Personal essays
Football is life.
Hooked
I played soccer - what many of you call football - in high school.
I was slow and not that coordinated - I was not very good. But I showed up, practiced hard, and played when and where I was allowed to.
That might have been my first life lesson from football.
These past few weeks, despite me thinking I would give it a miss this year, I’ve been getting caught up in the World Cup.
Oliver and I watched the Spanish broadcast of US vs Paraguay in a Mexican bar in South San Francisco before my flight home.
Kevin, Lisa, and I watched the Fox broadcast of US vs Autralia in their living room projected on their big screen.
Maggie and I stopped in a bar before dinner to watch the start of Germany vs Côte D’Ivoire and then went to the Philly FIFA fan-zone to watch Curaçao vs Equador on a big screen.
And suddenly I was hooked. I started checking scores, listening to podcasts, and even started rewatching Ted Lasso.
It was there that Danny Rojas reminded me that “Football is life” and so I offer you three life lessons from this year’s world cup.
Play on
Football is famous for flopping.
Someone runs near you and you throw yourself at the ground as if you’ve been hit or tripped hoping that the ref will blow the whistle and rule in your favor.
But in this year’s world cup there is also a fair amount of actual fouls that could be called and the ref does nothing about it.
It’s not that the ref doesn’t see your opponent grabbing your shirt or tripping you. The ref also likely saw you doing the same thing a minute ago. But, if it doesn’t have an impact on the flow or outcome of the game the ref signals that you should play on and you should.
There are players who run next to the ref pleading their case.
There are all sorts of theories that this will influence the ref in the future. It never causes the ref to reverse their decision.
And that’s life lesson number one. There will be exceptions to this one - but in general I’ve found it applies.
There are times when you are wronged - truly wronged. Someone is obstructing you or holding you back or even worse.
Look around for the ref. See if anyone is there to give you justice. Maybe even plead your case so that it’s noticed next time.
But the game is continuing and you need to get yourself back in it.
I’ve wasted time whining about a wrong or trying to get someone to right it. That time would have been better spent back on the field.
Strategy
After the US beat Australia, they had six points in the group stage. This meant that no matter what happened in their final game, the US would continue to the next stage of the playoffs.
So how should they proceed? How seriously should they take their game against Türkiye?
The US decided to take it very seriously. Almost all of the players had not started in a game.
They could have played their starters and most pundits agree that they would have won.
Instead, they gave other players valuable playing experience, avoided injuring their starters, and gave their star - who had been injured in the first game - a chance to play for thirty minutes in the second half to get back in the swing of things in a real game.
That’s life lesson number two. Suppose you know you’re in a situation where the outcome is guaranteed. Maybe you know that you’ve already lost or maybe you know that you’ve already won.
That’s actually very freeing.
If you don’t care anything about the outcome of a given situation, what might you do differently.
I’ve heard tons of examples of someone who went in to interview for a job they had no chance of getting. It loosened them up so much that they did things that they never would have otherwise done and they got the job.
If the outcome doesn’t matter - what would you change? Bonus: do the same even if the outcome does matter.
Open
I heard people talk about how the US sucked against Türkiye. The players on the field were just awful.
They really weren’t. They’ve been scouted and coached and developed since they were young kids. Many of them moved away from home to work on their game before they were in high school. The eleven players who started game two might not have been the top eleven players in the US but they were better than almost everyone in this country.
I was probably worse than almost everyone in this country but one thing I remember is that even in a moderately well-coached team, there is always someone open that you can pass to.
Often the open person is behind you.
You’ll see someone with the ball beyond the halfway point pass it backwards, and that person passes it backwards maybe even to their own goalie. The goalie passes it across to the other side and that person passes it up to someone who is even with the original ball handler but on the complete opposite side of the field.
The ball traveled from the left side near the halfway point to the right side near the halfway point but it didn’t travel in a straight line.
That brings me to a final, compound life lesson.
There is always an open pass. There is always an option available to you.
One of the effects of stress and/or depression is that you can’t see the help that surrounds you - you can only see the challenges.
But, you say, the open pass is behind me or next to me. It’s no better than where I am today.
Sometimes that open pass behind you is how you get around the obstacle in front of you. It’s how we swing the ball to the other side of the field.
Bonus: take those shots on goal when they present themselves. Most of those shots won’t score and it may take a long time to set up the next shot but the shots you don’t take never score.
Football, as Danny Rojas reminds us, is life.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 327. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe