Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.

— Bill Shankly

Soccer is cool again, which is good news for those of us who played when nobody was watching.

In spite of the USA losing badly to Belgium on Monday, watching the World Cup and the excitement it has generated is special for an old soccer player like me, so I sat down early one morning and this weblog more or less wrote itself. 

To those of you who have read 100% of the weblogs, I will apologize in advance for using photos I’ve used before, but they fit the story, so they are here. There are a couple you've never seen, so read on.

The excitement of the FIFA World Cup is not lost on anyone.

Whether it is a story about downtown Boston running out of beer during the Tartan Army’s visit for games in Foxboro, or the controversial red card issued to America’s top scorer in the knockout round against Bosnia and Herzegovina, the news is filled with soccer stories.

To an old soccer player, this is good news.

After the last World Cup was played in the United States in 1994, soccer boomed a bit in this country. Not enough to replace football, baseball, or basketball, of course, but enough to matter. Youth leagues grew. More kids started playing. More parents started learning the rules, or at least pretending they understood offsides. The sport began to look less like something played somewhere else and more like something that belonged here, too.

Today, in addition to the men’s professional soccer league, there is a women’s professional soccer league, and most colleges and high schools have teams. The best players are on television. Their highlights are online. Kids wear their jerseys. People know their names.

It wasn’t that way when I was a soccer player.

In fact, most soccer players in those days were extremely jealous of football players, both high school and college.

Football was played on Friday night or Saturday afternoon in front of large crowds, with cheerleaders on the sideline, bands in the stands, and people in town actually aware the game was taking place.

Soccer was played on Tuesday or Friday at 3 p.m., while the buses were loading, in front of small crowds made up mostly of friends, family, and people who had wandered by looking for the parking lot.

Football players dated homecoming queens.

Soccer players dated whoever said yes when they asked.

Football players were elected class officers.

Soccer players avoided detention so they wouldn’t miss a game that started at 3 p.m.

Football players got introduced at pep rallies.

Soccer players were lucky if the morning announcements pronounced their names correctly.

That was the pecking order. We understood it. We didn’t necessarily like it, but we understood it. Football was the king of the fall. Soccer was the distant cousin who showed up early, played hard, and went home before anyone noticed.

That is one reason I enjoy seeing the attention the sport is getting now. The crowds. The flags. The national team debates. The bars packed with people at odd hours. The sudden soccer experts explaining formations to people who, two weeks earlier, thought a 4-3-3 was a parking violation.

I like it all.

The only thing I don’t get about today’s soccer is that it appears every player thinks he is auditioning for a dramatic role in a movie or television show by the way he reacts when he is touched.

Apparently, when you are touched by another player, you are supposed to collapse, scream, roll over three times, hold a body part for thirty seconds, peek through your fingers to make sure the referee is watching, and then make a miraculous recovery once your team is awarded a free kick.

When I played, I could have been called aggressive. Based on today’s standards, I probably would have qualified for ten to twenty yellow cards a game.

I was a ferocious tackler, which in soccer means I could take the ball away from you by sliding into it. If you fell, that was your fault, not mine, you wimp.

Now, before anyone reports me to the International Court of Soccer Decency, let me be clear. I am not saying players today are not tough. They are faster, stronger, better trained, better conditioned, and far more skilled than we were. They play a different game at a different speed.

But I am saying that some of them could have used one season on a high school field in the 1960s, with hard ground, cold rain, no trainer, no video review, and a referee who had to leave immediately after the game because he also worked the junior varsity football game.

That might have cut down on the acting.

My own soccer career started in ninth grade, when I tried out for the East Junior High School team, probably because I had friends who encouraged me to do so since they were already on the team.

That is how many great athletic careers begin. Not with a grand plan. Not with a lifelong dream. Not with a parent hiring a private coach when you are six years old.

Just a friend saying, “You should come out for the team.”

