The whole world is watching soccer (football)
Right this minute, more than a billion people are watching televisions, projector screens, or for the very lucky, live action, as the World-Cup soccer/football championship game goes on. I avoid soccer. Watching soccer brings an ache to my heart. I used to be a soccer mom, and I dreamed of the day I’d see my son in professional competition.
Admittedly, I was never a big fan. The sport seemed rather pointlessly athletic, with all that running back and forth, chasing a small ball across such a large field. It reminded me of the original video game Pong in its agonizingly slow and monotonous action.
I will NEVER be a soccer mom (Ha Ha – Joke’s on me)
When my son Taiga was young, he wanted to join the local weekend soccer club with his friends. There was no way it would fit into our schedule, as I worked Saturdays and we had another activity scheduled on Sundays. I was glad for the inability to indulge him. I was already a Shorinji Kempo mom, a kendo mom, a gymnastics mom, a swimming mom, and an English mom (we were living in Japan and I was the teacher and the kids had to learn). Soccer was the last thing I wanted to add to my obligations.
I thought he would lose interest, but when we moved back to Canada when he was 10, he persisted with his desire to join a club. The following year he finally got his wish. We were in western Washington, and I managed to get him onto a team despite our late registration. To his credit, he played hard. He loved it. Two practices a week weren’t enough for him, in his book. Unfortunately, he had been placed in the bottom team of the local league. They didn’t score a single goal that season. The other kids whined and complained about practice drills and playing in the rain.
A traveling soccer mom – even better!
The following spring, we heard that a coach was holding try-outs for a traveling competitive team. Taiga couldn’t wait! He flew through the trials and was accepted onto the team. He had found a group of motivated kids with a former pro soccer player for a coach. There were no other teams in our area that played at their level, so we traveled a lot. Some games were over 2 hours away. The kids loved it though, and so did Tagia.
Taiga knew he was going to be a professional soccer player some day. He found a soccer program in Spain that would give him one year of intensive training for his junior year in high school. We were all excited. It would be a great opportunity. Taiga started learning bits of Spanish where he could, as classes weren’t offered at the junior high school.
As his team improved, their coach pushed them harder. Taiga soaked it up, but some of the other kids started to fade. They were better than all the other teams in their age group in the league, and for some of the players, that was enough. Taiga was frustrated again. His friends in Japan were still playing, and the grass started to look a lot greener over there.
The beginning of the end
In the end, Taiga decided to move back to Japan. He wanted to be with his childhood friends, and he wanted to play soccer in a place where everyone was serious about it and nobody whined or complained. His prospects here were great. He was a star player, and would likely have gained a lot of attention as he matured into the sport. Taiga felt that the overall level of soccer in our area, and in the USA in general, was lower than that of Japan. Given the choice between being a star player on a mediocre team or a mediocre player on a star team, Taiga chose the latter.
In Japan, he got into a good club. Kids from the club were often scouted into the professional league. It was a huge club though, and most of the kids had been playing serious soccer since they were 4 or 5 years old. Taiga was good, but he just didn’t have the years of experience of the other kids. No matter how hard he trained, when it came time for games, he spent most of it on the bench.
This year, he quit soccer. It broke my heart.
I used to be a soccer mom. I never wanted to be one. Now I wish I could be one again.