Opening Post

Who am I and why is a computer geek like me writing about futbol?

Back in my youth, I played a lot of futbol (well, okay, it was soccer, then fussball). I remember watching training movies about ball control and shooting starring Pele¹—no, not videos, these were 8mm movies that our coach would show us. Then my knees gave out and I had to put playing aside. At that point, there wasn’t any good way to watch

I’ve been a pretty casual fan. I never got a chance to take in a NASL game, but I have been to MISL, USISL, and MLS games. I’ve also watched televised World Cup games. Lately, I’ve been getting back into things, watching a variety of games on FSC, ESPN2, and anywhere else I can find one.

Most of my focus is on “US Soccer” (MLS and the various USL leagues—especially my local PDL team, the BYU Cougars). I’m also watching the EPL and trying to learn more about the Mexican top level teams².

Beyond the beautiful game, I’m hyper focused on computers, systems engineeering, and programming (mostly with Ruby and Erlang). I’m also actively engaged in my church—occasionally blogging, working as a Scout Master, and volunteering my time in a variety of ways.

¹ One thing that sticks out in my memory is Pele talking about waking up early and practicing his dribbling and shooting in the the cold so that the feel of the ball was magnified. I spent a lot of mornings after that dribbling around and shooting at our fence in the dew.

² I’m really looking forward to the SuperLiga (or, see Wikipedia).