pickup soccer

I've played soccer for as long as I can remember, and have come to appreciate it's international nickname, The Beautiful Game. My favorite setting is a pickup game - a random group of players on a borrowed field, who come together from across the globe. Some days I'm sure it's the most diverse gathering in the city.

We pass a ball around at first, and it's clear that we've loved the game for a long time - we're dancing, grinning, showing off new tricks.

When the game begins, our movements take on a new urgency - we're following instincts, we're quick, focused, clever, deceptive, graceful. We're communicating, sizing each other up, testing each other. There's strategy, teamwork, synchronicity, maybe even heroics.

At times it gets ugly... and fiercely competitive. We go from joy to pain to anger and back again. We start to foul each other more, we argue, we teach each other words in new languages. It's clear that something important is at stake.

At other times it can be profoundly cooperative, with its precise passing and graceful teamwork. Most fans love to see skilled players, with their death-defying bicycle kicks and clairvoyant saves, but they also love creative teamwork, with surprise give-and-go's and one-touch passes.

Over the years I've come to wonder if pickup soccer's balance of competition and cooperation is becoming increasingly rare in our society. That's what got me started on all this.

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