Pitch Emails: At The End of the Season, We're All Just Staring Out Into the Bus
If you leave the cameras rolling long enough, reality creeps in after the euphoria fades away
This is a post about soccer. But, like soccer, it’s about a lot more than that. But, if you’re not into that, you don’t have to read it.
A while ago I posted something about soccer (and beyond) and categorized it under the cute little title “Pitch Emails.” Based on the creative fulfillment I got from my Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series, I think I’ll try to spend this summer putting together 11 Pitch Emails stories, about soccer (and beyond). I think it’s funny to do this while most leagues’ seasons are over.
Ideally, you don’t have to enjoy soccer to enjoy these posts. We’ll see!
It’s one of the most famous movie endings for a good reason.
Dustin Hoffman has just come crashing into Elaine’s wedding and convinced her to run away with him instead of the other guy at the altar. He defied the odds to get here. His car broke down as the strummed guitar soundtrack sputters to a halt with him, and he starts sprinting. Is he too late??
Oh, Jesus, God, no, etc.
You can see on his face that, for a second, he thinks it’s over, and then decides to act. Hoffman is so good, man. That’s incredible face acting where you can actually see the gears in his head turn from “I’m fucked” to “fuck it.” BANGBANGBANGELAINEBANGBANGBANGELAINE
Again, against all odds, Elaine walks away from the altar like she’s hypnotized by it all and then shrieks BEN and Hoffman sprints downstairs and starts fighting off the understandably pissed off Elaine’s dad. Mrs. Robinson for some reason smacks Elaine around even though literally 57 seconds ago she was smiling while Hoffman banged on the window. Not that anyone should be taking moral cues from Mrs. Robinson, but still.
Hoffman manages to fend everyone off with a big ol’ cross, which is a very cool move to use on humans who haven’t been transformed into vampires or other ghoulish figures who would fear a crucifix, finding a window of time to get through the double door and lock everyone inside with said cross. Multitool.
Elaine and Dustin Hoffman are all smiles as they retreat and catch a well-timed bus pulling up by the church. The people gawk at the guy in the ripped jacket and the woman in the wedding dress as they bound down this very different aisle (irony) and settle into the back seat of the bus, looking into the rear window at what they’re quite literally leaving behind them.
They did it. Against all odds, they did it. They smile at each other and then look forward. This is the part that’s the famous part because the shot continues, and their euphoria gives way to a sort of “now what” or “oh, fuck” or “oh, fuck, now what?” as Simon and Garfunkel sing about darkness their old friend.
Much has been written about this scene and this shot over the years. The way it expertly shows the “ever after” part of “they all lived happily ever after,” where after the climax and victory comes the whole rest of your life part of it. The reality of a moment being the climax is that it’s all downhill from there, or at least flat. The reality of this shot, too, is that they didn’t even know they were supposed to convey this feeling of uncertainty or fear. The camera just kept rolling and the actors didn’t know what else to do, so they settled into their neutral faces. But it’s perfect. The Graduate isn’t quite The Graduate without that ending.
I’m not writing about The Graduate, though. I’m writing about soccer.
When I try to get someone to watch and obsess over the sport as much as I have, I sell them on the narrative aspect of it all – the promise that even in the off-season, there is so much drama from the immense wealth disparity, personality and culture clash, and maniacal journalist culture. It’s the best reality show in the world in addition to the world’s most popular game.
Teams and players get these reputations, these narratives built around them, based in equal parts on statistics and vibes. That’s really soccer in a nutshell. For every stat wonk shoving things like expected goals and possession percentage and heat maps down your throat, you have stories like former Newell’s Old Boys manager Marcelo Bielsa sneaking into the bedroom of then-13-year-old now-US Men’s National Team coach Mauricio Pochettino and feeling his legs while he slept, confirming that, yep, those are footballer’s legs, and signing him up for the team.
I don’t know if that story is 100% true but I 100% believe it is and until Marcelo Bielsa calls me to deny it I will continue to share it as a tidbit.
Narratives are born from successes and failures. Players and teams gain identities of perennial losers, also-rans, “bottlers,” or serial winners, giants, “big” clubs. For the most part, things tend to stick to the script just due to the fact that, most of the time, money wins. The rich clubs buy the best players and then they win. Simple as that. But Cinderella stories, though rare, do happen.
The natural assumption is that narratives end, or at least change, when that happens. The scrappy underdog gets a win and cements its deserved place on Mt. Olympus. The hard-working person finally gets the recognition they deserve and get their due. That’s just what happens because that’s what’s supposed to happen, right?
This season alone, the narratives across Europe that changed were Crystal Palace, a team that had seemingly cemented itself as a selling club that was perfectly happy to finish 12th in the Premier League season after season, won the FA Cup (if this means nothing to you, don’t worry about it) against team X-Blades themselves, Manchester City. It was the club’s first major trophy in its 119-year history.
Crystal Palace’s trophy-less run was longer than the city of Las Vegas has existed, and yet they are about to get a baseball team.
Newcastle United, itself becoming one of the money-juiced clubs but for now still growing, beat Liverpool in the Carabao Cup (again, don’t worry about it), ending a 70-year run without a major trophy.
Aberdeen won the Scottish Cup. Bologna won the Coppa Italia. Stuttgart won the German Cup. Manchester United, the soccer team version of a kid who says, “Do you know who my father is” ate a big pile of shit in the Premier League and European competitions (the latter being most important for me).
