my "extreme" love of football

joy, oh joy!! football season is upon us. and i don’t mean american football…what i—and the rest of the world outside of the usa—refer to as (the real) football is known within the borders of america as “soccer”. but i digress. football season is upon us and i can’t hardly contain my excitement at the thought of watching two—and sometimes up to four—games a day. between world cup qualifiers, euro cup matches, the marseille fifa beach soccer world cup, local major league soccer (mls) games, and an assortment of friendlies and non-competition matches, not to mention the upcoming beijing 2008 olympics, i have the next couple of months mapped out in football matches.

with international superstars like ronaldinho and messi in the lineup, as well as newcomers like pepe (or pretty much any of the poland national team players) that hope to make it big after their first international appearance, the summer promises to be one of non-stop excitement.

well, as with everything, there is a perfectly good explanation for what has recently been dubbed by a friend of mine as my “extreme” interest in football (at least for a girl). in the year of our lord, nineteen hundred and ninety (1990), the italy fifa world cup changed my life. it was the first time in many decades that my home country of colombia had qualified for a world cup and football fever was in the air. i was all of 12 years old and had never really paid any attention to football, despite the fact that i had been born and raised in a football-loving nation. no one else in my household liked football, not even my father who was from spain—and like most spaniards and europeans (and most men for that matter!), should have been in absolute l.o.v.e and awe of the sport, therefore i was left to watch most matches by myself, which allowed me to have a pure and unadulterated experience of man (or girl) vs. television. i was by myself when i heard on the radio the goal scored by colombia's forward freddy rincon in between the legs of germany goalkeeper khan, which allowed my team to tie the undefeated (and later champion of the world) germany and thus advance to second round, and i was also by myself when, in a turn of fate, colombia was eliminated from the competition on the second round at the hands of 42 year old cameroon forward roger milla, aided by a huge mistake from colombia’s colorful goalie, rené “el loco” higuita who came out of the area to kick the ball and was dispossessed by milla, who then scored.

after that, i watched faithfully the remainder of the cup, as germany was crowned new champion of the world, and all international competitions that i could get my hands (or eyes) on after that: copa libertadores, copa america, confederations cup, euro cup, etc. when the next world cup rolled around in usa 1994, my heart was broken by colombia’s defeat in the first round at the hands of the host team itself, due in part to an even bigger mistake than that from 1990: colombia’s defense andres escobar scored an own-goal. escobar was later shot to death outside a nightclub in medellin, colombia, in an incident that some still claim was not related to the football match, but which will forever remain etched in the minds of football fans all around the world. in 1995, i relocated to the usa.

in america, football is not as wildly popular as it is in the rest of the world, and it was even less popular when i first arrived in the country. there was no national league to speak of, and activity was reduced to local amateur and varsity leagues (high school/university). i did not like any of the sports that were—and still are—popular in america: baseball, american football (oh god!), basketball (which i can tolerate to a certain extent), hockey, golf, racing, etc. so i fell back on football. i tried to catch whatever match of competition i could on t.v., but there weren’t very many channels that would show international games, and most of them were “pay-per-view” so whenever there was an important match or tourney, i would watch the game at bars with friends, or someone would purchase the pay per view event at their home and we would all pitch in to cover the cost. great times.

in 1996, major league soccer (mls), the national usa football league, made its debut with all necessary pomp and circumstance. however, as much as mls has made great strides in trying to appeal to an ever growing number of fans (many of whom are of foreign descent), it still does not measure up (at least, in my humble opinion) to clubs of international stature, but it is, alas, the closest that we are at the moment to football, and bargain-basement entertainment for approx. usd $15 a match—especially considering that (american) national football league (nfl) games go for upwards of usd $80 per regular season game!

we “real” football fans can find solace in the fact that we can watch former international stars like david beckham and cuauhtémoc blanco battle it out in a mere few yards from our seats. as i type this, i have just watched my new home team, the two time back-to-back mls champion houston dynamo, beat toronto fc 3-1 in a home game. go dynamo!

so my “extreme” love of football, as my friend recently put it, is rooted in tradition, but mainly in a lack of any other sports that have appealed to me during the majority of my adult life. i just hope that i can continue to entertain my fancy for many years to come, and that my dream of making it to a world cup comes to life in the (very near) future. south africa 2010, here i come!!

(photo caption: celebrating argentina's victory over mexico in the 2006 fifa world cup at buenos aires' "obelisco")