Fútbol Elegy – Why Soccer Means So Much To So Many

by Andrés T. Tapia

Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

CHICAGO – As the referee’s final whistle signaled that España was the new World Cup champion, the month-long global party came to an end. But for billions around the world, the South Africa 2010 World Cup and other Copas Mundiales are not just a party of games, but a vital expression of life. It’s been that way for me, as I look back and see how much soccer has been the backbeat to how I have experienced la vida.

The homemade ball 10 centimeters in diameter made of plastic bags, rags, and socks held together by nylon twine rolls off black, sole toughened feet and lands between my twenty-five-year-old feet. I look up for a teammate to pass it to. As I scan our makeshift “field” high atop a ridge on Mt. Elgon on the Kenya/Uganda border, deep green majestic peaks surround us, the sky displays azure blue with doughy pearl white clouds bespeckling the sky. There’s Patrick just to the right of the mud hut, there’s the skinny kid just to the left of the mountain goat. Then I spot one of the teens, legs and arms all akimbo, running right in front of the goal marked by two stones on top of one another. A flick with my feet and the small round object, lovingly made by a seven-year-old, arcs upward and then down onto my target’s head. Bam! In between the stone posts it goes. Goal! Here in “stadium” Mt. Elgon, as the women grind the dirt away off dirty clothes with stones in plastic orange and blue basins, as shirtless men stand astride a huge log sawing it into lumber, the game of joy – fútbol, football, soccer – unfolds. We can’t speak each other’s language, but in the play we feel the shared moment. The ball, and then a smile, connect us.

In the back of a cab in San Francisco, Italy vs Paraguay in the 2010 Cup is streaming live into my iphone through my MobiTV service. I’m on my way to a FORTUNE 500 client. But this marvel of technology means I don’t have to miss a moment. I share the play-by-play with Mwangi, my cab driver. We relive past World Cups, give our predictions about this one. “My country of Kenya never makes it in,” he says with a lament. “Jambo!”, Hello, I say to restart the conversation under a different context. He brightens up even more. “Jambo sana! “You have been to my country?” Yes, yes. Malindi, Mombassa, Nairobi. Mt. Elgon. Chai, ugali. Matatu. Kenyatta. With every Kenyan geographical point, every mention of a Kenyan culinary delicacy, every reference to a mode of transportation or to a historical figure, Mwangi hums in homesick delight. Then back to the present. Paraguay scores! I celebrate as the country from my native South America scores, and Mwangi suddenly is also rooting for Paraguay. When we arrive at my destination, I show him the replay, he gives me his card with name and cell number. Yes, a business transaction, but it’s a ball into the back of the net that connects us in a memorable cab ride.

Grainy black-and-white images transmit the drama of Peru vs Argentina in La Bombonera stadium in Buenos Aires. A tie would qualify Peru for the 1970 Mexico World Cup. And Argentina must win or else it’s eliminated. Lima’s streets are deserted as everyone is indoors to tensely and expectantly watch the game. Peru scores! 1-0. Argentina ties it 1-1! Peru goes up again 2-1. The albicelestes, the white-and-blue team, press on desperately and tie the game! But they have to score one more for it to make a difference in their fate. Peru just has to hold on three more minutes. And do! We’re going to the Mexico World Cup!

In moments it’s as if all of Lima’s buildings are turned inside out and pour their inhabitants into the street. Rivers of Peruvian red-and-white-flag-wrapped people in this city of six million flow down side streets and main avenues from the richest neighborhood of Las Casuarinas to the poorest of the pueblos jovenes, shantytowns. My mom prepares buckets of pisco sours, the national Peruvian cocktail, and we ladle it into plastic cups and hand them out of the back of our yellow Opel station wagon as we inch our way up Arequipa Avenue in a spontaneous all-city parade, every car’s horn ablazing. Strangers kiss and hug. As a country, for a moment we are connected. We are somebody!

Father’s Day, 2010. Brazil vs. Cote d’Ivoire in the South African World Cup. A houseful of friends from different parts of our lives. Soccer jerseys from different parts of the world for the guests, congas and bongos to bang on to cheer for our favorite team of the moment. And pisco sours for sure! Mikey is 7. He’s here with his dad Jayson, an Afro Canadian professional fitness trainer. Dave is a 60-year-old former rugby player with the broken nose story to prove it. Harriet is an artist, new to soccer and getting into it as she learns to follow the flow of the action. Carmela is a Venezuelan doctor and interior designer. She regales us with stories of her 80-year-old mom in a Chicago bar watching an earlier game on TV,  pumping her fist in joy and shaking it in outrage. Soccer nuts, soccer virgins. All brought into the spirit of the game, into the spirit of friendship.