After an uneventful single season, I arrived at Braintree High School the next year and, for whatever reason, did not try out. I also skipped my junior year. Then, when I was a senior, I tried out for the team, probably because I had friends who encouraged me to do so since they were already on the team.

There seems to be a pattern here.

That twelfth-grade season turned out to be memorable. Braintree High School went 14-2, and only two goals were scored against us all season long.

You read that right.

Two goals.

The whole season.

If you are a math whiz, you have probably already figured out that our two losses were both 1 to nil, against eventual Massachusetts state champion and archrival Needham High School.

Needham was very good. Annoyingly good. The kind of good that makes you respect them and resent them at the same time. They were the team you measured yourself against, even when the measurement came out badly.

But that season did something important for me. It piqued my interest in playing at the college level and got me a reference from the coach. It made me think maybe I could keep playing. Maybe this sport that most people ignored had given me something I didn’t want to leave behind. (That is my actual Letter Jacket from the 60's)

There were four of us who were tight in high school, and we all played soccer.

Billy went to Babson and starred on their soccer team and, years later, became the Athletic Director there.

Jackie went to Tufts University and starred on their soccer team, and we met again at midfield as freshmen, as the co-captains of our respective college freshman soccer teams. Later in life, he went on to coach archrival Needham High School, which was a betrayal I have chosen to forgive because I am a generous person.

Mostly.

Joe went Ivy League to the University of Pennsylvania and starred on their soccer team, and we are still in touch on a regular basis.

We had no idea what life had in store for us back then. None of us did. We were just teenagers playing a sport that mattered deeply to us and only occasionally to anyone else.

But maybe that was part of the gift.

Soccer taught us to play without much applause. It taught us to prepare even when the stands were almost empty. It taught us that the game still mattered, even if most people in town were talking about football. It taught us that you could be competitive without being celebrated.

You could care deeply about something even if the world had not caught up to caring about it yet.

That is not a bad lesson to learn early.

Today’s high school soccer players are playing in a very different atmosphere with a very different vibe. I am sure the football guys are still playing in front of bigger crowds and dating the homecoming queens, but the gap in stature and appreciation for the skills required is probably a little narrower.

And that is a good thing.

At each milestone the United States Men’s Team reaches, the popularity of the sport will boom a little more. More kids will watch. More kids will play. More parents will stand on sidelines with coffee in their hands and no idea why the referee just blew the whistle. More young players will discover the joy of a perfect pass, a clean tackle, a desperate save, or a goal that comes after ten people did their jobs correctly.

As a former soccer player, I like that.

A year ago, I played in the UMass Alumni Soccer Game at the age of 74. Of course, I took a direct kick right in the face that knocked me out of the game for a bit, but unlike today’s soccer actors, I took a break and came right back in.

I am not saying that was smart.

I am saying it was consistent.

There is something wonderful about being back on a soccer field after all those years. The legs are slower. The lungs are less cooperative. The brain still sees the opening, but the body files an appeal. You remember where you are supposed to go, but getting there takes longer than it used to.

Still, for a few minutes, you are back.

Back to the field. Back to the sound of the ball. Back to the old instincts. Back to the game that once took place at 3 p.m. while the buses were loading and almost nobody was watching.

And maybe that is why this World Cup attention feels so good.

It is not just that soccer is finally getting noticed.

It is that those of us who played when almost nobody noticed can smile a little and say, “We told you it was a great game.”

We may not have had big crowds.

We may not have had cheerleaders.

We may not have dated homecoming queens.

But we had the game.

And all these years later, the world has come around to our way of thinking.

So yes, I will watch the World Cup. I will cheer for the United States. I will complain about the acting. I will second-guess the referee. I will explain offsides to anyone foolish enough to sit near me. I will remember Braintree, Needham, UMass, and a group of old friends who had no idea what life had in store for them.

And every time the crowd roars for a soccer game in America, I will think about those quiet 3 p.m. fields and smile.

Because the soccer players finally got their moment.

And some of us are still standing.

Even after taking one in the face.

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