I was introduced to soccer in a fairly comical way. Around the 8th grade, our gym teacher decided in the winter period that we were staying indoors too much and introduced us to soccer.
Our introduction? The instructor (Vietnam vet, early 30s) basically put four sticks up to market boundaries and used four additional sticks to mark two goal-posts. The rules? You could basically write them on a 3x5 inch index card, and took two minutes to get across to a group of 24 boys.
We divided up into two teams and I volunteered to be the goalie on x-team. Roughly 25 minutes was left to play out our first attempt ever in the school at soccer.
That ball? From minute-one to the 25th minute....probably never moved more than fifty feet in the 25 minutes. It was a crowd of 22 boys kicking in some massive huddle.
I stood at the posts and admired the lack of movement and the frenzy of aimless kicking.
For roughly two weeks, the practice was repeated, and the instructor eventually gave up on the attempt. To be honest, I doubt if he'd attended a game in his life.
Around a decade would pass, and I'd be assigned to the Ramstein area of Germany. At some point in 1984, I got a ticket and actually attended a real game (there in Kaiserslautern). So I had this chance to admire strategy and a bigger field. Maybe as a kid, if we'd viewed an actual game and had a strategy understanding....things would have worked out better.
Today? I probably watch around ten games of soccer a year via TV. There's still a dozen things I don't readily grasp (like off-sides), and I admire the overly dramatic fake-injury business (something that the Italian players are five-star at).
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