Reel Life

Flashbacks begin through the replay video of my life. At some golf course in Boston during a college summer break, I am playing with Cape Verdeans on an immaculate fairway in between foursomes who shoo us off. Then as school starts back in Chicago, on grounds in front of an ancient library, I’m playing with Haitians. Allez! Allez! Pass the ball here! Then it’s Big 10 and Midwestern varsity soccer as we bus it to Notre Dame, Wisconsin and Iowa to play fast, tough matches on beautiful as well as cruelly cold days. Years later, at home on Pleasant Avenue, we play with neighborhood kids, trying not to trample on the professional landscaper neighbor’s flower bed. Back to Spain for the 1982 World Cup, mistakenly being pulled into a police van with newfound Spanish friends by terrorist-seeking gendarmes. More recently, taking my wife Lori to see Peru play a qualifying round against Venezuela and experiencing 45,000 people rocking the National Stadium, cheering the same team. At Soldier Field for the opening game of USA 1994 with President Clinton in the stands as part of the beginning of the mega soccer awakening that finally begins in this country.

Then there’s the most important soccer experience of my life — coaching girls AYSO soccer for six years as part of my role in bringing up my daughter Marisela. It wasn’t just about fun and games or exercise. It was also about character building, about the life lessons I would seek to impart to my daughter and her teammates through the games. In a society that has tended to socialize girls not to be assertive, I showed them how to step into a pass and in front of their opponent instead of waiting for the ball to come to them. How they could play competitively and win without apologizing, yet do so with character and good sportsmanship. How soccer was about perseverance, about that essential concept captured in the wonderful Spanish word, ganas! That indominatible never-give-up, push-even-when-you-feel-you-have-nothing-left spirit. The girls and I connected in a very special way as they showed up great on the field and, in small ways, began to look at themselves with greater confidence as girls and later as young women.

A few years later, the Mom of one of my favorite junior high players told me that when her daughter had been on the team, she and her husband were going through a very difficult divorce and it was taking a toll on her girl. As her daughter’s confidence plummeted, it showed up on the field; a girl with great skill was withering in self-doubt. It was through soccer’s sport and life lessons that she began to believe in herself, not only as a player but as a student and artist. Her Mom credits the connection her daughter and I had in that pivotal moment to her child’s life affirming decision to believe in herself, to persevere despite the turmoil and uncertainty about so much. As she asserted herself on the soccer field, she began to assert herself in school and in her relationships. Soccer is life.

South Africa World Cup Legacy

After the 31 days, 32 teams and 64 games of the 2010 South Africa World Cup, I feel so connected to the new friends I made, connected to my family through the games we watched together and the World Cup parties we hosted, connected to my spread out extended family and global network of friends with whom we shared the ups and downs of the Cups’ games and controversial plays via cellphone conversations, emails, instant messages, texts. Can you believe that Forlán goal? What happened to Brazil? France deserves to go home! That was a golazo! (Spanish for huge goal). I can’t stand it! Ganas — USA won’t die! Send that ref home on the same plane as the French team! Was that cheating or an astute soccer play by Uruguay against Ghana? The South Africans may be eliminated in the first round, but what a great World Cup they put on! The first one ever on the African continent. Africa. Africa. Africa. Go go go. Goooooooal!

There’s a soccer ball in my car. I’m ready to join a game wherever it may happen or to make one happen spontaneously. There’s the World Cup app on my iphone, making it easy to replay favorite clips of the best goals. There’s futbol in my heart, giving me energy to play and have fun, to teach and coach, to get new insights into different cultures and nations. It also provides me with insights into how to maneuver through corporate politics. It gives me metaphors for how to coach my diversity and inclusion team.

But most importantly with this beautiful game, it’s the way I have connected with so many around the world from every culture, every language. It’s been one of my primary ways of making friends whether they grew up with soccer or not — a way to connect and share our common humanity and yet still manage to be patriotic and proud of our heritages while we celebrate this global sport. As the politicians and the warriors fight their senseless battles and mind games, the ball rolls and lands between the feet of a newfound friend, a fellow human being who also seeks beauty, love, and joy.

Someone who wants to win – and have fun – in the game of life.

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