The beautiful struggle

I haven’t written about soccer in quite a while, not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because I didn’t want to just be a “first responder.”  (Have you read Leon Wieseltier’s essay yet?)  Given that I am a net receiver of news about the soccer world, the best I could do is just add my instinctive-Marxist overlay, a peculiar reading of events grounded in localism and a critique of capitalist greed.  What is modern soccer if it’s not a product of the culture industry?  We spectators are being sold an entertainment product.  How can we resist?

Really, I’ve been wanting to write some long form essays on soccer.  Back in December I went through all my notes on soccer from the last three years (“Footnotes”) and assembled them in to a single document.  These notes were supposed to form the basis for three possible books on soccer: (1) a guide to soccer in America, (2) an introduction to the New York Cosmos for the modern fan, and (3) a first hand account of the life and experiences of a youth soccer coach.  Which, if any of these books, need to be written?

Today, both the US men’s and women’s national teams play friendly matches.  I’ll watch both later, after my coaching duties are complete.  My boys team plays an indoor match at one o’clock.  Then we have practice later in the afternoon.  I’ll be ready to settle in for an evening of diversion after that.

My boys team hasn’t been very successful, if you measure success by increments in the win column.  But, as Doctor Pasavento says, there’s value in learning how to lose with dignity.  Losing is more interesting than winning.  For the spectator who is engaged in the struggle, all we ask for is the best effort of the players on the field.  The fan who supports a team that wins doesn’t get to experience the full meaning of being a supporter.

Recently, I read an essay by Tom McCarthy in the London Review of Books where he examines the meaning of the terms reality, realism, and the real in the context of writing fiction.  Something he wrote made me think about the ball in a soccer match.  The players on the pitch are like dancers, the characters in a 90 minute improvised drama.  But what is the ball?  This round object is that which gives meaning and intention to the coordinated movements of the players.  The ball is the real; it’s reality’s proxy in the drama.  The moment at which the ball penetrates(!) the goal is the moment of catharsis, of ecstasy or of anguish.  Remove the ball from the pitch and what are we left with?  Just the dance, the movement of the human body.  Insert the ball and the struggle begins.  That’s when the struggle becomes beautiful.