Dr. Soccer or: How I Learned to Stop Resisting and Love the Game

For me, soccer was an acquired taste. Writing, however, was not. I played nearly every sport growing up, from baseball, to basketball, to hockey; but not soccer. I’ve written throughout my life, from poetry to fiction, and reading occupies a huge portion of my free time. It doesn’t seem at all strange that my writing would eventually take off and become a possible career path for me. It seems strange in the extreme that soccer would be the sport that would lead my charge into serious writing. It’s a stranger journey than most take into loving the beautiful game, but one that seems increasingly familiar with soccer fans in America, particularly as Major League Soccer continues to blossom into a real powerhouse league. It’s one that I’d like to share and see if I can’t convert a few non-believers into hopping on the MLS train as it picks up speed.

Starting off in the beginning, both of this essay and of my life, soccer was of no great interest to me when I was younger. Did I understand the sport? Certainly. The rules came easily enough, as they often do to someone with a huge interest in sports as a whole, and even some of the ideas and tactics behind the game were understood. The nuances? The details? The love for the game? I didn’t get any of that. Out of all the sports I tried, and if you can name it, I played it, I managed to avoid soccer entirely. Baseball was my young love, and I stuck with it through high school and even tried out for my college team (though, unfortunately, didn’t make it). Football was always my favorite sport to watch; I’m a dedicated (to put it mildly) Pittsburgh Steelers fan. I also played or watched, sometimes both, basketball, lacrosse, hockey, and tennis. Heck, I learned the rules of Cricket before I began watching soccer!

So how did someone so uninterested in soccer end up a rabid New York City FC fan? How did I end up writing for the sizable NYCFC Watch blog? How did I end up on NYCFC podcasts? Sometimes, I’m still blown away by the speed at which it all happened, the speed with which I became a go-to source for soccer analysis.

There are a few factors that drove my journey into soccer fandom and they happened to simultaneously pull together around the summer of 2010. The first is my younger brother, Avery. Unlike myself, Avery has been playing soccer since he’s had a ball at his feet. He played other sports as well, including baseball, which I was fortunate enough to coach him in alongside my dad, but soccer has always been his favorite. He was good at baseball, better than most kids. He could hit far better than I ever could (thus, I stuck to pitching) and he was rock-solid in the field. He no longer plays baseball in high school as he’s discovered that he’s a prodigious track talent, running around a 5-minute mile and constantly improving. But when it comes to soccer, he’s something special. I believe that if he dedicated himself to any sport he’d excel, but entirely independent of my brotherly pride, he has the potential to be great in soccer.

The second factor is something that draws the most attention to soccer in America; the World Cup. In 2010, it was hosted in South Africa and was viewed in record numbers by American fans. I was no exception. I wasn’t quite interested enough in 2006 for the Germany edition of the Cup, but by 2010 I was ready to give the tournament my full attention. It was brilliant! The miracle Tim Howard throw to Landon Donovan to score the goal that got us out of the group stage. The heart-wrenching extra time goal given up to Ghana in the round of 16. Even the Finals match-up that saw Iniesta score the 116th minute goal to win it for Spain over the Netherlands. Soccer had me sold.

The World Cup gave my interest a kick and I found direction for that interest in Avery. You can tell when a child is better than the other players around him. When they’re young you expect everyone else to eventually catch up, but some kids manage to always stay a step better. Avery was ten that summer and still looked simply better than the other kids. I didn’t have a real way to define it, I didn’t know enough to describe it, but it was there, and you could just see it. I wanted to learn more about the game so I could understand what I saw as he continued to grow and develop.

Figuring that the best way to learn was to watch professionals, listen to commentary, and read analysis, I decided to start following the most prominent league in the world, the Premier League of England. I found that the easiest way to keep up was to pick a team to follow and stick with them. The selection of a team was a bit difficult, as I had no real attachment to anyone. Manchester United and City didn’t appeal to me, nor did Chelsea, and I didn’t know enough about the smaller teams to pick any of them. For some reason, the team that stuck with me and I eventually chose to follow was Arsenal. I watched every match I could that came on TV and followed on ESPN as much as possible. While I felt no strong attachment to the team, it helped me understand the tactical side of the game and, with the high-level talent, showed me what the game looked like when played by the best.

