I Finally Understand the Beautiful Game, But I Have A Lot to Learn
On finding love for football again, Ted Lasso, and Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby
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This letter is about Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, published in 1992 — the same year the Premier League began. But to get to my thoughts on the book, I have to tell you about my relationship with football or soccer or whatever you want to call it.
I played soccer for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fraction of my life, or so it felt then. In grade school, most of my friends decided we wanted to play soccer together. I can’t remember why we all went in on that specific sport (Maybe because it was the only co-ed sport?), but we did. It was so much fun for a little while. We’d meet after school and play the game. I always viewed it as a nice social activity, but I really started to look forward to playing the game every week. Unfortunately, the coach wasn’t the best or friendliest and sucked all the fun out of the game for me.
The sport was still around me during those years. Two of my closest childhood friends were always playing it. They'd play at a local club when they weren’t playing at school. I can remember kicking the ball around at that club while they practiced. I was mediocre at it (I was better at flag football and softball), but I knew they were really great. I could see how much they loved it.
But I never found a love for it again — until 2020, when I watched Ted Lasso.