How to mend a broken heart: Soccer

chicagotribune.com

John Kass

October 14, 2007

In the fourth quarter of the exciting Bears-Packers game last week, my sons drifted away from the TV, went over to the computer and began watching football highlights.

These football highlights were on YouTube, complete with heavy metal coming out of the speakers.

There was John Terry, the great all-England center back, the defender playing for Chelsea, as tough as any NFL linebacker, banging his head against everything that moved, even the ball.

And the amazing Cristiano Ronaldo, the right midfielder for Manchester United, standing on a basketball court, shooting baskets beyond the free-throw line, hitting nothing but net, shooting not with his hands but with his feet.

It was then -- ignoring the NFL for the soccer highlights -- that I realized my transformation was complete: from soccer dad to soccer fan.

And now, since the Cubs have broken some of your hearts recently and the Sox ripped out other hearts back in June, with the Bears preparing to break hearts, then rip them and eat them -- you know it'll happen -- I'm asking you to do yourselves a favor. Watch soccer instead.

Give this beautiful game of soccer, or as the rest of the world calls it, futbol, a chance.

If you do, either watching the pros or amateurs on a field near your home, this is what you'll see. Every player can touch the ball, with their feet, and every player, even goalies, can score on rare occasions.

There is contact, but they don't wear helmets, so you can see the player's faces as they shoot or challenge the ball or lose it to a defender. They run constantly, and there are no timeouts.

And the rules of soccer haven't been warped as they have been in American football. Rules changed the American game to pump up the scoring. Rules led to specific body types for each position, as injuries to head and neck and spine and knee and elbow increase, satisfying the demands of the real game -- which has little to do with sport but everything to do with selling TV commercials.

There are bad injuries in soccer too. No competitive sport is without them. And though I still enjoy the NFL, I have to admit what I'm watching:

Carnage.

And that's soured me some, seeing all those great athletes torn up on football fields, fans heading to the fridge for a cold beer during an injury timeout, with more commercials on TV.

While soccer can be violent, carnage wasn't designed into the game.

My 6th grade twins brought me to soccer. When they were younger, the boys played recreational soccer, with snacks at halftime and progressive parents lying to one another about how children really don't care about keeping score.

Guess what? Kids keep score.

Now the boys play for a traveling team -- the mighty Lyons Township Soccer Club out in the western suburbs with fine coaches from Great Britain, and polite, supportive parents, and most of them sit quietly at games.

Sadly, one psycho dad usually becomes unhinged, and my wife pretends she doesn't know the guy.

A few knowledgeable non-psycho dads like Jim and Marty and Frank and Jerry struggle to teach me the game and tell me what to look for on the field.

Mostly I try to comprehend what the heck they're saying while I'm yelling and trying not to get yellow cards from the referee. I did receive one yellow card from a referee for yelling last year, but it was all Marty's fault.

"Terrible call! Are you blind?" yelled Marty, who quickly turned away and disappeared, leaving me on the sideline alone.

"You!" said the referee, raising the yellow card of shame in my general direction, as I blushed, with Frank and Jim and Jerry and Marty shaking their heads.

Surely, I must sound like some wild-eyed proselytizer, some red meat convert to veganism and radical environmentalism, demanding we respect the rights of chickens and ride bikes to work. Don't worry, I like my steaks medium rare and, no, I haven't become some big-government tax-and-spender.

So I'm not jumping up and down with glee now that Al Gore has finally, some say deservedly, received the Nobel Peace Prize for trying to hold American industry to standards stubbornly ignored by China and India.

But if I ever find out that Gore is a true soccer fan, my politics will change radically. I'll beg him to run for president because America needs a leader capable of using the awesome power of big government to forcibly impose soccer on the rest of you, for your own good.

Gore might even demand that newspaper sports sections publish more soccer news.

Until then, you have choices available to free people. There is professional soccer to watch on TV as the early rounds begin for the all-European club championships. In America, the playoffs are beginning for Major League Soccer. There are college and high school games to see, and amateur traveling clubs playing at most parks in your neighborhood and local, almost quasi-amateur adult leagues with various ethnic rivalries.

There is so much to learn. And I know so little about this beautiful game. But I'm trying.

I'm a soccer fan now.

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jskass@tribune.com

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