Gives soccer sort of a backhanded compliment. “Nothing happens” is sort of a weird thing to say when the game doesn’t stop for 45 minutes at a time, whereas there are constant stoppages and TV timeouts in America’s old (baseball) and new (football) pastimes.If by nothing happens they mean scoring, I don’t think that’s always particularly true.Just as it’s exciting in NFL football when a team is poised in scoring position (i.e. the red zone) and gets a big play for a score, the same thing happens in soccer when a team is in the final third. If anything to me for some reason soccer resembles basketball in its play a lot more than any other sport. There’s constant movement, an incredible amount of athleticism and effort is needed to be a great defensive player and it takes a special player to make scoring look as easy as it does.

I used to think soccer was boring, but only because my experience with it was limited to playground soccer in elementary school. I loved it then, but grew away from it because I preferred basketball and football, more for their stature as popular sports (and because I was better at both).

In high school, when we did a unit on soccer, I remembered some of why I used to love the game, but being fairly close to major knee injuries I didn’t like the constant running for long periods of time, and sadly being one of the more accurate kickers on the teams I rarely got the ball if I didn’t get it myself. Maybe it sounds selfish to others but I wanted the damn ball so I could score and win for the team (kinda like Cooper, perhaps?). But after getting all the PE credits I needed I didn’t take any more classes, and due to injuries never tried out for the school teams.

When the World Cup in 2010 rolled around (a good 9 years later) I got back into soccer, but as a fan, because of the hype and because I love my country and support it in all sporting events. The group stage was exciting, although I missed one match, and when we played in the Round of 16 I was watching with excitement. We lost, but I had caught the bug again. The final was a great match, and Spain deserved to win.

November before last, when SF was started, I got into the Timbers more than ever, and here I remain to this day. I now have a season ticket, and love doing anything with the friends I’ve made thru the Timbers Army. And now I’ve gone and started playing again, as a Keeper for one of the Northern Alliance’s indoor teams, and will be playing when we make the move to outdoor under the TAFC banner.

However, lots of my friends don’t quite understand why I embrace soccer. Some of them have the same view of soccer as I used to, too much running, not enough scoring, etc. They just don’t understand. I equate the game to football’s running game or basketball’s alley oop; the football reference, you pound the ball on the ground for a number of plays, then open things up with a play-fake, get the long pass and the crowd goes nuts, or for basketball pass the ball around, off-ball players move to position the defense awkwardly, and then you get the cut to the rim where the D is weakest, and when you get the lob for the dunk the crowd goes wild.

It’s no different for soccer to me. You pass the ball around to get a good feel for how the other side is going to defend, you exploit gaps in the defense and when you finally get the ball in the net it’s pure euphoria.

People can say all they want that soccer is boring. All it means is that they don’t understand it.