I was born to play soccer, just like Beethoven was born to write music and Michelangelo was born to paint. —Pelé, 1940–2022
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Soccer is a beautiful game, my sons told me years ago. They grew up playing it. They watch it religiously. Billions of people do. I couldn’t see what they saw, but I’m beginning to.
I grew up playing football. Line up. Snap, crackle, pop. Bash, boom, bang. Grunt, growl, howl. Whistle. Line up and do it again.
American football is a bone-rattling game. Players wear armor. My sons consider it a brutal game—barbaric, grotesque, and dumb. It’s America’s most popular sport.
It may not be a beautiful game, but it does have beautiful moments. Lynn Swann racing down the sideline. Daryl Green hurdling a tackler. Franco Harris’s “Immaculate Reception.”
But then there are the concussions! And endless beer commercials!
Soccer is played without commercial interruptions. Well, it was, until corporations saw an opportunity to cram ads into a three-minute “hydration break” during each half.
Of course, soccer has always allowed hydration breaks in extreme heat. But for commercial interests, breaks were standardized on American soil, taken whether needed or not. For heaven’s sake, taken in air-conditioned domes.
(Mo’ money. Mo’ money. Welcome to America, baby!)
The Brazilian legend Pelé famously dubbed soccer O Jogo Bonito (“The Beautiful Game”). For a long while I couldn’t see what billions of people saw.
But then some people can’t appreciate the beauty in Leonardo’s Mona Lisa when they first see her because their entire experience of art is Raphael’s St. George and the Dragon.
(Don’t you just love his helmet and his armor and the blood dripping from his lance?!)
Yet the more they look at her day after day after day, the more they’re captivated by the beauty in her smile, a beauty that has beguiled billions across the ages.
This past February, 220 million people worldwide wildly cheered St. George slaying the dragon at the Super Bowl. It began with a procession of color guards from each branch of the United States armed services.
That’s football.
Today nearly two billion people worldwide will wildly cheer Mona Lisa’s smile at the World Cup final. It will begin (as usual) with a procession of the teams entering the pitch, each player walking hand-in-hand with a child.
That’s soccer.
A game based on finesse, artistry, fluidity, cultural inclusivity, and supreme patience is gaining fans in the most militarized nation in the world.
I’m one.
And therein lies a glimmer of hope for the world.
