A Writer's Biography, Volume II, Part 6: My obsession with soccer
Honestly, there's been more than a few hints that I'm obsessed with soccer/association football/football.
The origins of the obsession come back to me, in fits and spurts. You have to understand, those of you who only remember 21st century America, that if you were ever transported to late 20th century America, you would find much of it to be familiar, yet there would also be some profound differences. For the purposes of keeping on topic, I'm going to only stick to what it was like for those who had an interest in soccer.
By the time I was growing up, soccer already had a century-plus history in the world under the rules and regulations that had been started up in an English pub around the time of the American Civil War. I knew none of this history growing up. I knew soccer was a game where you kicked the ball and used everything but your hands to move it, but that was it. There weren't any games I could either watch on TV or hear on the radio, and the first match I ever saw live were …
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