In 1998, being a nerd had nothing to do with the internet. Months before Google first made landfall, I caught my whiffs of nerdery within other analog searches. I ambled up and down library aisles, spilled my cereal milk over Sports Illustrated profiles, and thumbed through the daily newspaper. I squinted at everything, both out of curiosity and an undiagnosed glasses prescription.
My first memories of soccer were of ineptitude. Of running up and down the field in the wrong direction. Of not knowing how to pull off the sweet moves my friends did. But three years into my withering Rec League soccer career, the nerd inside me thirsted for more. With the World Cup coming – the first that I truly understood the magnitude and complexity of – I had to know it all. I looked through magazines, books, and the deep pockets of strip malls to find trading cards for players in now-defunct soccer leagues.
I had to play, think, and read it.
The 1998 World Cup not only represented the first (and only) time I ever taped a full-length soccer game with an actual VHS, but it encapsulated a period of time in which I became somewhat obsessed with learning about soccer players around the world. I knew about Carlos Valderamma from Colombia and Juergen Klinnsman from Germany (I even dressed as them for consecutive Halloweens – and, of course, no one knew who I was). I knew nearly the entire starting 11 for Brazil. I knew an awful lot more about soccer around the world than you would ever expect from a dorky deaf 4th grade kid in Spokane, Washington.
But England’s Premier League soccer eluded me. I didn’t understand all the terms – transfer fees, multiple league titles, the cheeky way the British love to talk about their footy stars. I just knew one name and one name only: Manchester United. For some reason, it felt easy to remember. It felt majestic. It felt like something akin to royalty. Even as my attention swerved to other sports over the years, I always knew Man United had quite a hold around the world, if only as one of the the most valuable sports teams on the planet.
In the summer of 2017, I went on a solo two-week trip to Europe. I had two main objectives: to see Ireland, a country I had long salivated to see, and to visit my cousin and her husband in Manchester. After eight days of awesome, exhilarating, exceedingly dumb adventures involving over 70 miles of walking across Ireland, Amsterdam, Paris, and London, I found myself in one place for 5 days: good ol’ Manchester proper.
While touring my cousin’s apartment that first morning, she pointed out to me that just a mere mile or two thataway stood Etihad Stadium, the home of Manchester City’s soccer team. I thought it was cool. But it didn’t even register. Of course they would be rivals with Manchester United, but I only read about one Manchester team that summer of 1998 and the many years after, and it certainly was not Manchester City.
My third day in Manchester, I had a small request: to see the outskirts of Old Trafford, aka Manchester’s home stadium since 1910. Riding the bus over, I could identify the gaudy behemoth from a mile away. Of course that was the home of Manchester United. It had to announce itself.
Even the nearby mall in Old Trafford felt like it had been born out of United’s hold over the town: fake ostentation, a pining for money and attention alike. It felt like stumbling into a British imitation of Las Vegas, of American excess, where even the designers smirked as they dashed out their blueprints. Inside, past the glossy gold railings, was a food court that closely imitated a cruise ship. It was excess packaged inside the place where excess lives: the bustling, teeming shopping mall.
Fast forward to Labor Day Weekend 2018. I’m home alone for the weekend with my girlfriend’s cat. The possibilities are endless for what we can do (well, at least for me – that cat ain’t leaving the house for nobody). Instead, we stay inside thanks to an article I read on The Ringer about what I would spend all weekend watching: Amazon Prime’s All or Nothing series on Manchester City’s record-breaking 2017-18 season.
Very quickly, a few things became clear as I raced through each episode:
- I was in love with Manchester City.
- I found Manchester United detestable and expendable.
- I loved every single player, coach, and crew member of this City team.
- I was in love with Manchester City. Did I mention that?
City’s coach, Pep Guardiola, is the kind of coach you always want to have. He’s demanding of his players, but he’s also highly personable. They know he cares. They know he has their back. They know he’s capable of celebrating a joyous moment after the final whistle blows. He’s the kind of coach a young soccer player dreams of playing for and an old veteran finds comfort in working alongside. This becomes especially apparent as the series gives us glimpses of the Premier League’s other, far less charismatic coaches (although Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp has his moments).
The style of soccer they play closely resembled the style my own soccer teams wanted to play, except these were world-class athletes with impeccable execution and delightful personalities.
Sometimes all it takes is a chance to get to know someone, and then they can turn you away from anything.
I wrote about this same feeling with the San Antonio Spurs in 2014. I spent most of my life hating them for their success. I wanted them to lose to my boy LeBron’s Miami Heat. But when I saw the way they played, the constant, excitable whirring of their offense and the tough-mindedness of their defense, I couldn’t help but be smitten. And when I gave myself a chance to like them, I only loved them more. Whatever hatred I ever had towards a highly successful organization as them immediately melted away.
Some people call this being a bandwagon fan. I call this falling in love.
I didn’t fall in love with the 2014 Spurs because they won. I fell in love with the way they won, they way they approached their lives on and off the court. The same can be said for City. It would be so easy to label me a bandwagon fan after their incredible 2017-18 season, in which they broke multiple records and only seem to be gathering even more momentum so young in this current 2018-19 season.
But I love the way they play. I love their players. I love how they work together and how they defend each other. Not every successful team is like this. In fact, most aren’t. City is something special, and we will likely look back on this iteration years from now as some kind of lightning that was captured in a bottle.
So perhaps it’s fitting the City logo is of a sailing ship. Ships typically achieve one of three destinies: they either sink, are torn apart for scraps, or are placed in a glass bottle to be preserved for the many years to follow.
This is a team born to be placed upon the shelf of history. I will enjoy as much of it as I can before it’s bottled up for good.
