The Beautiful Game

I didn’t grow up with soccer. I’m finding it now, in my forties, and this summer it finally clicked.

Half of it was the company. We chased matches all over Knoxville — Orange Hat Brewing to watch Scotland bow out, the U.S.–Belgium game when we struck out at four different spots before ending up in a friend’s living room with thirty other people, a night at Printshop Beer Co. in South Knox watching Spain beat that same Belgium side. Somewhere in there I stopped being a curious bystander and started loving the game.

Then I watched Spain grind out a 2–0 win over a tough France team. Spain’s second goal looked almost boring on paper — a simple give-and-go, a pass and a run into the space that opened up. No trickery. Just two players who trusted the timing.

I watched it back three times.

They call soccer “the beautiful game,” and I’ve been chewing on why. I think it’s the space.

The most beautiful passing team I’ve ever seen wasn’t even a soccer team — it was the San Antonio Spurs at their peak. That 2014 group moved the ball like it was allergic to standing still: the extra pass, the pass that sets up the pass, five players touching it before an open shot appeared. People called that the beautiful game, too. It was.

I learned this the hard way. Years ago I was the front-ensemble caption head for the Madison Scouts, and my partner-in-crime on the battery was a writer named Roger Carter. Most drumline writing fills in every subdivision — it’s how you keep a dozen drummers locked together. Roger’s didn’t. His was funky, rhythmically irrational, full of space — brutal to clean, and absolutely magnetic to hear. The space was the whole thing.

It’s the same with any groove: the notes you don’t play are what make the ones you do land.

The flashy touches get the applause. But the beautiful part — the part that actually works — lives in the spacing and the timing. The stuff nobody claps for.

So here’s what I’ve been sitting with as summer tips toward a very full fall: where am I forcing the ball? Where am I crowding something that would be more beautiful with a little more space?

Maybe you’re forcing one somewhere too.