Soccer, Life And Everything In Between

A cursory glance tells me that it has been almost two months since I've written an article. Two months? Has the time truly gone by so fleetingly?

Indeed it has, just as time has a habit of doing and just as it always will, regardless of which games we're looking forward to, which teams have or haven't qualified for the World Cup, or which cup final lies on the horizon to captivate us all. Time passes, old games and stories vanish off into the distance, only to be replaced by new ones yet again. So goes the cycle.

And yet, even with the ever present and constantly revolving cycle of time, there are many of us who are hardly able to find enough of it on more occasions than not--myself certainly included. As many of you know, I've done something of a balancing act over the last couple of years in writing for the blog, doing the show, providing match commentary for Auburn Soccer and, last but certainly not least, working on my master's degree. With so much on my plate over these last couple of years, I could have used days that spanned 30 hours instead 24 hours to great effect.



With the aforementioned ramblings on time and a lack thereof in mind, it would be quite easy to explain my writing absence in such terms, but, just as the narratives of our lives go, very few things can be explained in such simple terms. Yes, a lack of time played its part, but something else has been to blame as well: a degree of burnout.

The fact of the matter is that with every analysis of a big game, every preview of a week in the league, every commentary on why this player fits with this team, why this manager is getting it wrong tactically, and how this team has wasted its money so laughably, the redundancy of it all became quite palpable. Yes, it often felt like I was writing the same thing in various ways, devoid of essence and meaning.

In looking to return to my soccer writing on a more regular basis in the very near future, I feel that this is the challenge I must face, both for my own purposes and for the interest of my readers and listeners. Sure, anybody can write a match report, rate players (however subjectively), and lament a team's transfer market moves, but can one capture what it is that leads this game of the world to captivate so many of us to the point that it is something of a common language and bond? Not really, or at least not with ease.

I'm perfectly fine with this task not being easy, as few things are or should be. In seeking to renew my own vigor for talking about this game we all love, I hope that I can find the stories that will stoke your respective fires a bit more as well.