In 1994 I turned ten years old

In 1994 I turned ten years old.  For the first time in my life, people were talking about soccer.   Sportscenter, the local news, and the kids in the neighborhood put the summer baseball season on the back burner and started talking soccer.  

For a month that summer, the United States would host the FIFA, (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) soccer to the Americans, World Cup.  The tournament would be played out in nine US cities from June 17th to July 17th, feature 24 teams representing countries all over the world, and set an attendance record (of 69,000 average fans per match) that still stands.  The opening ceremony was emceed by Oprah Winfrey, attended by President Bill Clinton, and featured musical act Diana Ross. 

The ’94 World Cup did a lot to bring soccer out of the dark to compete with what were commonly referred to as “the four major sports” (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL) back then.  FIFA is said to have chosen the US as the host in ’94 in exchange for a promise by US Soccer to establish a top flight soccer league in the US. The ’94 World Cup acted as a predecessor to this new league, hoping to grow the game in the world’s largest market. Two years later Major League Soccer established itself with 10 teams in the US. 

Even before the start of the tournament, the kids in the neighborhood had World Cup fever.  Everyone was talking about Brazil, Columbia, and team USA’s long-shot chances as school let out for the summer.  Tony Meola and Alexi Lalas replaced Don Mattingly and Roger Clemens in our sports-conscious for one summer. The bash brothers took a backseat to the incredible afro of Columbian midfielder Carlos Valderrama and all those one-named Brazilian players like Romario and Ronaldo.  

For one summer, in 1994, we played soccer.  I don’t think any of us had played organized soccer before that summer, and most of us weren’t about to start, but for that summer we hopped on the bandwagon and gave it a try.  We didn’t have goals or cleats, numbered jerseys or chalked sidelines, but so it went with most of the childhood games we played. We learned to make due. 

Our field was, as usual, in my backyard.  It was one of the bigger backyards in our neighborhood of 1,000 square foot ranch houses and quarter acre lots.  There was a round patch of dirt, (the pitcher’s mound) in the middle of the field. Outfield fences on one side and my house on the other were the only sidelines we needed.  Three maple trees and a ski pole acted as the goals.

One thing I remember about that summer is how hot it was.  I remember one of the neighborhood kids bringing frozen bottles of water to the field and how great an idea that was.  I’d try to coax a drop of water from the thawing chunk of ice inside the bottle when the game paused a minute or two.  

It was a strange summer that year.  Major League Baseball would go on strike, cancelling the World Series for the first time in 90 years.  The O.J. Simpson murder case took over the airwaves when helicopter news teams chased his white Ford Bronco down a Los Angeles freeway.  And the World Cup was to be held on US soil for the first time.  

Some of the older kids were talking about the Columbian team.  They were a big story going into the tournament. Their stars showed up in ads on TV and became instantly recognizable.  I thought they were joking when they said a player was murdered for a mistake he made in the game. We may have laughed about it but it was no joke.  Andres Escobar had deflected a pass into his own goal in Columbia’s unexpected loss to the United States. After returning home to Columbia following the team’s disappointing elimination, Escobar was shot six times outside a nightclub in his native Medellin.  I remember thinking it must have been a joke; a soccer match could never mean that much.  

So we spent the summer playing soccer, 3 on 3 with the goalies, on a tiny field in my backyard.  We tried to slide tackle, bicycle kick, and all sorts of funny moves, laughing at our ignorance all along.  We practiced our moves, staging trick plays and shooting against the soccer fence we otherwise called the Green Monster.  We tore up the lawn practicing celebratory knee slides like the ones we saw on TV.

It didn’t last forever, and over the next few years, as I made my way through middle school, and the older kids through high school, our ongoing backyard whiffleball games got more organized, sophisticated, obsessive. As with most of America, we went back to the norm, futbol was left behind.