Warrior Burgers
As many of my former students can tell you – I am NOT a soccer guy. I coached track and field, and wrestling, and cross country. I was a sprinter, a wrestler, a swimmer and a tennis player. But, except for brief excursions in England where I tried to learn the game from my cousins (I did better with cricket), soccer was not my sport.
In fact, soccer became even worse for me when I was part of the high school administration. The sport for me was Tuesday and Thursday night duty at the soccer games, keeping the students in the stands, and worse, the parents, in control. I didn’t learn much about soccer during those games, but I did find all sorts of creative ways of saying, “You can’t yell THAT at the (refs, coaches, other team, your kid).” The saving grace; there was always a “Warrior Burger” out by the pine trees at the half, thanks to the Athletic Boosters.
Don’t get me wrong – I have incredible respect for the athleticism and talent soccer players bring to the field (pitch). The conditioning required for ninety minutes and more of continual movement, marked by explosive sprints, deft turns, and physical blows, is incredible. Add that to the learned talent of manipulating a ball with your feet, body, and head; sending it to the right place at the right time, make good soccer players amazing to watch. It’s not just a place to scout for sprinters, jumpers and half-milers (though that works too).
Late to the Game
So it’s surprising that I got caught in the US soccer team’s run at the World Cup. I was late to that as well, drawn in by the match between the young US squad and venerable England. Everyone expected an English blow-out. Instead, the shocking Americans earned a 0-0 draw, putting themselves in contention to make the final, sixteen team “knock-out” round.
But the US needed to beat Iran, a win not a tie, to earn the right to the final rounds.
The World Cup this year is in Qatar, a “modern” nation that still practices Islamic Sharia law. An early controversy was when, at the last minute, the government banned alcohol from the soccer stadiums. Budweiser, who paid $75 million for the sales rights, was not pleased. But more importantly, Sharia law views homosexuality as an abomination, possibly punishable by death. In a modern sports world, being a gay athlete has become as readily accepted as being of a different culture or race. Several national teams had some form of protest of Qatar’s actions. The German team removed their rainbow armbands, but took their team picture with hands covering their mouths.
And the Iranian team comes from a nation in crisis where women are demanding freedom from an even more restrictive version of the same Sharia Law. Symbolically the protests focus on chadors, the religious head scarves that the “Morality Police” require women to wear. But it goes far beyond that. Thousands have been protesting in the streets for months. Hundreds have been killed by police, hundreds more arrested, with some facing the death penalty.
Our Captain
The Iranian soccer team has had success. All they needed was a draw with the US to reach the final sixteen. And while the team publicly refused to sing the Iranian national anthem at their opening match, the state security apparatus put them “back in line”. The players were threatened with imprisonment for themselves and their families still in Iran if they made any further protest. As a coach, I don’t think those kind threats improve play. Look at Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi team, where losing team members were physically tortured by the secret police. The promise of torture didn’t make them better, just desperate.
Meanwhile the Iranian press took an opportunity to attack the young American team captain, 23 year-old Tyler Adams. A reporter took Adams to task for “mispronouncing” Iran (‘eye-ran’ rather than ‘ear-rahn’), then asked, “… (A)re you okay to be representing a country that has so much discrimination against black people in its own borders?” Rather than respond in kind, Adams quietly apologized for the pronunciation, then said:
“There’s discrimination everywhere you go. In the U.S., we’re continuing to make progress every single day…through education, I think it’s super important. Like you just educated me now on the pronunciation of your country. It’s a process. As long as you see progress, that’s the most important thing.”
The Game – and Next
He was thoughtful and clear. And the next day, the US team took it to the Iranians in a hard fought match. The US took the lead with a dramatic score near the end of the first half, with twenty-four year old Christian Pulisic colliding with the Iranian goalie after his shot went in. Pulisic suffered a “pelvic contusion” in the collision (a knee to the groin), and left the match for the hospital at the end of the half.
The US was able to protect their lead through the second half, in spite of the more than desperate Iranian efforts. After the seemingly unending “added-time” (time added onto the regulation match) the US team moved onto the round of sixteen. Meanwhile, fireworks went off an Iran – the protestors celebrating a win by rivals that support their efforts. And for the Iranian players – they laid on the field, avoiding for a few more minutes their fate.
Politics has always been a part of world sport. Jesse Owens faced down Nazism in their home stadium in 1936. Tommie Smith and John Carlos endured the wrath of the US Olympic Committee for silently making their views clear in 1968. And Tyler Adams, quietly made his point as well – both in the press conference, then on the field.
The US team plays the Netherlands on Saturday at 10am. I’ll have to check that out. I guess American soccer doesn’t like the Dutch either.
