We got game

Okay, you guessed it... this picture wasn't taken in Korea. It was passed on by my brother and I liked it so much that I've decided to immortalize it by posting it to my journal. This was taken on a sunday afternoon, after the Backbar Rovers (soon to be the New Belgium Rovers) and Steinclub played games on adjacent fields. While I always thought our greatest talent was not our
ability to kick a soccer ball, but our ability to drink beer (note the Steak, Taters, and Gravy in hand). However, since I kicked around Saturday I realized that our soccer skills aren't so bad either. Despite what the rest of the world thinks, there are some pretty good American soccer players.

I had been here three weeks to the day before I finally touched a soccer ball. In the meantime I had conversed with people from Nigeria, New Zealand, Great Britain, Croatia, Slovenia, and of course, Korea about the world's game. It truly is an international language as I have found that the conversation between two completely foreign strangers perks up immediately when I mention the beautiful game and how I love to play it. It seems that everytime I meet a non-American, the one thing that we always have that we can talk about is soccer. After all, every guy outside of America knows who Steven Gerrard is.

Now talking and playing are two different things, and I wasn't sure what the skill level would be like and whether or not I could hang. After Saturday's game, I now know how silly I was for thinking that. While the gents had great footskills and were fairly quick, I didn't face the kind of pressure I got accustomed to at SportPort (the site of the photo). All of those times I got beat up by behemoth defenders definetly prepared me for the challenges I easily absorbed Saturday. Not that one game tells everything about the whole soccer culture, but suffice to say that the talent I faced in St. Louis, Missouri more than stands up to the talent I faced Saturday. I promptly e-mailed my dad and brother, telling them the game results (I won't toot my own horn here, but they know what happened) and my dad had an interesting response. He said that the pitch is a great place to represent my country in a positive way and I strongly agree with that statement. I wish more Americans would play.

I'm not really sure what the point of this post is (a common phenomenon), so I guess I'll just say that it is an ode to the game I love and a tribute to all of the great players back home. Miss you bhoys!!