It all started in the summer of 1998 for me. I was working at Rack Room Shoes and as a result I had to wake up fairly early most days. I would happen to turn the TV on and they were showing soccer matches for some odd reason, and a funny thing happened, I started to really get into it. Turns out I was watching the 1998 World Cup Matches from France.

I recalled that besides in the US, soccer is the biggest sport in the world, and I finally got a taste for why that was the case. It was amazing to watch certain games, particularly those involving Roberto Baggio and Italy. I would get to work and talk to the assistant manager (and all around cool guy) Brian about the matches. He was a bit more into it, he caught me up on a few things. I remember being a little bit sad after the final, partly because France won, and I didn’t like their team, and partly because I knew that my brief love affair of soccer (like so many summer loves) would be over, never to be seen again.

Then came the summer of 2002. I was working at Meharry at the time, hell I may have even written an entry or two in the old blog about it. At any rate, I would watch those world cup matches with a renewed vigor. I knew a bit more, but still I was only a very inexperienced layman.

Then I met Julian. Julian got me hooked on soccer, between playing FIFA with him and discovering Fox Soccer Channel I became a full blown football fan!

The thing about it is, people say it’s boring, it’s no more boring than your average baseball game or even defensive American Football contest. They don’t score alot, but man when they do it’s GREAT!

There are four main positions and eleven men on the field for each team (just like American Football).

Goalkeeper is pretty much as the name implies, there is one, and his job is to keep the ball out of the net. He’s the only one allowed to touch the ball with his hands. They are like defensive line players in American Football or a center in basketball.

Defenders are the 4 (usually) guys directly in front of the goalkeeper who generally try to keep the ball out of the penalty box/scoring area. They are like the defensive backs in American Football.

Midfielders are the 4 (usually) guys who are in the middle of the field (see how easy this is!!) They generally distribute the ball around like a point guard in basketball, and they are also comparable to a Michael Vick like QB in American Football. They make everything happen! David Beckham (of Bend It Like Beckham fame) is a midfielder. They score a bit, but not as much generally as….

Forwards/Strikers are the 2 (usually) guys at the front of the attack. They are the “glory” guys, the shooting guards/wide recievers. They get the ball in position to score, and take their best shot. The best ones can create their own shot, like Thierry Henry of Arsenal/France.

It consists of 2 45 minute halves that generally don’t stop for much of anything. When the ball goes out of bounds, it’s thrown back in, set up for a corner kick (if it goes past the far end off of the opponent), or set up for a goal kick (kinda like a punt, if it goes off an attackers from the far end). Any stoppages of play are added on to the end of each half as “stoppage time” and the clock is ALWAYS running.

There are fouls of varying degrees. It’s usually left up to a referee’s discretion like in basketball, but unlike in basketball there is a different system for “harder” fouls than run of the mill fouls. If it’s a hard foul you get “booked”, meaning you are literally written into the referee’s booklet he carries in his shirt pocket and get a yellow card. In cases of an extremely wreckless foul/second yellow card you get a red card and get “sent off”, leaving your team a man down. After ALL fouls in the general field of play, the offended team is awarded a free kick, EXCEPT in the penalty area where a penalty shot is awarded (one of the most exciting times in a match when it happens!).

Because of the nature of the game, alot of matches end in ties, however in the case of a tournament final or some other match where there is no return match and one team has to win, you get to extra time, and then penalty kicks. Those are the most exciting endings in sport!

At any rate, here in America we have a national team that plays in events like the World Cup (if we qualify and we should for 2006!), and we also have “club level” teams. Our top club level is the MLS, which generally operates like most American sports leagues. However in Europe things are a little different. Each country has a primary division of about 14-20 teams and a secondary division with around the same number of teams. At the end of the season (using the English Premier League), the bottom three teams from the top league get “relegated” (sent down) and then the top two teams from the next division below plus the winner of a special tournament are promoted. Imagine this in American sports!!! The Hawks would be an NBDL team!! This makes stakes a bit higher in my opinion!

There are also leagues like the “Champion’s League” or the “UEFA Cup” which pit the top clubs in different leagues against one another for the title of European/South American/Asian Champions! This goes on during the regular seasons of club play. My favorite team, Liverpool, won Champion’s League last year. Other teams featured in Champion’s League were La Liga’s Real Madrid (David Beckham and for now Michael Owen play there….for you all who aren’t up on your geography, Madrid is in Spain), AC Milan and Juventus of Italy’s Serie A, and Bayern Munich (of Germany’s Bundesliga).

Anyway, I hope I sparked an interest in Football in at least ONE person! It’s great!!!!