Michael Ventre

Soccer is an acquired taste.  Sometimes it takes years to fully grasp the nuances of what some old player with one name once called “the beautiful game.” It isn’t simply a matter of kicking a ball past a goaltender and into a net. There’s a lot more to it than that, despite a considerable amount of evidence to the contrary.

My soccer education began years ago, in the late 1970s, while I lived in New Jersey. The New York Cosmos had organized one of the most star-studded teams that had ever existed in any sport. The front man was Pele, of course, but there was also Franz Beckenbauer, Giorgio Chinaglia, Carlos Alberto, Shep Messing and others. For further information, there’s a new film on the topic called “Once In A Lifetime,” which discusses how soccer is melting the polar ice caps and destroying our planet, although admittedly I could be getting my documentaries mixed up.

My experiences cheering on the Cosmos at Giants Stadium while standing in the beer line provided me the kind of insight most casual sports fans in the United States wouldn’t get merely by waiting every four years and then finding an English pub somewhere in a remote crevice of the community that shows the games on a satellite dish at 6 a.m.

First, there is the game itself. Everywhere else in the world it is called “futbol,” although that doesn’t fly here. If you say “futbol” in the United States when referring to soccer, a group of Minutemen may picket your home. Also, before you can even get “fut” out of your mouth, you’ll be slapped with a cease-and-desist order from the office of commissioner Paul Tagliabue.

It is often said that the languid pace of soccer is ideal for most of the world but a hard sell in this country. That’s probably why it isn’t the rage here as it is in Europe and South America. In the United States, people expect instant gratification and are unwilling to wait hours in order to witness a single score. Of course, some pundits will point out that American fans often have to wait hours for a single score in any game involving the Detroit Lions, but I digress.

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Soccer isn’t simply the random kicking of a black-and-white ball until it accidentally lands at one end, squirts past defenders and rests inside the goal. There are strategies to the game that are not always apparent to the naked eye. For example, in Italy the game is currently immersed in a scandal involving fraud, match-fixing and illegal betting, while in Germany a similar brouhaha has exploded involving referees who allegedly manipulated matches for money. So as you can see, many of the finer points of the game are usually lost on most observers, including those in the investigative branches of governments.