Sports.
The Knicks made NYC feel like NYC again, and now there's soccer on all day
June has been a LOT, and I mean that in the best way.
The weather’s been damn near perfect. I’ve been happy, relaxed, thankful the whole stretch has had that Friday-before-Memorial-Day feeling I’m always chasing. And it has lasted a month. Then, on top of all of it: SPORTS.
The Knicks. My Goodness, the Knicks. For a couple of weeks there the whole city felt like it did when I was a kid. Strangers talking. Bars roaring. NYC felt like NYC again. It brought people together in a way almost nothing does anymore, and I don’t think that’s just nostalgia talking. Everybody was happy. EVERYBODY.
And right on the back of that, the World Cup.
I’ve been watching three of the four games a day (that late one is a little too late for me, and whoever scheduled Team USA for 10pm TONIGHT, you and I are going to have words). It’s wall-to-wall soccer!
Thirty-two years ago I did the exact same thing. Summer of ‘94, me and my buddy Pat, every single day, just parked in front of the TV watching soccer for hours.
And here’s what you have to understand about 1994: nobody cared. Nobody in this country knew a single thing about soccer. It was a curiosity, the thing the rest of the planet was obsessed with that we’d politely ignored. I had an absolute ball anyway, mostly because I watched Ireland in Irish bars, which around here meant packed to the walls.
The Ireland-Italy game I’ve apparently been telling wrong for three decades. In my head it’s “Ireland took Italy to penalties by punting the ball every time it came into their half and somehow won.” The punting is true, hoof it and chase it was Charlton’s entire religion. But there were no penalties says the AI fact0checker.
June 18, 1994, Giants Stadium, Ireland 1-0, clean. Ray Houghton chests down a loose ball on the edge of the box and dinks this ridiculous looping left-footer over Pagliuca in the 11th minute, then does a forward roll into the corner. Paul McGrath plays the game of his life on a busted shoulder and puts Roberto Baggio in his pocket for ninety minutes. (Portions of today’s post were written with the help of AI, let me know if you can spot them.)
Thirty-two years will scramble the tape on you. And brother, they went FAST.
The USA is hosting a World Cup final again, three decades later. I could go. I keep pulling up tickets. And I keep closing the tab, because I cannot make myself spend $1,100.
So instead I’m doing what I do, parked in front of the TV all day while I edit shows, write these substacks, and field emails. (The 7am-to-1pm block is sacred. That’s scripts and recording. Soccer is the reward after.) I’ve gotten good at the DVR dance, and I’ll tell you, it is STILL shockingly easy to avoid a soccer score in this country. Over the weekend, when it was too gorgeous to be inside, I started the matches late and watched it on the laptop out on the deck at 1.25x. Living the dream.
The funny part is my own rooting. Every single match I start out pulling for the Traditional Soccer Power, the team that’s supposed to win, and somewhere around halftime I’ve completely flipped and I’m hollering for the scrappy “wait, how are they even IN this tournament” side. As I write this, Ghana has England 0-0 in the 77th, and reader, I think you know exactly whose corner I’m in.
Sports is great. It’s just great.
And it’s been a great year for it. The Winter Olympics. Olympic hockey being actual Olympic hockey again. The World Cup. The Knicks. The Mets. Let’s not ruin a nice article.
Epilogue:
In the 87th minute Harry Kane hit the crossbar and I made an audible “hoo hoo hoo” sound which meant something, not sure what, but boy I had a face on that was basically the :0 emoji.
In the 96th minute, I felt the adrenaline as I got nervous for Ghana.
Final score Ghana 0, England 0.
Sports rules. USA, 10pm tonight. And starting at 4pm, two games on simultaneously, which they will be, on the 70 inch TV using Youtube TV’s mulitview.