Soccer

Messing up Messi, Reversing Ronaldo’s with Ronaldinho

The game is over I think.

Two minutes pass. The game has to be over now. I refresh the live feed going on at ESPN.com.

100 + 4. What is this sport? Does anyone know when this game is over? This might be the most nerve-wracking sport of all time.

Finally, at something like 120 minutes, which, I learned, is at the end of extra time, England was declared victor in the semi-final over Denmark.

For someone not actually located in England, I was at the edge of my seat. It must have been absolute craziness in England.

I think soccer is a beautiful sport. It has the beauty of sheer endurance mixed with tremendous hand-eye capability and shrewd play-making.

Unfortunately, I never played it past the fourth grade. I mean who knows what I could have been. I did have one glorious goal in one game…which might not have even been mine because there was a bit of a pack at the goal so it was hard to tell…but it was still glorious. In high school, my favorite cross country practices involved scrimmaging against the soccer team (hey, running is running). The cross country team was naturally terrible at soccer (there’s a reason we were in a sport that didn’t require balls) but man, I felt such joy during those rare scrimmages.

With the above two situations constituting my entire soccer playing career, I still have a lot to learn about the sport. This was painfully evident when I was set…