I will never forget 1974 in Germany. It was the year I graduated from high school and it was the first of two occasions in which I lived in a country in which the World Cup was taking place. I can remember looking out of my third floor bedroom window (I had the maid's room while everyone else in my family lived on the first floor) on Blutackerstrasse and seeing the top of the Betzenberg Stadium (now Fritz Walter Stadium) and wishing the organizers had scheduled a game there. I was thirty-two years too soon: Kaiserslautern was one of the twelve venues in this World Cup.
I fell in love with the game then. I was stunned to see how deep the love for the game lay in the hearts of the fans of the 16 nations participating. The off the field aspects of the game amused me. I will never forget reading how the vile kleptocrat Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire gave each of his nation's players a new Volkswagen for being the only African nation to qualify and then took them back after they flopped out without scoring a goal and surrendering 14. I will never forget the image of Luis Pereira, as he was leaving the field having been sent off, being booed by the Dutch fans in Brazil's semi-final loss to the Netherlands and responding by holding three fingers, signifying Brazil's three World Cup titles at that time. I suffered when my admiration of the Netherlands's total football style of play was met with defeat in the championship, but my love of the game was just getting started.
What has always inspired me about the game is how dear it is to everyone's hearts who really loves the game. Yes there are those who engage in hooliganism, but there are also a great number of fans who really love the game and pull peacefully for their club team and nation. I will never forget my visit to the Nou Camp stadium when I visited Barcelona in November 2000. The pageantry, the spirit of the fans, the peaceful stroll down the hill to the stadium and the sad trudge back to the subway after the team lost that night remain very vivid.
What I also love is how you can break the ice with just about anyone from another country by talking about football. I was on a flight once from Austin, TX to Dallas, TX and was seated next to a young woman from Scotland. We were talking to pass the time and I asked her where she was from. She replied Edinburgh. I then asked her "Hearts or Hibs?", the names of the two Scottish Premier League teams in Edinburgh. She seemed stunned for a second and replied "Hearts" with a warm smile. [Ed. note: If someone is from Glasgow, don't talk about football. If I had asked this woman "Rangers or Celtic?", I would have essentially been asking her if she were Protestant (Rangers) or Catholic (Celtic). You want to make friends, not offend someone.] I've been in cabs where the driver is from Buenos Aires, Argentina and asked "Boca or River" and been immediately regaled about his wonderful experiences in La Bombonera, Boca Juniors stadium.
My wife has told me that when she was growing up, if the kids in the neighborhood didn't have a ball to play with, they would go to the butcher shop. If a pig had been freshly slaughtered, the butcher would clean the bladder and inflate for the kids to play with. If that didn't work, they'd go to a tailor and get the unusable trimmings of clothing to stuff in a bag and play with it until it gave out. I can remember visiting Três Corações, Pelé's hometown and looking at the hills where he used to play and realizing why he had become such a great player: it was such a long way down the hill if you didn't control the ball.
I've seen fewer moments in New York more joyous than 46th street in Manhattan (Little Brazil) when Brazil won the Cup in 1994 and 2002. I've also seen fewer places sadder than when they lost in 1998. I hope I've at least made the game interesting to some of you reading who may not love the game as much as I do. I'll be in a slight funk for a week or so after the final, but looking forward to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
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