My game was now our game. It was real, it was here, and it was being embraced the way I had always embraced it — with purity and passion.

That night I slept in my Poku jersey. I felt like a kid again. And it was good.

Christopher Dobens is a freelance writer and soccer is one of his favorite subjects. He used to write and run Total Footblog. Now he occasionally contributes to NYC Footie.