Soccer in Europe

 

I don't think they call it soccer here. It's called something else, though I can't remember exactly what at the moment, and I'd rather not confuse anyone anyway. So soccer it is.

It is pretty popular where I live now. In fact, I consider it a tiny perk of moving to Europe that the main sport I have followed for a many years is the main sport of most people here. Rugby is kind of a big deal in some places around here, and major cycling events have already swept through my towns a couple of times. But I imagine few people reading this have heard of Antoine Dupont. I haven't, and yet he is French and probably the best rugby player in the world. And though I have heard quite a bit about the best cyclist in history, and currently, in Tadej Pogacar, I'm not sure how many of you have. Although, thinking of the small number of people I know to be reading this, I reckon most of you actually have. But soccer? Absolutely everyone, reading here, walking the streets below me, and out at the cafe this morning, has heard of Fermin Lopez.

No?

Pedri?

Then Rodri for sure.

Michael Olise? Dembele? Lamine? Harry Kane? Raphinha? Mbappe?

Whatever. The point is that soccer is a way of life here. 

Not long ago, by chance, we were out in one of the nether neighborhoods of my city. This is a big city. Like everywhere one travels to and moons over, the tourist city is but five or ten percent of the thing, and there are so very many of these kinds of urban unsorted places that we never go to usually. But there we were, waiting for a bus on a Sunday, and a Sunday league game was taking place on a tightly packed in pitch behind a fence in back of our unglamorous, non descript bus stop. This was a proper pitch, uniformed players, and no referees. The language on the field was Arabic mostly. The skill level was... not what I am used to, watching as I do the best teams and players in the world, but it was still impressive. Impressive because all these men had been playing this sport since they were two.

I played baseball since I was two. I suppose if you saw me in some kind of two on two baseball game in the eighties you could have easily seen the mastery of my vast thousands of hours of ball playing at work, the smoothly elegant way I could handle a baseball, at least before I let one ridiculously through my legs. 

These guys were sort of like that.

But it was just nice to have soccer around me.

My soccer team, which I fell into affection for, like so very many others, through coming upon a much younger Messi, was and remains Barcelona. Messi is long gone. But so far this year, quite early on, Barcelona are finally again the clear best team in the world, at least for a little while. In this international city their kit is everywhere, rivalled only by PSG, the wildly triumphant Paris team, and the local team of this city, but I would say with both of them still far behind Barcelona in representation. Unlike the, I suspect meaningless and ubiquitous NY Yankee baseball caps worn all over France for some bizarre reason, a Barcelona kit always fills me with joy, and I feel compelled to try to see the name of the player on the back and try to identify the vintage of the shirt and the level of devotion in the fan wearing it.

I am even inclined to smile at the person wearing the shirt!

But this is a big city, and that would be going too far.