seven-month season: up to Stockholm and over to Denmark, Holland, England, and Yugoslavia. We practiced two hours a day: dribbling, passing, jumping, shooting, and running wind sprints, blasting at top speed across our half of the practice field, touching the center line then an end line and back again as many times as we could in five-minute intervals. When the coach’s whistle finally blew, we fell down onto the ground wherever we were, sucking wind. Lying there with that feeling of having gone full out, staring up at the sky, blood and adrenaline pulsing through my body: I lived for that sensation.
In terms of philosophy, our coach Lars was influenced by the Brazilians—masters of the passing game. While many of the youth teams played one strategy—pass to the fastest guy and hope he can score—our coach wanted us to play with a mix of precision and poetry. Lars was just as proud of a fifty-yard sideline pass or of a perfectly executed cross as he was of any goals we scored. What he wanted to see on the field—the skills he taught us that are with me to this day—were the control and finesse that makes soccer both a joy to play and a joy to watch.
“I’d rather you lose than win ugly,” Lars said.
We weren’t the top team in the league, but we won more than we lost. Mats played center defender and I was center midfield, which made me the link between offense and defense. Lars typically put us both in his starting lineup, although we were on the young side. In our first year on GAIS, we were playing against boys who were three or four years older—which only added to the thrill whenever we were lucky enough to win.
By our second year on the team, scouts had begun to appear on the sideline, looking for talent they might siphon off for their semipro adult divisions or the all-out pro teams. When a sixteen-year-old Finnish boy we often played against got scooped up for his club’s pro team and became his team’s high scorer, we all dreamed of following his lead. I practiced harder than ever, and for the first time I felt a pullbetween wanting to do the best for the team and wanting to stand out enough to be noticed.
I knew I was good, and with each winning match it became easier to envision a life in soccer, with GAIS as a launching pad to a pro career. I practiced every hour that I wasn’t doing homework or chores. I honed every move, not just my own. I borrowed the latest soccer magazines from Mats (my father believed in only newspapers and proper books) and, alone in my room, I devoured them.
In those days, there were three posters on my bedroom wall: Michael Jackson, the king and queen of Sweden (thanks, Mom), and Pelé, the man who had changed the game. I spent hours imagining myself on the field as a little Pelé, dribbling down fields in Barcelona and London, outmaneuvering world-class players as I drove to the goal, winning the World Cup with a header that would be played and replayed in slow motion on sports channels for years to come. Soccer was going to be more than my career. It would be the thing that got me out of Gburg. With soccer, I would get to see the world.
B Y THE TIME I TURNED SIXTEEN , I had been on GAIS for four years. My life had taken on a steady, comforting routine: seven months of soccer, three months of school in which I would spend the majority of my time thinking about soccer, and two summer months in Smögen, fishing with my dad and my uncles, practicing my moves, seeing the green and black GAIS jersey in the scales of every beautiful fish.
At the start of our fifth season, Mats and I went to see the new team roster posted on the wall outside of the coach’s office. We wanted to suss out the competition: Who were the new kids; who might be competing for our spots in the starting lineup? We were also looking to see whom the coach had axed: We wished nothing but the worst for the lazy bums who were finally getting their comeuppance for skipping one too many practices.
We
In terms of philosophy, our coach Lars was influenced by the Brazilians—masters of the passing game. While many of the youth teams played one strategy—pass to the fastest guy and hope he can score—our coach wanted us to play with a mix of precision and poetry. Lars was just as proud of a fifty-yard sideline pass or of a perfectly executed cross as he was of any goals we scored. What he wanted to see on the field—the skills he taught us that are with me to this day—were the control and finesse that makes soccer both a joy to play and a joy to watch.
“I’d rather you lose than win ugly,” Lars said.
We weren’t the top team in the league, but we won more than we lost. Mats played center defender and I was center midfield, which made me the link between offense and defense. Lars typically put us both in his starting lineup, although we were on the young side. In our first year on GAIS, we were playing against boys who were three or four years older—which only added to the thrill whenever we were lucky enough to win.
By our second year on the team, scouts had begun to appear on the sideline, looking for talent they might siphon off for their semipro adult divisions or the all-out pro teams. When a sixteen-year-old Finnish boy we often played against got scooped up for his club’s pro team and became his team’s high scorer, we all dreamed of following his lead. I practiced harder than ever, and for the first time I felt a pullbetween wanting to do the best for the team and wanting to stand out enough to be noticed.
I knew I was good, and with each winning match it became easier to envision a life in soccer, with GAIS as a launching pad to a pro career. I practiced every hour that I wasn’t doing homework or chores. I honed every move, not just my own. I borrowed the latest soccer magazines from Mats (my father believed in only newspapers and proper books) and, alone in my room, I devoured them.
In those days, there were three posters on my bedroom wall: Michael Jackson, the king and queen of Sweden (thanks, Mom), and Pelé, the man who had changed the game. I spent hours imagining myself on the field as a little Pelé, dribbling down fields in Barcelona and London, outmaneuvering world-class players as I drove to the goal, winning the World Cup with a header that would be played and replayed in slow motion on sports channels for years to come. Soccer was going to be more than my career. It would be the thing that got me out of Gburg. With soccer, I would get to see the world.
B Y THE TIME I TURNED SIXTEEN , I had been on GAIS for four years. My life had taken on a steady, comforting routine: seven months of soccer, three months of school in which I would spend the majority of my time thinking about soccer, and two summer months in Smögen, fishing with my dad and my uncles, practicing my moves, seeing the green and black GAIS jersey in the scales of every beautiful fish.
At the start of our fifth season, Mats and I went to see the new team roster posted on the wall outside of the coach’s office. We wanted to suss out the competition: Who were the new kids; who might be competing for our spots in the starting lineup? We were also looking to see whom the coach had axed: We wished nothing but the worst for the lazy bums who were finally getting their comeuppance for skipping one too many practices.
We
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