Words. Ideas. Actions.

06 March 2023

I love watching soccer. It doesn’t really matter who’s playing, there’s just so much that glues me to the screen. Mainly, though, I think it’s the unpredictability that draws me to each and every match that crosses my path. Heck, that may be why any of us watch any sports at all; you really never know what will happen. Take this weekend’s 7–0 thrashing of Manchester United at the hands of Liverpool. I don’t really care for either of those teams, but I tuned in anyway because I knew it would be a match to remember. But I don’t think anyone could have predicted what actually happened. And that’s why we watch. 

I want to focus on both the draw and repellant nature of unpredictability tonight, though. Yes, it can beckon us. But if your brain is anything like mine, you have to prepare for the unexpected just to fit it comfortably into your life. Now, I know that may sound contradictory, but let me talk through how I think about things like this, and maybe it will make a bit more sense. See, I have a need — some might even label it a compulsion — to create and maintain as much order as possible. Even in the work I love, I get to put that into practice every day. Templates, frameworks, and systems, these are all tools and processes I employ to try and control as much chaos as possible. I know that I can’t control for everything, but employing these gimmicks usually gives me the elasticity to account for whatever comes my way. 

Let’s take earthquakes as an example. No, I’m not saying I can control for them, much less predict them. But I can put a plan in place should we have one. Because, more likely than not, we will. I can tell my family what to expect, and where to meet, and make sure our kit is well thought out and in a place where we all can  get to it at a moment’s notice. I can’t prevent earthquakes from happening, but I can be as confident as possible that we have done as much as we can to prepare for one, if it comes.

There are other events, however, that are both completely unexpected and out of our control. The COVID-19 outbreak, for instance. Or the Google layoffs. Sure, they were distant possibilities in people’s imagination, but I sure wasn’t ready for either. Thankfully, I have enough systems and frameworks in place to create the capacity (or illusion of it) to deal with them. Or so I hope. 

Besides the ManU-Liverpool match, the other inspiration for tonight’s topic was a recent “Radiolab” episode. I don’t want to ruin the payoff, but it involves the evolutionary process of crabs and how chaos is a key component. That unpredictability is terrifying to me, but also essential to my development. I can intellectualize that, but I don’t have to like it. I know that all my growth has come from change. Usually, it’s been change I had no control over. So, while I can attribute each of my personal and professional leaps to chaos and unpredictability, if I had my druthers, everything would stay static.  

Even as I type this tonight, there’s hail hitting my windows in San Francisco. We’ve lived here for almost 16 years now, and we’ve had more hail events in the last week than in all those years. I would have never predicted that. And I’m sure there are tons of other things I will not be able to predict. I just want to make sure I’ve created order in as many other aspects of my life to be able to handle whatever comes our way. Before we all evolve into crabs, of course.

See you tomorrow?

29 December 2022

Last night, I talked about memorable dates. And yesterday just happened to be tied to two losses which are meaningful to me. Well tonight, we can add another morbid anniversary date to the ol’ memory bank; Edson Arantes do Nascimento died today. 

Recency bias has led many people to argue that Lionel Messi is the greatest footballer of all time. I think he’s definitely the greatest male player playing today. But the best all time? In my book, that’s Pelé. Without a doubt. I’m not going to spend a lot of time sharing stats. I’m not even going to ask ChatGPT to make the case for me. I just want to talk about his influence on the game.

To put it simply, he fundamentally changed the way soccer is played. His balance of finesse and strength, to be able to fight through an entire defense who were hacking away at his ankles, just to sublimely and perfectly place a ball in an exacting spot in the back of the net, that is what players dream about to this day. 

I was lucky enough to see him play once against my beloved Tampa Bay Rowdies. I don’t recall any specifics about the match itself. I only know that my under-10 team went as a group. And scouring Wikipedia let me know that the match must have been 29 May 1977. The Rowdies have always been my favorite team, and I remember getting excited about being able to see Rodney Marsh, Steve Wegerle, the tassel-socked Wes McLeod, and my idol Mike Connell face off with the likes of Giorgio Chinaglia, Franz Beckenbauer, and, of course, Pelé. 

