11 men, dressed in white, have worked themselves to exhaustion for almost an hour and a half.
They know that one mental mistake, one misstep means this dream, one that they've made from nothing, could be all over. These men were born in the richest country in the world, but chose a career that never promised riches. They have played the game that they love since they could walk, scorning the greater financial potential of other, constantly present sports. They have taken a game meant to occupy the free-time of their country's children and elevated it into something that is part career, part love affair, and part art form. Atypical of most their country's athletes, they live on team spirit and fundamentals. They hustle, play defense, contain their opponent. It is them against the world, a world that has almost a century of heritage on its side. They are the best 11 soccer players that their vast country can produce. And today, against hugely favored opponents, they have a chance to make history.
Revelling in their underdog status, this team scored fairly early. Their young forward is a superb athlete, the type that is usually found playing football and basketball, having long abandoned a sport that has never, until now, been able to reach out from the TV to fire the imagination. A crunching slide tackle in midfield wins his team the ball, and, eschewing the intricate passing of their opponents, they get it to his feet. In a fashion truly emblematic of his country, he spins powerfully, shedding his defender, and in the next moment he has fired a shot towards goal. The opposing keeper is sure he knows where the shot is going. He has already begun to move when the shot is struck. He is wrong. He tries to lean back, but can only reach the shot with a weak hand, and it rolls into the net. The crowd is dumbstruck. This was not supposed to happen.
The fooled keeper and the shunted-aside defender, along with the rest of the men on the other side of the ball, are official champions of the continent that birthed soccer and is home to its most prestigious leagues. And they are unofficially, albeit unanimously, the best team in the world. They earn eye-popping sums of money every year, and are celebrities, household names in their homeland. Even their bench is filled with players that would easily command a starting berth in any team, including the one they now face. They are faster, quicker, infinitely more skilled. They are a machine, a cohesive unit seemingly blessed with collective telepathy. Clad in furious red, they pour forward towards the opposing goal, their precise passing never allowing the other team to touch the ball. They have beaten the best to be here. They expected an easy win. In this, they were sorely mistaken.
The shock of the early goal has worn off, and the tide looks to have turned. The men in red keep possession of the ball in imperious fashion. The men in white are forced to mass on the edge of their penalty area, pressed into an area comprising a third of the field, a mere sixty feet from the goal they have sworn to defend. Their opponents weave beautiful patterns with their passing and movement, switching the ball from player to player with the deftest of touches. Their midfielder plays a short pass to his teammate, then darts past his defender to receive it back. Granted a mere two seconds to make a decision, he gracefully, effortlessly pirouettes away from another defender, taking the ball with him before delicately lofting it over the defense, into the no-man's land between the defenders and their goal. The pass seems to be an errant one, but a player in red charges underneath the ball, receiving it perfectly in stride. Having started his run from 40 yards out long before the pass was made, he and the passer are in perfect harmony. The defense is stock-still, just beginning to adjust to his presence. He looks certain to score. The goal is at his mercy. He cocks his right foot back. It is a right foot that is the envy of the world, famous for its ability to place a soccer ball in any chosen part of the goal, and to do so from anywhere and without warning. The right foot begins to swing forward. The keeper's eyes widen. The foot strikes the ball, distorting its shape and sending it at high speed towards the corner of the goal . It is then that a third figure appears. It appears in the form of a hulking, tattooed blonde man who slides in from nowhere, willfully placing his body in front of this vaunted right foot and diverting the shot over the crossbar. He has saved an almost-certain goal. The siege is on.
For almost an hour, the men in white stand in front of their goal, time and again turning back the waves of red that threaten it. Marshalled by their captain, spurred on by the exhortations of their teammates on the bench, their coach, their fans, each other. Half-time comes soon, but brings little respite. The red-clad artists return to redouble their efforts, looking as confident as ever. The blonde man repeats his heroics several times, and he has no shortage of teammates willing to follow his example. They throw themselves in front of shots, fly into sliding tackles, and play like the pleadings of their exhausted bodies have no hold over them. The fans watching at home can feel their hearts in their mouths every time a red player shapes up to shoot, but the defense holds firm, and the one-goal lead remains. Slowly, something begins to happen, something that is first felt only by an attuned few. The men in red become increasingly frustrated. This has never happened to them before. Soon everyone, from the crowd to the announcers covering the game, can see desperation creeping into their play. They abandon their short passing, lofting the ball high towards their forwards more in hope than expectation, and see countless attempts repulsed by the white-clad defenders, who seem to grow taller with each successful defensive effort until they resemble titans.
