The Unnatural Obsession

Hey guys! I don’t like board games, card games, or hopscotch all too much, but there is one game that has become an addiction for me.  The world calls it “The Most Beautiful Game,” but a few Americans seem unconvinced.  I want to expose the truths and lies about it; what people think they know vs. what they actually know.  What is the most beautiful game in the world?  To find out, ask the world.  Which sport’s championship match was broadcasted to every single country and territory on earth in 2010, including Antarctica and the Arctic Circle?  Which sport’s championship match was viewed by nearly half of the entire world’s population (3.2 billion in 2010)?  And if you were to Google the words, “The most beautiful game,” to what is the number one article that shows up referring?  You got it, soccer.   

                For the baseball and American football players out there, soccer (known everywhere outside of America as “football,” or the equivalent in each respective language) is a seemingly simple sport, but mainly, like any great athletes, we just make it look easy.  From the running, the kicking, the shoving, and the punching, to the grass-stains, exhaustion, pain, and blood, soccer is brutal.  The main idea is to get the ball into the goal. Easy enough, right? Well, I have been playing soccer since two months after I turned four years old.  I am sixteen now and there is still plenty that I have yet to learn.  One thing I have learned though is while it seems so smooth, so quick, pounding the grass (with both your feet and your face!) for 90 minutes is anything but easy. 

To each his own on this sometimes touchy subject. However, there is something that needs to be recognized. Soccer players often deal with lack of knowledge about soccer here in the United States, but there are two things that they really hate to hear.  One is “soccer is not a contact sport,” because while we run like gazelles and play like ballerinas, there’s a ton of rugby going on that you can’t see from your comfy seat in the stands.  The other is “Soccer is dumb because you can’t use your hands.” Well, while it is true that you can’t use your hands unless you are a goalie, I’m pretty sure non-soccer players can’t handle small objects with their feet as well as soccer players can.  Athleticism isn’t about doing things that are easy. It isn’t about taking the safe path.  Using your feet to play a sport rather than your hands is unnatural and therefore more difficult.  Keep these things in mind fellow Americans.