Today is April 1st, sometimes called Aprils Fools' Day. For most of us, this goes one of two ways; either you revel in the fake-ness of the day and scan the web in anxious anticipation of reading clever pieces like "Riquelme Petitioning to Join US Men's National Team" or "Marta to Sign for TFC", or you dread the hokeyness of it all and would rather give yourself an appendectomy with a grapefruit spoon than have to wade through the inanity that will spew forth from the blogosphere today.
I suppose I fall somewhere in between those two extremes, though I certainly lean towards the latter. This year I definitely do.
Last year, I allowed myself to be cajoled into joining a wider April Fools' hoax initiated by the folks over at Big Soccer. It involved Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, a second MLS team in New York, and the return of the Cosmos name (I think; I might be remembering this wrong). It wasn't that bad, though I'm still kicking myself for being just a brick in the wall; if I'm going to do an April Fools' post, it should at least be of my own creation.
So I'll admit that I rolled an idea around this year, though I obviously decided to go this route rather than produce something that would just be one of thousands of joke/hoax postings floating around the blogosphere. It's not that I'm humorless, it's just that this day and the nonsense that it spawns have become rather trite.
The idea, which would have required more work than I'm capable of doing at the moment, was to write a soccer story in the spirit of George Plimpton's Sidd Finch piece; the tale of Finch might be the most famous sports-themed April Fools' joke of all time, and to do it justice would have meant penning something elaborate, engaging, and absurd, all while riding the line of believability. Not an easy thing to do, since it's fairly clear I'm no George Plimpton.
But I did want to share the concept, because even if I'm not trying to pass it off as a legitimate story on this day, I'd like to acknowledge the day (and yes, I already have, but bear with me).
In a remote countryside town in some country (for the purposes of this exercise, let's say...Uruguay; it's a smaller nation with a long soccer history but far from a world power) a young player is coming of age. He's a phenom, prodigy, a star-in-waiting; all of those things that make coaches and administrators salivate, both because of what he can do on the field and what he might bring in a transfer fee.
He scores at will, dribbles through defenses like he has the ball attached to his foot, and has a brilliant shot that is almost always perfectly placed. His creative abilities are already the stuff of legend in his town, and the legend is spreading. The big Uruguayan clubs are circling like vultures, while the most famous names in South American football, Boca, River, Corinthians, etc., are making inquiries. People from miles around have come to the town to see him play, and the his little club's attendance has doubled this season because of it.
Every time he plays, and every time he touches the ball, it seems like he will score. More often than not, he does.
His background is cloudy, and even those currently in charge of his career aren't quite sure of his provenance. He was plucked out of an orphanage at age 10 when his footballing skills became obvious, and has essentially been raised by his club in their academy for the past seven years. Despite living in Uruguay most of his life - he arrived at the orphanage as a toddler - he is not of typical Uruguayan ethnic stock. In fact, the papers the orphanage has for him indicate that his mother came from Germany, and gave birth to the boy while visiting South America. No one is quite sure why she was there, and after dropping the boy off on the steps of the orphanage one day, she disappeared. Efforts to track her down have been minimal and she has never returned to claim her son.
But it's the origin of the boy's father that is most intriguing. "American" is listed as his nationality, though because he was never in Uruguay with the mother, no one is quite sure if it's true. America is very far from this place.
But the boy dreams of America, and that dream extends to football. Though he'd certainly be eligible to play for Uruguay, he's rejected all attempts to talk him into doing so; when asked, he states firmly and with conviction that there is only one nation for which he will play, and it's the nation of his father.
That's right; the South American prodigy, whose skills transcend anything anyone here have ever seen before and drawn comparisons to Messi, Ronaldinho, and Kaka, wants to play for the United States.
Fill it in with a few more details, give the boy a name, mention a rumor that US Soccer has contacted him, and you get the idea. One never knows how these things will come off until they're done, so who knows how it would have gone over.
Happy April Fools' Day everyone.
