Remembrance

I don't post to this blog very often. You can find me posting under this psuedonym on the international game, on the big leagues like the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A - but not on Canadian soccer.

I guess it doesn't seem to be as worth the time - especially when blogging is hardly my full-time job. I have two real jobs: teaching and raising a family.

I really would like to blog here more often. To be honest, I'm kind of fixated with the two domain names I own: beautifulgame.ca and thebeautifulgame.ca, among others. I've loved trying to get the great domain names ever since the Internet emerged those few short years ago. I've got a few good domain names - some of them footie realted - in my possession. I use the term "possess" but I hope I'm not like Gollum trying keep a "precious" ring. I like domain names because they represent ideas.

And - as my wife will atest with raised eyebrows - I am an ideas guy.

So - despite the fact that I am interested in the "idea" of Canadian soccer and more specifically the idea of the "beautiful game" in Canada, I still don't blog about it.

Not a big enough idea I guess. Not interesting enough.

One thing that does intrigue me though is coincidences. I love coincidences. I am not a conventionally spiritual person. Some people having even accused me of being an atheist, an agnostic, a... well you get the picture. Other people do know that I do hold the door open to special things that happen. I am always curious about why these special things - and especially coincidences - happen.

And the coincidence of the day for me revolves around Canadian soccer.

This morning I stayed home from my teaching job because my ten-year-old boy was sick with the flu. As a result, I ended up enjoying the luxury of a Starbucks coffee and Globe and Mail newspaper at our dinning room table with the morning sun streaming in. Despite having been an Internet addict for years and looking forward to a beautful digital media future, I still love the breadth of a good broadsheet: the way you can see the big picture of numerous articles side-by-side; the way you can turn a big page by hand and watch the text and pictures roll like a big, beautiful wave. You just cannot replicate this feeling with a computer. It really is a more pleasant way to read the daily news, than a computer.

So there I am flipping the pages of the broadsheet, sipping my coffee, listening to my son sniffle away while watching some mind-numbing content on the "Family" Channel, when I come across a soccer piece written by Paul James. Here is the online version. Paul James played on Canada's only ever World Cup team of 1986. And I played one season for Paul in 1989 when he was player-coach of the Ottawa Intrepid in the now defunct Canadian Soccer League.

Paul was a good player and a good coach and he and I get along but I have to say that as I read his words, I just keep shaking my head.

Paul's piece is about the defection of Vancouver-born Jacob Lensky to the Czech Republic's national team program. I have to say that Paul contradicts himself when he on the one hand calls Lemsky - and also Owen Hargreaves and Jonathan De Guzman - selfish for turning their backs on the Canadian national team and then proceeds to criticize the Canadian soccer system:

"Positive changes abound with Major League Soccer entering the landscape, but it is a drop in the ocean for what needs to be done. Canada has infrastructure problems that hinder the motivation for young Canadian players to keep playing the game at a significant level. The country’s philosophy of fun first is all well and good for the recreational level, but for the elite levels, a professional approach should be first."

Paul also admits that "Canada lacks a soccer identity."

And yet he still insists that "All certified coaches should be mandated to encourage players to play for Canada, not some other country."

As I read this, I shake my head and look over at my son on the couch.

I ask him how he's feeling, with one of those tragic H1N1 stories looming in my subconscious.

"Fine Dad," he says and goes back to watching TV.

My son is a pretty good young player. Not great but good enough to have recently been "identified" by the Academy Director of the Sunderland Football Club of the Premier League.

And I have to say that I am just like De Guzman's Dad and Hargreaves Dad: if my boy were ever good enough, I never advise him to play for Canada.

Why would I knowingly put him into anything - a neighbourhood, a school, a sport, a team - that lacks idenity, that lacks anything? Why would I give a child that I am trying to nurse back to health during H1N1 paranoia into something that "lacks"?

In fact - and I do admit to having this thought long before reading James' piece - I'd go for the best possible senario; isn't that what parents do?; I'd encourage my son to use his mother's English passport and give it a go with the Three Lions, like Hargreaves did. And it goes without saying I'd much rather have him play for Sunderland (or Bayern Munich or Manchester United - like Hargreaves) than settle for say - Toronto FC.

And I like TFC! I'm a season ticket holder.