The men in white sense the change, and begin to push further up the field, away from their goal. It is dangerous, leaving themselves vulnerable to a quick counter-attack, and their opponents, indeed, continue to press dangerously. But the men in white smell victory and push for a second goal with their coach's blessing. With fifteen minutes left, they push forward. Their young midfielder cautiously strides forward towards the penalty box. Although nominally substituted into the game for his passing ability, he cannot dream of approaching the skills of his opponents. He is another body, a fresh pair of legs garnished with a vague of hope of inventiveness. But here, he astutely hesitates, finding a pocket of space amongst the red shirts. Looking up, he sees a huge defender, well over six feet tall, charging towards him. Instinct takes over. A school playground, his backyard, fields from Brazil to New York to California flash through his mind. Years of practice to get to this moment. He neatly sidesteps, forcing the big man to retreat and check his position. His guile earns only a second extra with which to use the ball, but his creative brain makes it count. He lays on a perfect pass for his teammate, streaking down the right, who crosses the ball to the far side of goal. It is easily cut out by a red defender, but he does not immediately clear the ball, kick it high away from his goal, boot it into the crowd. Perhaps he is still, even at this point, overconfident. He is looking upfield, looking for the pass that will start a counter-attack, lead to a tying goal, hand his upstart opponents a harsh dose of reality. He does not see the man in white behind him, does not see him until the man darts around him, spinning and sliding the ball into the net all in one motion.
Goal. It is 2-0. The announcers are still grasping for the right words. The white team has surely won. The red team plays the remainder of the game in shock, their passing game still present, but now devoid of energy and panache. The men in white clear their lines one last time, sending the ball high away from their goal. The whistle blows. The white-clad warriors gather to exhaustedly celebrate, soon joined by their teammates and coaches from the bench. The red team leaves the field in defeat for the first time in 35 games.
For those of you who don't recognize this story, this was last year. The Confederations Cup, played in South Africa as a kind of dress rehearsal for the World Cup. The team in red is Spain, a now-perennial world power in the sport.
The white team is the USA.
I quit youth soccer in 2nd grade (around age 8, for any unfamiliar with American schools).
No one quit youth sports that early. If you started playing, you kept playing. After all, perseverance is important, said my parents. I persevered with almost every other sport. When it came to soccer, I would not be swayed. I hated everything about it, and stood firmly in the 'American Football' camp in every playground argument. (For the record, I still love the NFL. Always will.) To make a long story short, I now love it, and it was the World Cup, the first sporting event I ever viewed in HD, that brought me 'round. Soccer is growing fast in this country, and it's one of the few sports embraced by the entire world. It's the best, most diverse bandwagon I've ever jumped on.
If you're prejudiced against soccer, for whatever reason, I ask you one favor. An easy favor. It's summer. You're not busy. So do this one thing, for me and for the world, a world that remains baffled at your intolerance.
Give soccer a chance.
Hate the diving, the playacting?
Instead, love the skill and artistry on the ball, love the aerial battles, love the defender bleeding through a head bandage just to win one more ball for his country. And join the rest of the world in hating diving and appreciating the recent efforts to combat it. No one supports it, and players who admit to it are deemed villains. It's a sad stain on the game that unfortunately turns many away.
Not a sports person?
Then love the worldly feel, the political intrigue, the wondrously-frequent titanic personality clashes.If any sport is political, it's soccer. Popular with the masses, destructive in its whims, it permeates every facet of society and government in some countries. A defeat can mean widespread riots, a victory can lead to the same.
Love the simple rules. The intricacy present in soccer belies its inherent simplicity.
Hell, love the lack of commercials. Tradition can be hell, but in this case, it does nothing but good. The age-old idea is that the game must flow, and commercials are confined to half-time.
Bored? Don't understand the appeal? Wondering how a sport so low-scoring can entertain?
If you still want your high-scoring circus, your NBA basketball, take it. Take a game where nothing seems to matter to the players until the end, where hustle and defensive effort are standout qualities, rather than the expected norm. Where there's always another possession, another chance to rectify a mistake, a slip in concentration, a momentary lack of effort. Take that most decadently American of sports, while even now, in amazing metaphorical fashion, the rest of the basketball world is catching up to us, drilling in the fundamentals we've forgotten and using them against us.
I'll take a sport that bleeds commitment and passion. That overflows with more skill than would fit on YouTube, where every game brings the promise of something you've never before seen done with a ball. Where no one is ever more important than the team. Where players, without rest, run 9 miles in a single game. A sport so steeped in tradition that the very arenas echo with the ghosts of their long-dead legendary denizens. Where goals change games, focus is king, and one individual mistake can ruin 90 minutes of sterling teamwork. A sport of improvisation, endless possibility, personal battle and team spirit, where players pull on a shirt that stands not only for an employer but for their entire country and all the people in it. A game for anyone with a ball and flat ground, whether it be expensive leather and beautiful synthetic turf or melted garbage bags and a patch of bare earth. A sport for everyone from the instinctively creative artist to the simple, headstrong hard man, from the gifted Adonis of a born athlete to the success story of a hardworking everyman, from the unselfish, constant team captain to the enigmatic, game-changing schemer.
The greatest of heroes light up this stage, from the midfield general with the Mensa-level IQ, to the Brazilian fan who has attended every world cup for 40 years, to the once-in-a-generation dribbling wizard, to coaches with the tactical skill and audacity to totally transcend the players at their disposal. They all have a place, whether it be on the field, on the bench, in the stands, or transfixed by the television. I have a place. You have a place. It's everyone's game. The world game. The beautiful game.
I'll take soccer.
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