Phnom Penh, Cambodia
I’d never call it soccer. Soccer is a posh-boy word, a Tarquin Borisish abbreviation of Association Football, which was never a game meant for posh-boys. The “soccer” saying Americans, Canadians and Kiwis can’t know how pampered and foppish it makes them sound.
I don’t really understand why kids want to chase a ball around a rectangular field; why they’ll play shivering in the sleet at an under elevens league game in Ilkley, or swatting mosquitoes in a Sao Paulo street. I can’t be bothered to learn the offside rule, I don’t get the passionate, obsessive, loyalty supporters feel for their team.
and yet…
I look at this picture and witness their joy. I see their total immersion in the game. They play barefoot on hard ground, under storm clouds not floodlights, but this could be the lush turf of a great stadium. They live in a slum but right here they are heroes. They are all Peles, Cruyffs and Maradonnas; and they are playing football, definitely not soccer.
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