In Defense of Soccer

I promised to bring you my thoughts on soccer, surfing, and more. I'm beginning to see the beauty in tennis, but I'll save that post should my interest continue to grow. Soccer, on the other hand, I've played competitively since Kindergarten. I kid you not, my first team's name was The Wookies. If you don't know that Chewbacca is a Wookie, or if you don't know who Chewbacca is, please stop reading.

I played through high school and college, but, interestingly, only dabbled in the popular club soccer world which has taken over youth soccer. So, as a soccer fan, I consider myself a rare breed as an American who played the game at the college level, who understands the nuance of the great game, but who certainly, like most Americans, still prefers to watch college basketball, the NFL, The Golf Channel, or heck even a PTI re-run. Except for US Men's National team games. With the World Cup exactly one year away, and with team USA's amazing run in the Gold Cup, and, now, with Oguchi Onyewu's signing with AC Milan. There is more reason than ever before to be excited about USA soccer.

I know what you're thinking and here's why you're wrong. Sure, when I was a five or six year old playing for the Wookies it is true that my friends and I would literally play with our private parts while assigned to "defense" (and while the ball was at the other end of the field). And, I'm sure many of you would still resort to such amusement if forced to watch a soccer game today. But, have you ever played? Have you ever run on a perfect pitch of grass? Have you ever slid in the mud while wearing a uniform and, here's the kicker, not asked an umpire for time but instead simply got to your feet and kept playing...for 90 minutes?

Sure, scoring a goal is an elating feeling. You see this when a hockey player scores and then slides on one knee toward the corner while cranking his fist backward in a piston like fashion. Tell me that's not awesome! Soccer is similar, but the goals are even harder to come by. Hence the celebrations that make a Chad "Ocho Cinco" Johnson touchdown celebration look mild in comparison. But scoring goals is not what soccer is about. It's about attacking as a team of eleven and defending as a team of eleven. It's about endurance with bursts of speed, and it's about the impossible nature of one man beating eleven men (which is what makes this Diego Madadona World Cup goal one of the greatest feats of all time http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWNnK99mcrw ). Americans love basketball and the ball goes through the hoop an awful lot during the course of a game, but is that why we love it? Of course not. We love the athleticism. We love the mismatches of size vs speed, inside vs outside, fastbreak vs half-court. For the same reason we don't love basketball simply because "the ball goes in and points are scored," we should not hate on soccer because "the ball doesn't go in, and points are not scored."

The signing of American defender Oguchi Onyewu by Italian power AC Milan has rekindled my interest in American soccer, its stars, and also international club soccer. As a soccer player, I hated the English style of verticle passing. I much prefered the tactical finesse of the Italian style and for this I am very interested in seeing how well an American perfoms in the Italian Serie A.

Let's hope we can blog our way straight through World Cup 2010 in South Africa. Here's to running on grass without stoppage...if you're unwilling to expose your kids to this joy, you should reconsider.