Folks, it’s getting harder to write about soccer when:
- a) there’s no soccer going on,
- b) rosters are pretty much set,
- c) investors aren’t interested in planting new teams when they aren’t sure when we’ll ever play again, and
- d) the transfer window is closed.
What to do? Maybe something good to do is start a book club. A soccer book club, specifically. I might even nerd out and get some of the Barrel Proof people to read soccer books with me and we can talk about them on the podcast since there’s nothing else we can really talk about. They don’t know this yet, but I’ve already come up with an assignment for this week:
The Ball is Round, by David Goldblatt. If you wanted to learn about the history of football games, from the ancient Chinese to the Aztecs (not AxTeX) to the days-long games English people would play over days in the spring, this is the place to start. It can get a little dry and meander-y, but this book is a big part of why I got so deep into soccer. At over 1,000 pages, it’s admittedly a big lift, but I think it’s worth it.
Join me! Or don’t! But I’ll get through a couple chapters tonight, maybe, and then we can talk about it or something. VAMOS MORADOS!