As I delved deeper and deeper and my interest grew and grew, the most amazing revelation to me was the overwhelming amount of activity always going on. Whether it be matches, transfers, intrigue, or whatever Jose Mourinho had said that day, something was always happening somewhere in the world. It was too much; I marveled that anyone could keep up with all of it. I realized that the biggest appeal of the biggest game in the world was that you never had to stop. There is no off-season because even as some leagues end, other leagues begin. Then the transfer window kicks into action, international friendlies and tournaments take place, champions leagues, coaching changes, it never ends! What I came to realize was while you can follow all the big news from the big names, as an individual, it is best to get deeply into one league and follow that as passionately as possible. The only problem was that the Premier League was across the pond. What I needed was something more local, something a little more Major…

The knock on Major League Soccer was always that it wasn’t a top-talent league. The quality of play was below par, and the teams would never be able to compete in Europe. Never mind that the production value and availability of the matches on TV left a lot to be desired. The people who still say that, however, have not watched recently. Over recent years, the quality, availability, and popularity of the MLS has grown tremendously. The new TV deals means there’s soccer on every weekend and the infusion of new foreign talent and the renaissance of American internationals returning home have seen the quality of play rise dramatically. There has always been top-level talent in America; David Beckham, Thierry Henry, Landon Donovan, and many others have called the MLS home. But where you notice the real shift in ability is in the role players and the depth. Teams are deep now, they have talent all through the starting eleven and onto the bench. The players are getting so much better that the league is entering a new phase of massive expansion. With two new teams confirmed for 2017 and two or more in 2018 and beyond, the league is boosting its footprint all over the country. Expansion is where my passion for the MLS found its roots.

In 2010 and the few years after, I took note of the MLS and tried to follow along more and more each year. I live about twenty minutes from Red Bull Arena and so naturally I would go to their matches to get my fix. But for some reason, in a manner similar to the way I hate the Giants and the Jets, I did not like the Red Bulls at all. Teams like Seattle, Portland, and even Toronto appealed more to me, but faced the same problem as a team like Arsenal; they were too far away to love.

On May 21st, 2013, my prayers were answered. The New York Yankees and Manchester City announced they were funding $100 million to the start of an expansion franchise, New York City FC. I instantly went all-in. Jerseys, shirts, tickets to matches, and a membership with the official supporters group, The Third Rail; I had it all. Now, for the first time in my soccer life, I know every player, I’ve watched every minute, and I feel connected in a way I hadn’t ever before.

Around this time I also began this blog, Great Balls of Fire (name courtesy of my lovely girlfriend, Danielle Micceri), to record my thoughts on topics from many areas of many sports. Naturally, with my growing interest in soccer, I decided to do a season preview of the 2015 MLS season; the first year I would have a team all my own to root for and cheer on. To help feed my interest, I started doing previews and reviews of every NYCFC match, which I shared with the quickly growing NYCFC community online. I was flooded with positive reception and encouragement to continue onward from both friends and family as well as people I had never met! Eventually, the New York City FC Watch blog, run by Christopher Aiden, informed me that they were impressed with my articles and invited me to write for them. This was a massive step that solidified my desire to seek out writing as a path for my life. I soon found myself invited to record NYCFC podcasts, both with NYCFC Fan podcast and Blue City Radio. All of this writing and fandom confirmed that soccer is in my life to stay, and that NYCFC is a team I can love.

As the game continues to grow in America, there will be more people just like me. They’ll catch a glimpse of the soccer world, see how much it has to offer, and find a place for it in their lives. I’m a perfect example that it can catch you when you least expect it and become something you never knew you were missing. For me, it was the World Cup, my brother, and New York City FC. Maybe the new teams in Los Angeles and Atlanta will do the same for someone else. However it gets you, it’s time to face facts- soccer is coming and there’s no stopping it.