USA: The secret handshake done with your feet

I didn’t know, I would never have guessed, but my home town here in the USA is overrun with soccer players. Unsuspecting fans of the Sharks, 49′ers, Giants, A’s and Raiders have no idea of the imminent threat.

You can’t really tell them from walking down the street. They are in business suits lunching, that guy driving the bus, the waitress, a kid with earbuds, some engineer coding relentlessly on his laptop, the guy getting off the plane from Germany, this guy driving the beer truck, the plumber sizing up the sink problem. All players of the beautiful game, but there is no way to tell from a look on Mainstreet.

How do we count them? Perhaps we could go out into the streets at lunch with a ball – toss it at a stranger. He or she chests it back, flicks it on, or sends it over the rooftops. Check. It falls to the ground and someone is yelling, no check.

Now for those of you in other parts of the world, I’ll admit: this is nothing, it is probably the same in your local town. That’s the point.

For though Americans watch pigskin, basketball, hockey & baseball, the game we play most is football of the soccer variety, and that is the sport we have the closest personal relationship with, as… persons.

The number of soccer players and fans in our town has very little to do with what professional soccer is or is not played here.

In some ways we are not so very unlike England, which seems to have as many football teams as it has pubs (A coincidence? I think not!); we’re just a little resistant to letting soccer out of the closet.  We don’t talk about it, except at secret meetings where outsiders can’t see us.  These meetings are usually held on some neglected patch of grass, or in a warehouse shielded from view.

The USA is big on organizing things, and on organizing things big. It seems, though, all soccer needs in the US is to be released – the soccer energy is already there.

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My allegiance is sworn to our local MLS San Jose Earthquakes, my home team, but I need to recognize the great job being done by the Puerto Rico Islanders and the Montreal Impact of the USL in the CONCACAF Champions League.  MLS, USL, League ___ … Teams are built from the ground up of determined, passionate players, and these exist in every city, mine and yours included.

Does your favorite watering hole or pub have a team?

Give your local team a shout out in the comments (or play on…)