SPORTS May 18, 2009 Issue

SOCCER: A PLAYERS' GAME

SETH JOHNSON

I'VE BEEN INVOLVED with soccer for many years, first as a player through my college years, and now as a coach. I love it because it's a players' game, and at most levels less about fanfare than about participation.

From an early age, I was encouraged to play competitive sports to the best of my ability at whatever level I was involved. And, as a Christian Scientist, I began to see soccer in particular as an opportunity to demonstrate my God-given talents and to view agility, quickness, freedom, strength, fearlessness, poise, grace, and harmony as spiritual qualities to be applied not just on the sports field but also in everyday life. I was taught that there's no finer motivator than this well-loved Bible verse: "Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God" (I Cor. 10:31).

Many of the qualities just mentioned are on display in the F. A. Cup, a Football Association tournament that's been played in England (with some Welsh teams competing) every season—except the war years—since 1871–72. The quadrennial World Cup apart, the F. A. Cup is the largest soccer tournament played anywhere today. Any team in England within the Football Association can enter, which I find refreshing in today's commercialized, for-profit, winner-take-all, sports mind-set. All across the country in recent months, teams from several divisions have been in an elimination contest, leading to this year's Cup Final between Chelsea and Everton to be played in front of 90,000 spectators at Wembley Stadium, London, on May 30.

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