To paraphrase “Men in Blazers’” Roger Bennett, there was music before The Beatles, and then everything that followed. Pelé was the same. Soccer existed before Pelé became the youngest-ever scorer in a World Cup, but nothing since then has ever been the same. He not only coined the phrase, but he almost single handedly defined o jogo bonito, The Beautiful Game. I cannot overstate how steadfastly I believe that Pelé is the greatest who’s ever been. And probably ever will be. A true global ambassador for the game I love. I will miss his passion. I’ll miss his advocacy. I’ll even miss his Tweets.

“Love, love, and love.”

See you tomorrow?

19 December 2022

What a Final. And what a tournament. I want to relive it a little bit tonight, pointing out a few moments which stuck out to me and describing some of what I was feeling, based on the notes I jotted down for myself between numerous bouts of either holding my breath or screaming at the top of my lungs. 

But before we get started, a few notes. First, one of the many reasons I did not travel to what would have been my seventh World Cup trip was because of the rampant corruption involved in the awarding of the 2022 event to Qatar. There are many great articles about what went into Qatar’s winning bid, but I’d rather recommend a book by Ken Bensinger called Red Card: How the U.S. Blew the Whistle on the World's Biggest Sports Scandal. 

One of the other reasons this year’s trip didn’t happen was due to the callous disregard both FIFA and the officials in Qatar showed to the workers who created the infrastructure needed to host this spectacle in the middle of a desert. It’s unspeakable that, for those of us who love this game, there is no way around the fact that in order to enjoy these matches we have to perform a large exercise of compartmentalization. When we watch, we also need to acknowledge the costs that these games have come with. We cannot justify these deaths. We cannot ignore them. And we should not stop talking about what happened just because we’ve already heard the final whistle. 

Lastly, there is the site itself. Now, there have been valid criticisms about each and every host country that I’ve visited since witnessing my first match in 1994, but this year feels different. The fact that there are numerous laws on their books which they essentially suspended for the duration, but will go back to enforcing immediately afterwards, means the global lens FIFA likes to celebrate when touting how the tournament can foster global change is laughable. Unmarried couples living together is against the law. So is crossdressing. And consensual sex with a same-sex partner. Even spending one tourist dollar in passive support of those laws was a non-starter for me.

Now, with that documented, let’s get to the game (I’m replaying a recording of it right now as I type this!). Even though my Italians weren’t in it this year, I cheered and fretted and worried as if it were 1994 all over again. But this time, it was for Lionel Messi. I’m old enough to have seen Pelé play in the NASL against my beloved Rowdies. I’ve also been lucky enough to have seen Messi play in a few World Cup matches. So I really wanted to see him add this trophy to his long list of accomplishments. 

I had quiet confidence most of the tournament. Even after the first match loss to Saudi Arabia, believe it or not. This year's team seemed much more together. United. And more broadly talented than squads which tended to feature 11 stars only briefly playing on the same pitch together. The group Lionel Scaloni put together each had pieces to contribute to the puzzle as a whole, without relying on Messi to be the biggest, most important piece. This win wouldn’t have happened without the continued contributions from his teammates. It’s the first squad in a while where he wasn’t asked to carry most of them on his back.

Whether it was the way Rodrigo de Paul continually fought through tackles, Alexis Mac Allister threading through the French midfield, or how Ángel Di María kept attacking up the left side of the field to create chance after chance in the box, we saw that this was a team playing to their strengths over and over again. And let’s not leave a pair of Martínez-es out of the discussion. Lautaro Martínez’s late substitution brought a much-needed spark to an increasingly winded squad. As for the keeper, Emiliano Martínez, it’s pretty obvious that despite not seeing a shot from France until the 70th minute, his saves in the last seconds of the second period of extra time, and the huge penalty-kick save on Kingsley Coman during the shoot out are what cemented the Argentine win.

Lionel Messi is the story, though. As he should be. I had some fun the other night letting ChatGPT help me make an argument about how good he is. But even if we look at just his stats from the 2022 tournament, he was remarkable. He played all 690 minutes of Argentina’s games, surpassing Italy’s Paolo Maldini (my absolute favorite player) for most played. He scored 7 goals in 7 games — 2 of those in the Final — one short of the 8 from Golden Boot winner Kylian Mbappé. Oh, he also had 3 assists. It was an absolutely remarkable tournament for the 35-year-old, definitely deserving of the Golden Ball award for the best player of the tournament.

