Weekend Essay (7/21/19)
How I learned to love soccer (or futbol)
Four years ago, I would’ve been the loudest voice of opposition if soccer had been suggested in the group chat as what we should do that day. “Boo soccer sucks,” I remember typing once. “Let’s hoop,” was really my motto instead. If you flash forward to today, I am a completely changed man — there’s no stronger advocate for watching and playing soccer than me.
I played some when I was younger, but gave the sport up once middle school sports took off in seventh grade and I had to focus all my attention on getting cut from the baseball team two years in a row. Other sports filled my time — basketball, football, I picked up golf and even rowed crew for a few months — and soccer became a boring, slow-paced game where everyone pretended to get injured.
Stuff changes quickly, however, you can grow to love something in a short amount of time. Sometimes you can grow to love something because you spent so much time making fun of it. After the hours of doing British accents and shouting “Penalty!” without knowing what I was talking about, I kind of started to appreciate it. I liked the little intricacies of timing through balls or a slide tackle and clearance. It’s like the scene in The Other Guys where Mark Wahlberg’s character does a beautiful dance and then reveals that he only learned how to dance that way to make fun of people in high school. Enjoyment can be born out of sarcasm.
So, what team was I to root for? Well I didn’t have to choose my team, they chose me. They chose me in the form of an NBC Sports Premier League Advertisement.
I am probably responsible for half of the 12 million views on this video, yet I still laugh every single time I watch it. Jason Sudeikis is hilarious, that’s definitely part of it, but I also relate. Making rule comparisons to American sports or comparing EPL team to NFL teams — I did that. I’ve found myself saying, “Ties and no playoffs, why do you even do this?” many times. Like coach Ted Lasso, I learned the game through playing FIFA. Tottenham Hotspur became my favorite team. Before I even knew what a hotspur was or knew that Tottenham was in London, I was a Spurs fan.
A lot of people think sports are, at the end of the day, kind of a trivial thing. I used to agree with that concept, but studying and watching soccer for the past few years has changed my mind. In the EPL, and most leagues around Europe, relegation exists. A foreign concept to me before I started following the sport, relegation means a team is doing so poorly and finishes so low in the standing that it is moved down to the second-tier division. While this sucks for the players on the roster, it has wider implications — a smaller budget, less room for staff, layoffs, minimal money from tourism — that can severely damage the economy of a town. If you don’t believe me, watch Sunderland Til I Die on Netflix.
In Barcelona, I learned that soccer is life. Whether it is playing in the street or millionaires playing in a stadium, the spirit of the game burns bright. The slogan of FC Barcelona translates to “more than a club” — it’s a rallying cry for Catalan citizens.
They call soccer “the beautiful game,” and you can tell why if you watch it. It’s peaceful and poetic at times, yet chaotic and aggressive at others. But the most beautiful part isn’t just what happens on the pitch, it’s how much what happens on the pitch means to people.
That’s it. Follow me on Twitter if you feel like it. Peace.
