The Covenant of Soccer

I was drunk in Italy in the summer of 1996. Specifically, I was drunk in Florence. I ordered just a couple of glasses of wine, but my brother was 16 at the time and enamored of Europe’s libertine attitude towards drinking. He kept ordering what he’d heard about in movies. “I’ll have a Manhattan.” “I’ll have a Martini.” “What’s a good Scotch.” Then he’d have a sip, decide he didn’t like it, slide it over to me and start over. “I’ll have an Old Fashioned.” He wasn’t paying so he tried a lot of drinks.

That particular afternoon, we were wandering around looking in expensive windows and passing through narrow streets when a mini-rapture happened. Instead of gradually thinning, crowds cleared. There were pockets of people left looking around, as bewildered as us, and I could tell by t-shirts or ball caps that these were mostly Americans. I was wearing a “Jimmy Blake for Senate” shirt. It was eerie. I wasn’t alone—I’ll speak for all the tourists scattered about the city—in wondering “Do they do siestas here, too?”

There was a roar and I looked towards the nearest shop window. A few cries came from everywhere; open windows, second stories, a café with empty sidewalk tables. And again. Louder from the café. Inside was where I watched my first soccer game in a public place without someone asking me how offsides works. I wasn’t the drunkest person there.

Italy was playing some team in the early stages of Euro 96. It didn’t matter who. Everyone was glued to two small tv sets, one at each end of the bar. We’d catch a bit of the tournament here and there on that trip, but we flew back before Italy played again so it’d be years before I’d be in a room that cared that much about the outcome of a soccer game. That would happen in Ireland, 2002.

I’d just kissed the Blarney Stone. The line is awkward and runs up a stairway that I remember incongruently, so probably imprecisely, as claustrophobically tight but missing walls, at points, and a roof. There were exaggeratedly verbose barkers near the approach. The stone lies up top on the castle roof and is placed such that you have to lie down on your back and lean over a gap so that while your legs and torso, held by a Blarney Castle-person, are on a concrete floor your shoulders and head are dangling over a two- or three-story drop, hands overhead, pressed against the opposite side of the gap as you stretch upside down to kiss the gab-giving rock.

There’s a grate, a modern addition probably named after whoever last fell to their doom, to keep people from falling to their doom, and probably a cheerful/maudlin Irish ditty about whoever it was and how the flowers, they turned from pale to blue when naïve Niamh fell through the flue or something like that. A second Blarney Castle-person sprays the kissing spot with Windex when you’re done and wipes it clean for the next chatty aspirant.

There’s a pub not far from the castle and that’s where the bulk of kissers headed to supplement the stone’s gift with some whisky and/or ale. It’s probably a talkative place most days, but the day I was there, Ireland was playing Saudi Arabia in a World Cup Group match. The bar was four deep and outside of the ordering chaos it was elbows-in standing room. Every challenge caused the crowd to roar and bounce a little and every shot—each team had nine that game—resulted in a jump. Beer spilled everywhere. The floor was three inches deep in suds. Ireland won 3-1 and I had a few pulls with my new friends, who were all around me. It was one of the most fun game-watching experiences I’ve ever had. We gabbed and gabbed.

My non-soccer fan friends and those who erroneously call the game football while otherwise speaking English, think the World Cup and other international tournaments represent the highest levels of play. It’s true that those tournaments include a lot of the best talent, but participating players practice together rarely; maybe a few times a year and practice for a month before the event. A top club team like AC Milan or Borussia Dortmund is unlikely to have a player who isn’t good enough to compete for his nation and it can shop around to fill needs. Those teams practice together 10 months a year and play 38-plus games.

But your national team is your national team. I’m not an authority on eligibility rules for international soccer. I’m sure there are policies in place for when one country is dissolved or gets taken over by someone in Moscow. There’s probably a refugee/defector clause in there too, but for most players, you play for the country you were born in and that’s it. Occasionally I’ll read about a player with dual citizenship making a decision between nations, but the decision is final. Once they’ve taken the pitch in a country’s uniform, they’re ineligible to play in any other. They’re your guys. It’s a covenant. The fans are passionate.

I’ve always liked college football more than the NFL. A guy came to play for a school and that was that. There were exceptions, but they were rare. That made for passionate fans. The guys playing for our team were our guys. That’s not the case anymore. We’re taking the game away from the coaches and players and putting it in the hands of boosters and NIL collectives. My team’s virtuous star defensive back this year may be the bastard who gets away with interfering against us in some rival’s uniform next year. We’re going pro.

A good follow for Alabama fans recently tweeted “College football will be unwatchable within 7 years.” He was retweeting an article about the Big 12 possibly selling naming rights; “The Ozempic Big Twelve” or something. Moves are being made to dissolve what ties college fans to the game, to their team. The fellow’s tweet was wrong. People will still watch, but soccer will finally have something on football. Bear Bryant isn’t pleased.