We’ve all got an origin story.
Maybe you were there in 1996, an MLS original still kicking after 20 years. Maybe it was a slow burn, years of passing interest slowing blossoming into full-blown fandom. Maybe you’re a recent arrival, an MLS 2.0 convert sold on the era of expansion and Designated Players. Maybe a game of FIFA, World Cup hoopla or a free ticket sucked you in.
My love affair with the beautiful game was sparked by a combination of the latter, but I can pinpoint my fascination with Major League Soccer to a single match, and once a year I’m reminded why my life’s turned into something resembling (fine, the definition of) an obsession.
- Watch #LAvNY on Sunday (9:30 pm ET; FS1 in the US, MLS LIVE in Canada)
Nine years ago, in Aug. 2007, I was 21 years old, a junior at the University of Kansas who’d just swapped the monotony of business school for – gratuitous plug here – the William Allen White School of Journalism. I decided I wanted to be a sports writer, and after spending the previous summer gorging myself on the World Cup, I was soccer mad.
I was not, however, particularly familiar with MLS. I'd watched the occasional match on television and, two months prior, attended my first-ever game, buying tickets for my dad, brother and I to watch Eddie Johnson, GAM before there was GAM, score a hat trick for the Kansas City Wizards against the New York Red Bulls at Arrowhead Stadium. It was a fun afternoon, but I was hardly hooked.
But on the night of Aug. 18, 2007, I flipped to Fox Soccer Channel to watch David Beckham’s first start for the Galaxy and see whether the hype for then-US national team prospect Jozy Altidore was warranted. The result was a 5-4 thriller in front of 66,237 fans at Giants Stadium, arguably the most exciting game in the league’s history.
I watched it alone. My roommates didn’t care, and there was no Twitter timeline to keep me company. Still, I remember feeling gob smacked as Juan Pablo Angel, Edson Buddle, Carlos Pavon, Landon Donovan and, of course, Beckham and Altidore provided the highlights in a wild game played in front of a revved up crowd, then the largest in MLS history.
I’d spent the past year teaching myself the ins and outs of European and international soccer, going nuts when Benny Feilhaber's volley beat Mexico, poring over UEFA Cup box scores, marveling at the perpetually smooth Dimitar Berbatov and watching countless Youtube highlight videos set to thumping techno beats. And yet, for whatever reason, I’d largely skipped over the domestic game.
No more. I was so inspired that I marched into the University Daily Kansan sports editor’s office – OK, up to his desk – the next Monday and pitched a weekly soccer column. People, like me, needed to know what they were missing. For whatever reason, he said yes. Thanks again, Travis.
My first column? An ode to Angel, Luciano Emilio, Jaime Moreno and the other South American attackers bringing “imagination” to the league. The genesis of that column? You guessed it, that nine-goal match at the Meadowlands.
And while I’m bummed that the rest of my columns didn’t survive a server change – damn you “404 Error” – I’ll be forever grateful I skipped going out that Saturday night in 2007 to tune in to an obscure cable sports channel and listen to Max Bretos scream “Yessssssss” over and over. It’s no exaggeration to say that night changed my life.
These days, I don’t circle the New York-LA on the calendar, but every year when the two teams meet, I’m reminded why I’m here, why I devote so much of my professional (and personal life) to following this league and why I don’t ever see my dedication to the domestic game waning.
We all have an origin story, and this is mine.
How did you fall in love with the beautiful game? When did you become an MLS fan? Share your origin story in the comment section below!