But Paul doesn't see it that way. He calls Lemsky and Hargreaves and De Guzman, "turncoats". He therefore calls me and my son "turncoats".

I get up from my beautiful paper and my steaming coffee on this day off from work with my son. And I stand infront of a window that presents me with a wonderous downtown-Toronto-sunny-autumn-day-leaves-blowing-around-a-busy-street-scene: and I think about the word "turncoat" and I don't buy it.

I am not a turncoat.

I love Toronto.

I love Canada.

So what am I?

What is the truth?

I guess I don't love Canadian soccer.

Maybe that's it.

Maybe that's why I don't blog here much.

Maybe there is nothing much to say.

Maybe there is no beauty.

Hmm.

Maybe that's it.

No beauty.

We have a game. But we pretend to play it.

We pretend to coach it.

We pretend to organize it.

And people who want the real thing, true beauty, proper passion for the beautiful game - go abroad.

We have no beautiful game here.

It's a lie.

---

Whew. Got that off my chest.

I apologize to you the two-and-a-half people who are reading this post for that run-on thought. I haven't even brought in the coincidence part and you must be wanting to get your own coffee and newspaper. But wait it's evening now. A beer? Me, I'm sipping a nice little Chianti (Yes - it's foreign. But the Italians are good at wine. And at football/soccer/calcio. (Yes - I drink very little Canadian wine.))

The coincidence came tonight by way of an email from a friend who lives in my beautiful Toronto neighbourhood.

He alerted me to this piece, written by Jason de Vos, who is now a CBC match analyst but once captained the Canadian National Team and played my position - centreback.

De Vos' piece is entitled "The other side of the Asmir Begovic story" and seems to be written or posted on the very same day - Tuesday November 10th (the day before Remembrance Day) - as Paul James' piece.

(Fantastic - it's as if James and de Vos and their editors called each other up and decided to have a duel.)

Goalkeeper Begovic became infamous this year for turning his back (another turncoat!) on Canadian soccer by choosing instead to play for Bosnia - a team which then had a chance to qualify for the South African World Cup.

In his piece, de Vos seems to take a more balanced approach than James. And I guess the big difference between the two pieces is that de Vos actually went to the trouble of talking to Begovic.

Funny what a little player-to-player heart-t0-heart can turn up.

It turns out that Begovic could have gone to play for the England U21s (they were very interested) but chose Bosnia only AFTER Canada failed to communicate with him for over a year.

So let me re-state this for emphasis: he could have gone to play for glorious England but he actually chose his birthplace (Bosnia) because Canada FAILED to communicate with him.

Here's what de Vos says of that outcome:

"We don't have enough talented players in our system to let the ones we do have slip through our fingers. Begovic wanted to play for Canada and is exactly the kind of player that we should have done more to keep hold of. "

De Vos's approach to a similar issue, a similar question, on the very same day, the day before we remember our fallen soldiers - is quite different from that of Paul James.

I wonder why that is?

Where are they coming from?

James (currently a coach/manager) is quick to use the military word turncoat, while de Vos' (currently a journalist) first instinct is to talk to the player.

Maybe this is a good lesson for me too.

I've been inside the system as a player and as a coach. I didn't accomplished as much as James or de Vos but I did suffer a lot from what I thought was a dysfunctional soccer system; I sufferred enough to quit playing, quit coaching, get angry, start stockpiling domain names and start ruminating about beauty, the ideal.

I need to remember this stuff though. And I should be weary of the ideal.

I was a soccer soldier once. And I loved it plenty despite all of the problems. But I hated it too. And now I have a son. A future soldier, a future suitor to the beautiful game.

I really shouldn't impose my baggage on him when the time comes, if the time comes.

So what should I do?

I think that if a club comes calling, a country comes calling for him, I won't decide, I won't judge.

What I'll do is ask him. ("How are you feeling son?" "Fine Dad.")

It's his game.

His country.

His life.

And only he can bring all three of those things together and make them beautiful.

That would make for a nice "coincidence".

So, yes, I'll talk to him. That's what I'll do. That's the healthy thing to do.

And maybe by the time my son's old enough, we won't be remembering turncoats but instead be cheering on players who've chosen for themselves an improved Canadian soccer system they can serve with pride and trust.