It is a realization that I have put off for as long as possible. Fought it, really, like the very idea of growing old.
But there is no more denying the patently obvious.
I live in a soccer city.
We all live in a soccer city. Perhaps one of the most vibrant soccer cities in the whole of the US of A. A veritable hub of hands-free athletic ability. Quite abruptly, the game has become a part of what it means to live in Atlanta.
Understand that this is nothing I ever expected – or particularly wanted – to say. I had spent a lifetime dismissing soccer as basically unnecessary, coming at it from all the predictable angles of the ugly American sports fan. Too little scoring. Too much flopping. Too foreign. Its proponents a little too smug.
But it has become impossible to remain on that comfortable island of denial. I share traffic jams now with way too many cars that have been redecorated with Atlanta United stickers. And have encountered too many shoppers wearing the Five Stripes colors on my hurried pass-through of any organic food aisle at the grocery store.
And the children. It seems an entire generation here is being bent to the will of soccer.
Sunday was the loudest statement yet of soccer’s place in the Atlanta zeitgeist (a word to be used only in soccer stories).
With the World Cup final being played a world away, maybe 30,000 people showed up early at Mercedes-Benz Stadium to view France and Croatia score a combined six goals – four of them off a French foot. The Francophiles in the building went nuts. There is nothing those two countries engage in that should interest anyone whose money doesn’t come in at least four colors. Unless, of course, you live in a soccer city.
Then, with the world stage properly set, an announced MLS-record crowd of 72,243 – 208 more than the previous record, also held by Atlanta United – filled the place for a game against the Seattle Sounders. Just into its second season, Atlanta United has the five biggest gates ever in the league.
Scoring – which Americans still appreciate – was not as plentiful off Northside Drive as it was in Russia. Atlanta United struggled to a 1-1 draw with a Seattle team that has lost half its games and has found scoring to be as difficult as nuclear fusion. Not a result that should excite the big audience, especially seeing Atlanta United played the final 27 minutes, plus a bunch of extra time, with a one-man advantage.
For all the juice of a soccer game in Atlanta, Atlanta United has just two wins in its past five games at The Benz. There’s a lot of wasted energy in this building.
This was but one more in a 34-game MLS season, a season that slowly unfolds from March to October. And yet these fans showed out in almost national-championship-game profusion, and once more put on a show that is every bit the equal of the game itself.
It all came wrapped in the usual package that can’t be reproduced on, say, a Falcons Sunday. Unlike the NFL product, there is nothing manufactured about the sounds and sights of an Atlanta United game. It’s all organic, between the chanting of the supporter groups, the flags waving at one end of the field (Sunday’s best, the largest bearing the distinctly southern encouragement: “Bless Your Heart”) and the kind of passion that makes it almost a sin to actually sit in your seat.
Atlanta fancies itself a center of that which is both profound (civil rights) and playful (college football). And now it takes on another identity – a model for what professional soccer might be in America.
What soccer interest that lived underground here has geysered to the surface with the coming of Atlanta United. With that has come the unleashing of a fan base that reflects the youth and vigor and diversity of its home.
I fit none of the game’s demographics. I’ll never pledge any real fealty to the game. But I’m coming around to being a proud citizen of a soccer city.
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