Actually, Soccer Is Great

W hile I’m in a dissenting mood, I might as well throw a few well-deserved grenades at Messrs. Abel, Pino, Schneider, and Lowry, for their egregious philistinism on the question of the beautiful game of soccer. Abel calls it “a middling sport” and “a pleasant murmur.” (Where’s Cain when you need him, I must ask?) Pino, in a deliciously on-brand analysis, argues that the game is fine, but that it’s been rendered moot by “American innovation,” which “has delivered better alternatives.” Schneider submits that it’s “terrible,” “unjust,” “un-American,” and “boring.” Lowry concludes, simply, “I don’t get it.”

These opinions are wrong. In fact, they’re not just wrong, they’re hate speech. They’re disinformation. They’re stochastic terrorism, even. I’m as enthusiastic about free expression as the next guy, but, as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. so eloquently informed us, you can’t shout “middling!” in a crowded soccer stadium and expect to get away with it. You see all those melodramatic World Cup players writhing around on the floor in mock-agony, one eye turned sideways toward the referee? That’s what happens when you talk like this. It hurts.

I’m biased, of course. Where I come from, soccer is the national religion. From around the age of six, I have been a fanatical Manchester United fan, like my dad and my uncle, and my grandmother before them. I must have spent months of my life watching games with my family — and, later, with my friends. Even today, across various continents, the main thing my school friends and I chat about on our group text is English soccer. And when I say “main,” I mean “only.”

The first honest-to-God heartbreak I experienced as a human being came from soccer. In 1996, the European Championships were held in England. Somehow, my dad and I managed to finagle some tickets to England’s quarterfinal game with Spain, and, as luck would have it, we were seated right behind the goal they used for the penalty shoot-out that England won. I was elated, overjoyed, euphoric, and — for a few hours after the game ended — deaf. (Good Lord do soccer fans make a racket.) A few days later, my Dad and I watched the semifinal in our kitchen. Our opponent, of course, was the much-hated Germany. We lost the game, of course, in a disastrous penalty shoot-out. I cried.

So, sure: I’m not objective. I have decades of cherished soccer memories made with my family and my friends — and those memories include the single most exciting five minutes of sports I will ever see. It was 1999, I was 14, and Manchester United were in the Champions League Final for the first time since 1968. For 90 minutes, they sucked. They went down a goal after six minutes, and they never really looked likely to come back. Frankly, by the time the end of the game rolled around, they should have been down by three or four.

But then: a miracle. Even as a kid, I was ridiculously superstitious about sports, and so, with just five minutes left on the clock, I asked my uncle if we could switch chairs so that I could sit in the one that “made Manchester United win.” He obliged, and, almost instantly, all hell broke loose. “If they can equalize,” the announcer said, “I think they’ll win this.” And so they did. One minute into stoppage time, Teddy Sheringham squeezed the ball into the corner of the goal, and the game looked headed to extra time. Then, almost as soon as play kicked off again, they won outright:

More than 23 years have passed since that moment, and watching it still sends happy tears streaming down my face. The memory is hazy now — it has been played through my head too many times to be perfectly accurate — but I can still remember our living room exploding when that second goal went in. “And Solskjær has won it!” the announcer screamed. And then everyone was up and punching the air, and hugging, and knocking things over. “Manchester United,” said the TV, “have reached the promised land.” My sister came down from upstairs to see what the commotion was about, and my uncle was saying, “I don’t believe it,” and there were devastated Germans strewn across the field on the screen, and my dad — in characteristic form — had calmed down and was saying, “They need to concentrate now, because they could still lose this game.” And then it was over, and they had the trophy, and our home phone started ringing off the hook.

But here’s the thing: While my love of soccer clearly has deep roots, it has also survived my exposure to the “better alternatives” produced by Dominic’s “American innovation.” It would be more fun if I could pretend here that I don’t like American sports. But I do. I really, really do. I watch at least 150 Yankees games a year. I consider American Football to be the greatest game ever contrived by man. I even like NASCAR. I just also happen to love soccer, and one of the reasons I love soccer is because it’s different. Sure, it’s not typically high-scoring. Sure, it’s slower. Sure, it often ends in a tie. And that’s fine.

What to do on a day that brings soccer, baseball, college football, pro football, and some basketball, too? Watch all of them, that’s what. Christian Schneider proposes that “for hard-core fans, soccer is the jazz of athletics — like the notes that aren’t played, it’s the goals that aren’t scored that provide the true drama.” And, you know what? He’s absolutely right. Football is opera. Baseball is blues. NASCAR is classic rock. And soccer is jazz. Messy, dilatory, skillful, deadlock-prone jazz.

It’s nice to have an eclectic collection of records.