Football? Soccer? Futbol?

Last summer as I traveled around (mostly Eastern) Europe, the backdrop of the entire experience was the concurrent Euro Cup championship. I watched Greeks boo the Turks in Athens, Turks cheer the Turks in Istanbul, and a variety of nationalities (Sweden, France, Holland, Poland) patriotically shout their various anthems at the television in our shared flat in Estonia. I watched Russia lose in an Estonian bar, and the Germans get slaughtered in a Polish beer garden. Not only was football (hereafter referred to as "futbol" to avoid any confusion with the fully-padded American homonym) ever-present, it was also a good lot of fun.

I started my summer 2008 trip watching the Champion's League final between Manchester United & Chelsea, broadcast from Moscow. Apologies to Duff and Larissa for that tough loss, still felt the next year when Barcelona knocked off Chelsea in the semi-finals before destroying Mann-U (a game which, again, started my summer travels in 2009).

In short, my experiences outside the United States have thus far been seriously intertwined in futbol. It is surprising then, and a little depressing, that despite this international intimacy, I had yet to actually watch an international game live (there is one exception, for which I will be eternally greatful to my friend Sam Chapa, who took me to a Mexico league game when I was on spring break in Monterrey - a welcome home team defeat of the hated Jaguares).

Further emasculating me, in my own eyes if not necessarily those of my inquisitors, has been my absence of familiarity with the MLS. For those of you who don't know what the MLS is, don't worry, you're in the majority. While it was initiated with some fanfare many years ago - "Finally, a professional US Soccer League!" - and it does retain some notable players of both domestic and international pedigree, MLS is not in America was even Rugby or Crickett is overseas. In short, most Kyrgyz children know more about the LA Galaxy than I do - and that's one of about 3 teams I could even name.

Luckily, this horrid course of events was, if not reversed, at least temporarily suspended yesterday, when I finally attended my first live match. Sadly, it was not the sell-out England-Kazakh match (for which one English fan was shot even before the artful 4 goals were scored), but for a locally-important Asian Cup group C game between Kyrgyz national champs FC Dordoi-Dynamo and the Kanbawza FC of Myanmar.

Full match report here, for those of you Really That Interested.

In Kyrgyzstan, futbol is by far the most popular professional sport, but it's necessary to add that this small country of rather limited means does not compare especially well on the international circuit. When you're based in Central Asia, travel is prohibitively expensive, and the ability to lure all-stars from the dynamo-factories like Brazil, Spain, England, etc. is diminished by the lack of secondary benefits for moving to Bishkek. It's just not the Riviera.

As a result, the games outside the spring inter-Kyrgyz league, are somewhat rare, and victories all the more precious.

The brightest hope for optimistic Kyrgyz is Dordoi, a league team based in mountainous Naryn (pop. 52,000 and incidentally the home town of a co-worker). Dordoi has won the Kyrgyz league since 2004, and the Asia Federation President's Cup in '06 and '07, while playing in the finals in '05 and '08. Yesterday's match was an opening step toward an '09 AFC cup.

The only football stadium in Bishkek is Spartak stadium, and truthfully it may be the only (or at least one of the few) stadiums anywhere in the Kyrgyz republic. Certainly it is the home stadium for the non-Bishkek Dordoi. Total capacity: 23,000.

Those familiar with futbol stadiums, or professional sports in general, will note this is not especially large. Compare with UT's Darrel K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium and its 94,000 seats, for example.

Still, as with most things in Kyrgyzstan, it is cherished and well-used. The pitch on Sunday, for example, was a forum of closely-matched, well-played, second-tier futbol (apologies, but it's true - perhaps even generous).

One result of the difficult financial situation is that almost every player is an actual Kyrgyz citizen (meaning ethnic Kyrgyz, Russian, Uzbek or Kazakh living legally in Kyrgyzstan) - again, those familiar with league play elsewhere will find this more shocking than others. The lone exception is striker D. Tetteh, originally of Ghana.

The match itself was just at one would hope for. A few players with especially clever footwork, good overall team play, a few spectacular shots, and generally good defenses. The steam let out a bit in the second half, and things got a bit rowdier in the last ten minutes as players started getting desperate, but for the most part it was clean, smart ball.

I won't deny that a team like Chelsea, or lets be honest, even Tottenham, might have made the Dordoi look less suaze, but for my money they looked good - and more to the point, I was flabergasted at how I had ever played the same sport as these athletes.

And that's because I didn't.

I realized the answer to a question which, to that point, I had believed to be merely nonsensical. Several Kyrgyz, and many other Europeans, have queried me as to why Americans refer to the beautiful game as "Soccer." My answer, being technically uninformed, was to assume that "American Football" got the name first (even though it's a terrible name, the sport having virtually nothing to do with feet), and thus "Soccer" was the poor consolation prize by which Americans could easily write-off not paying attention to the most important sport on the planet.

It turns out that "soccer" is the later invention, itself an Englsih slang from the longer "association football," that emerged in the mid-1860s, and was meant to differentiate it from "Rugby Football" and "American Football."

Anyway, what I realized yesterday is that, as a youth and all the way through High School, I didn't play futbol: the game of precise ball control, dynamic team movement, and complex body coordination; I played soccer: an arena for a few skilled athletes to outmaneuver a force of irregulars (many off-season football/basketball players), even the best of whom would have what by any international standard would be considered no proper familiarity with the sport.

And mind you, I didn't even play soccer well.

This is no excuse for my performance. As one of two seniors on the JV squad, I can attest that I'm not an authority on the skills invovled, but what struck me yesterday was how natural, comfortable, and... fluid these players were with the sport in which they engaged.

It was like watching seals hunt.

(not necessarily as pictured - I couldn't help myself).

My soccer games were more like watching a pack of walruses mark territory.

So what?

American Soccer is not - generally speaking - up to international Futbol standards? No big surprise there.

But consider, those few of you who've stuck with me this long, the enormous, perhaps even unbridgable gap between doing a thing, and being a thing-doer. Or to allow those of prurient minds less to hold onto, playing Futbol vs. being a Footballer.

My father once spoke to me about the unsettling propensity of oil-and-gas attorneys (his chosen profession) in Oklahoma who could boast of extensive experience, but no appreciable expertise. To (mis)quote him (in)directly, "You can practice law for 20 years, but if your title opinions are incorrect, and no one ever questions them, how does that make you qualified to teach Law?"

So I'll stop talking about Soccer and Futbol both, being horribly unqualified to lecture (further) on either subject.

Point of fact, I'm not sure what area I could lay claim to any semblance of "expertise." Perhaps the composition of ridiculously long blogs?

Well, that's something, I guess.

Weber (on the lamb)