Addicted to Soccer? I'm your Pusherman

When D.A.R.E. doesn't work - some of the most serious addicts are just kids.






Not to get all nostalgic here, but I remember the day I fell in love with soccer. I had just landed in San Jose, Costa Rica, of all places to spend a month learning Spanish (read, go to the beach & get drunk). An old, chain-smoking man, the father of the family with whom I would be staying (until I fled to the beach) met me at the airport and ushered me out to his rickety scooter. Minutes later, I was holding on to the poor guy like a kid on his first day of school, a task made all the more difficult by the luggage that was sandwiched between us. It was mid-afternoon in San Jose and I was looking forward to getting to the house so I could shower and relax after the long trip. Unfortunately, my chaffeur had other plans. After an uncomfortable half-hour drive to Alajuela, we turned on to a side street and tucked the scooter in between rows and rows of parked cars. Once we had secured my luggage to the scooter, we headed off down the road, following what seemed to be a growing crowd. At around this point, I started to get the idea that we might not be headed back to the house, unless the house consisted of a 40,000 seat stadium packed to the rafters with screaming Costa Ricans. We wove our way through a crowd of rabid fans in red & black jerseys (think AC Milan with a more, um, Central American design) and found our seats (by which I mean a spot on the concrete bleachers where we could squeeze in). The scene was sheer chaos: lit flares exploding all around, constant singing, beer everywhere, a deafening symphony of chants (imagine being a bay leaf thrown into a boiling pot of jambalaya...actually, just imagine a soccer game). My first thought was "damn, there is something way bigger going on here than just a soccer game". My second thought was "wait, why is the scoreboard clock counting down from 3 hours 12 minutes?". Sure enough, this was just the start of the pre-game festivities. Later that night, when it was a major feat for most fans to avoid face-planting down on the bleachers, we watched Alajuela defeat Deportivo Saprissa for the league title. It was well past dawn before I finally made it home to my long-awaited shower - countless beers, dozens of songs, too many death-defying drunken scooter rides to count, and one new passion in life later.

At the time, I was already familiar with soccer, having spent the previous summer in Mexico City (I still remember celebrating with my Mexican amigos after the US shocked Argentina 3-0, only to sit there awkwardly biting my lip a few days later when the US eliminated Mexico on penalties). I had also gotten used to my English relatives in Newcastle getting 1000 times more excited about seeing Peter Beardsley on TV than about seeing me for the first time in five years. Still, I had never seen the type of passion, the communal outpouring of emotion, that was so evident that night in Alajuela. In Philadelphia, Eagles fans go berserk eight days a year (and sometimes a blessed nine or ten days if the team makes the playoffs), but that is far from every weekend. Also, a bunch of inebriated bums yelling E-A-G-L-E-S in the bathroom really doesn't hold a candle to 50,000 Liverpool fans belting out another rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone". Witnessing first-hand a real soccer match was a glorious rite of passage into a world I had never even known existed - I was hooked. In the next few years, I would find myself right alongside my Newcastle relatives screaming bloody murder at the away fans with the audacity to cheer their team on at St. James Park; I would attend Champions League matches at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium to watch Real Madrid march to their record 7th title; and I would pull all-nighters watching grainy footage of Italian matches in my dorm room at college. Basically, I became a freak. Soccer, at its worst, is something that you might not understand. But at its best, soccer is an addiction that won't leave you alone, a drug that you can't get enough of, a taste of the the lifeblood that flows through the rest of the world, a bad habit that you just can't kick...and wouldn't want to anyway (yes, pun intended).

So who cares about all this? Well, today there was an article by ESPN's Bill Simmons in which the author chose an English team to support during the coming season (and no, he didn't have the good taste or the self-loathing to pick Newcastle). The infectious beauty and passion of soccer on display during the World Cup was like a gateway drug - it's simply impossible to quit now, even though the tournament is over. Simmons ought to tread carefully, though - one day you're enjoying Brazil-France at the World Cup, next thing you know you're hunched over a computer screen at 5am reading a live feed of Rangers-Celtic because the extra $200 you spent on the digital cable soccer package didn't go through yet and you don't want to wait five days to watch the replay on RAI TV. Trust me, coming from someone who's been there and done that, a soccer addiction is a bitch. Dragging your girlfriend to games on trips to Europe when there are about a hundred things she'd rather be doing in Florence. Setting the alarm clock for 2am to watch World Cup games from the Far East. Faking sickness to leave work early so you can line up outside a seedy sports bar to get a glimpse of the Champions League match that was bumped from ESPN in favor of figure skating. It's a rough life, we soccer addicts live, but it's the price we pay to enjoy the only sport that unites the world. There's something comforting about knowing that you're sitting in front of a TV set tuning into the same game as everyone from the Ivory Coast to Korea. Maybe it's because you know that, in some inexplicable way, you really are part of something bigger.

So for anyone going through post-World Cup withdrawal, who's out there looking for another hit of some of that sweet futbol, you don't have to wait too long. All of the same elements that make the World Cup such a glorious occasion are on display every weekend (and some weekdays) - you might have to stomach a ginormous cable bill, but it'll be worth it. Just last night, before they could even recover from la Seleccion's exit from the World Cup, Argentinians had to suffer through River Plate's elimination from la Copa Libertadores. And this week, Europeans biggest clubs like Real Madrid, Chelsea, and Bayern Munich all started pre-season training for the coming season. Heck, Newcastle has already kicked off their season, slumping to a draw against a lowly Norwegian side in their quest to qualify for the UEFA Cup (see, that's the self-loathing part). It's a long road that any budding soccer-addict is headed down, one full of highs and lows and everything in between, and one that might take precedent over everything from the Uffizi to a much-needed shower in Central America...but it'll be all be worth it for the best damn buzz of your life. "I'm your doctor, when in need / you know me, I'm your friend / Your main boy, think & thin / I'm your pusherman..."