Today I went to a football game at Yankee Stadium. Or, as we call it in the U.S., soccer.
It was really fun. I had not been to a live soccer game in years, since my time in Brazil. And in the end the home team won, which always makes (nearly) everybody happy.
There were lots of kids there — a lot more kids than I’ve ever seen at a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. It’s great that young kids in New York are interested in soccer. I’m not sure what it means. Perhaps it represents a demographic shift, or maybe young kids just find soccer more fun and exciting than baseball or American football. Whatever the reason, I think it’s good.
Speaking of American football, we had a bit of a chat about why that game is called football. I had always wondered about that. After all, you don’t really use your feet to play it. And come to think of it, you don’t really use a ball. More of an oblong shaped thing.
Somebody said that it’s called “football” because the “ball” is a foot long. That sounded intriguing, so I looked it up when I got home. And it turns out that’s not true. The actual reason, as well as the reason we call the other game “soccer”, involves a complicated and somewhat politically charged history.
But this has been an exhausting election season, and I find myself tired of political football. So maybe I’ll go into that history another time. For now, I’m just going to kick the ball down the field.