As I look back now, almost two full days later, there’s so much I will miss of this tournament, like the tenacity of the Moroccan defense and the whistles from their fans. I’ll miss the tight passing and ball control from the Japanese team. The sounds of the horns and spirit of hope from the Senegalese. The chants and never-ending effort from the South Koreans. But mostly, I’ll miss the daily reminders that this game rewards not just talent, but teamwork.  Thankfully, another World Cup starts in just seven months when the women kick off in Auckland, New Zealand.

See you tomorrow?

17 December 2022

I don’t usually post these on weekends, but, as you may know, tomorrow is the World Cup Final, and I can’t stop thinking about it. As I mentioned yesterday, I look forward to it more than most any other day of the year. Probably because, like Leap Day, it only comes around every four years. 

But tonight, I want to revisit a point I made last night, specifically that Lionel  Messi is a better footballer than Cristiano Ronaldo. Since it’s the weekend, however, I didn’t want to do any actual research to back up my claims the evening before Messi’s legacy could actually be cemented in Qatar. Instead, I left it up to artificial intelligence, namely ChatGPT. 

So without further ado, here’s how the AI tool responded to my prompt, “Explain why Lionel Messi is a better footballer than Cristiano Ronaldo in 300 words, using as many stats and facts as possible, please.”:

It’s difficult to definitively say that one player is better than another, as people have different opinions on what constitutes good or great performance in football. Both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are considered among the greatest footballers of all time, and both have had impressive careers and achieved numerous accolades.

That said, here are some stats and facts that may help illustrate why some people believe Messi to be the better footballer:

• Messi has won the Ballon d’Or (awarded to the best male footballer in the world) a record six times, while Ronaldo has won it five times.
• Messi has won the UEFA Best Player in Europe award three times, while Ronaldo has won it twice.
• Messi has scored more goals and provided more assists in both domestic league play and international club competitions than Ronaldo. For example, in La Liga (Spain’s top division), Messi has scored 467 goals in 543 appearances, while Ronaldo has scored 311 goals in 292 appearances. In the UEFA Champions League (Europe’s top club competition), Messi has scored 115 goals in 142 appearances, while Ronaldo has scored 136 goals in 170 appearances.
• Messi has a higher goal-to-game ratio than Ronaldo in both domestic league play and international club competitions. This means that he has scored more goals per game on average than Ronaldo.
• Messi has won more domestic league titles than Ronaldo. In La Liga, Messi has won 10 titles with Barcelona, while Ronaldo has won 2 with Real Madrid.
• Messi has won more club-level international titles than Ronaldo. He has won the UEFA Champions League four times with Barcelona, while Ronaldo has won it three times, twice with Manchester United and once with Real Madrid.
• Messi has won more individual awards and accolades than Ronaldo. In addition to the Ballon d’Or and the UEFA Best Player in Europe award, he has won numerous other awards such as the Golden Foot, the Golden Shoe (awarded to the top scorer in European league play), and the FIFA World Cup Golden Ball (awarded to the best player at the FIFA World Cup).

Again, it’s important to note that these stats and facts are just some of the many that can be used to compare the two players, and they don’t necessarily prove that Messi is definitively a better footballer than Ronaldo. Ultimately, opinions on this matter will vary.

What a time to be alive.

See you tomorrow?

16 December 2022

When I was a kid — hell, who am I kidding? this is still true today — I loved Xmas Eve, The prepping. The expectation. The anticipation. It was enough to keep me up well past midnight, and get up well before dawn. It’s a feeling like no other. But every four years, there’s one thing that surpasses it: the wait for a World Cup Final. 

Even as I type those words, I can’t believe we’re here again. For a number of reasons. We’ll stipulate that having a Final so close to Santa’s big night is making me more than a bit unsettled. But the fact that 32 teams have weathered this year’s unique spectacle to compete for the solid gold Gazzaniga design has me vibrating like a fusion energy reactor.

