THE WAY I SEE IT
In Autumn, these guys are playing football,
and by April those others are on to their baseball.
One is never the same as the other. That's basic
American stuff, and then, long back, basketball
snuck in, and then soccer too. Ghetto guys, long
and black, and then the small leg-muscle guys for
soccer - Portuguese, Irish, British, and all those
South American franchises of I don't know what.
Running around the fields in shorts, pounding the
shit out of each other, first chance they get. 'How
soccer saved the world,' or explains the world, or
something - that was a book once I tried to read.
All gibberish, with the conclusion already made,
before the guy even stared writing the book, so,
no mystery there, and certainly no discovery either.
If you're not going to get to something new by
reading a book, I figure, what then is the use?
This guy already knew his conclusions before he
began. All he had to do was make the pieces fit.
I would have liked it much better if he was at
least learning along the way - and if, by the time
got to the end, and while he was writing the book,
he'd realized he couldn't even really make the
case he'd set out to make. He'd have to say -
'How soccer saved the world? I haven't a clue,
and I really not sure it did!' Now that would
be a book worth reading.
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