As I draft this, it’s the evening before the third-place match between Morocco and Croatia. Despite being a consolation game, I’m going to be riveted to the screen early tomorrow. The Atlas Lions have exemplified what it means to be a team, and I’ve found I can’t watch them enough. Every player on the pitch contributed to every result. They were focused on sticking to their defensive gameplan. And they took their opportunities as they came. It’s been fascinating to watch such a defensive-minded squad completely fluster perennial world powers. They deserve every accolade and as much attention as this year’s England or German or, hell, even Brazil got. Morocco’s run has been inspired, eye-opening, and (I hope) revolutionary for The Beautiful Game. 

Croatia will bring their tried-and-true, hard-nosed, midfield-driven style to this match, putting a more dogged and experienced side up against the feel-good story of the tournament. While I appreciate their play (and the legacy of Luka Modrić), it’s hard for me to want them to succeed. It’s not a style I usually enjoy, and I’m already smitten with Morocco. But I have to give them credit. To get into the last four, both this year and in 2018 where they played for The Cup, is a laudable achievement for a country of just over 4 million. 

And then there is Sunday. I’m not going to spend any time trying to share my thoughts about each team, pretending to be impartial. I can’t do it. With this much Italian heritage in me, there’s no way I can root for France. Never mind the fact that I’m dying to see Messi win his first Cup; one, because he deserves it, and two, because I hope it will forever put to rest the debate about who’s the better footballer, him or a certain Português. 

Between now and the final whistle on Sunday, everyone is going to have an opinion. And a hope. And that inexplicable urge for something they’ve waited so long for to finally happen, while simultaneously wishing the end never comes so that the possibilities never end. But I know we can’t have it both ways. The match will kick off, goals will be scored, and one team will be named campione del mondo. And I’ll spend every waking hour between now and then with a smile on my face, thinking about how much I love this game.

See you tomorrow?

09 December 2022

I was so looking forward to writing tonight's post after viewing two unbelievable World Cup quarterfinal matches today. I wanted to talk about Brazil going home. The tenacity of the Croatians. My hatred of penalty kicks. And then I’d probably struggle to not spew a book-length number of words about the monumental match between The Netherlands and Argentina. But that all changed when I headed out with the dog for our last walk of the evening. I grabbed my coat, and the leash, cued up my evening podcasts in my headphones and headed out the door. Not halfway down the block, I was stopped in my tracks by the hourly NPR News podcast update reporting that Grant Wahl has died. 

At the moment, I think the only thing that’s clear to me is how stunned I am. For U.S. soccer fans, I think that feeling is pretty prevalent. Wahl was one of us, an advocate for a game we loved that struggled for years to gain a secure foothold in the imaginations of most of our otherwise sports-obsessed population. He reported with passion and curiosity in equal amounts. And he did it on his own terms, even after getting canned by Sports Illustrated in 2020. 

Since venturing out on his own, he still brought the same integrity and reporting to us, despite having to provide all the support infrastructure for it himself. I only met him once, after a disastrous EURO 2012 Final in Kyiv. I was still licking my wounds after seeing Spain completely dismantle my Italians, 4 – 0, but he was eager to talk to another American who had made his way to Ukraine to feed his passion for The Beautiful Game. What I remember most about our conversation was how quickly he put me at ease, not having to prove his stature or his credentials; just two guys talking about witnessing the game they loved in an unfamiliar land. Again. And how often we had both done that. 

Now, this isn’t the time or place to talk about the merits of parasocial relationships, but when you’ve been following someone for years, through podcasts, newsletters, and a publicly shared soccer calendar, you develop a familiarness that is unlike most other relationships you have with people you only know online. These mediums, and the number of ways we can connect, leads to a closeness and intimacy that’s hard to describe. You are part of a community of two, but it’s unidirectional. When that relationship ends, though, the pain is real. Even if it feels a little … I’m struggling for the right word … silly? It’s a loss, for sure. But not one which you’ll feel as acutely as his family, friends, and colleagues. But you mourn nonetheless.

With all that is wrong about this World Cup, Grant Wahl was everything that was right. He balanced his love and knowledge of the beautiful game with the critical, unflinching eye that’s so needed in today’s game in an attempt to hold officials accountable. During what has been — in my opinion — one of the most fascinating tournaments ever held, I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that he won’t see how it will end. The coverage, and our understanding of it, will be much lesser for it. 

See you tomorrow?