As I’m writing this, Real Betis could beat Chelsea in the Europa Conference League (don’t worry about it) and give Antony the ultimate redemption story and further salt Manchester United’s wound (who spent the afternoon losing to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations All-Star team, which had never played together as a team before today.
And perhaps most importantly of all, Harry Kane and Eric Dier won the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich, and Tottenham Hotspur won the Europa League (don’t worry about it, just know it’s important), giving me a chance to walk around town in a Spurs jersey like hot shit rather than just shit.
This was a team, you’ll remember, that Esquire tasked me with writing about, specifically falling in love with them due to their reputation of noble underachievers. In that story I wrote about talking basketball and soccer with a waiter in Paris. When he found out I liked the Sixers and Spurs, he said, “Oh, so you like teams that never win?”
Garçon, if you’re reading this, eat shit along with your words.
There’s an attitude shift when things like this happen. Clubs that are regularly the butt of jokes are suddenly in on those jokes while the internet turns its attention to the former bullies (Arsenal). It’s like in a movie when the dorky kid does something cool and stands up to the bully, and the student body cheers as if they hadn’t all been going along with the bully’s lead the whole time.
The crowd in the cafeteria or quad or auditorium all cheer, maybe the main character kisses their crush who didn’t really give them the time of day until now, a very sick 90’s alt rock song plays, the camera pulls away to show the bigger picture as we fade to black.
And we live happily ever after.
But what if they kept the cameras rolling in all of those movies like they had in The Graduate? The song ends, the kiss ends, the applause ends, and everyone goes back to their business. There’s a shift, but it’s likely not permanent. We all fall back into our patterns.
The truth of the matter is that the arc of the universe does not bend toward justice, no matter how many times we try to do so with the movies we write. In the real world, we turn real life into team sports and root for “our side,” and in team sports we attach binary morality – good guys versus bad guys – where it doesn’t actually fit. Unless your team wins, which is rare, the good guys seldom win.
Every swig of celebratory champagne just makes the hangover that much worse. As someone who lives in Philadelphia, I know that after the celebration and parade ends, you’re left with dead grass in the park and a lot of trash to clean up.
So what, exactly, is the point of all of this? It needs to go beyond just the simple pessimism of “Every happy ending actually gives way to a sad or, at the minimum, unfulfilling reality.” It’s not simply a cynical warning about getting too big for your britches, because, to quote Papa John, “the day of reckoning will come.”
I’m worried I’ll veer too closely to the speech Jack Black gives about “The Man” in School of Rock where The Man always wins.
He's everywhere. In the White House, down the hall, Ms. Mullins, she's the Man. And the Man ruined the ozone, and he's burning down the Amazon, and he kidnapped Shamu and put her in a chlorine tank! Okay? And there used to be a way to stick it to the Man, it was called rock 'n roll. But guess what? Oh no. The Man ruined that, too, with a little thing called MTV! So don't waste your time trying to make anything cool, or pure, or awesome, 'cause the Man is just gonna call you a fat washed up loser and crush your soul. So do yourselves a favor and just give up!
Or the Gen X navel-gazing philosophy of Dante Hicks in Clerks, who proclaims that life is just “a series of down endings.”
Can things really change? Is it naive to believe so? Is it overly cynical to believe they can’t? Can one moment of greatness really change the trajectory of your life or your circumstances in the long-term?
It has to be something greater than the boring old middle ground, right? We’re all destined for something great, right? Because we are the protagonist. We are the hero. We deserve it.
Anything else would be unfulfilling — the worst thing a life can be.
Without that you’re stuck in beige pragmatism. You hope for the best, you brace for the worst.
You reach a pinnacle and then you look out from the back seat of the bus and your smile fades a little as that reality sets in.
Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit.
I guess this is where the concept of faith comes into play. Faith can be a powerful thing, but dangerous (like when it’s used for fighting off your love interest’s extended family). It’s scary to put your faith into something knowing it might end badly even if today is great. Can faith outweigh cynicism? Depends on the day.
But that’s the point, right? The point of all of this. Not just sports. Not just movies. All of it? That’s why we like sports and movies. We just have to have faith that once the credits roll everyone is still having fun and still in love as the names roll by.
You just have to enjoy the good moment and have faith that things will continue down the good path, or at least not get any worse, even when the evidence points to the contrary. The good guys, as you see them, will continue on the path of righteous victory and will receive their just rewards because they have to. The bad guys will go to hell. Dustin Hoffman and Elaine will get off that bus somewhere and get nachos and continue being happy. Or maybe they won’t. Everyone is still locked in that church and are long dead from starvation. Things really will be different now because they swear it will be.
In 2016, Leicester City completed the ultimate Cinderella story, winning the Premier League out of absolutely nowhere. It’s one of the greatest moments in recent memory of the sport, and will live on as such. Jamie Vardy, a guy who played Sunday league football between labor jobs became an England-capped Striker. Stars and legends of the game were born, and it seemed that nothing was truly impossible for anyone. Dreams were coming true live on TV.
Leicester was never supposed to be here, but the fans kept their faith year after year, putting a few pounds on the Foxes winning the title for a bit of fun and a statement of faith in the team. And when they did win, the 5,000-1 odds yielded tens of thousands in winnings. Their faith paid off.
And then they bet again the next year, and the next year, and now Leicester has been relegated from the Premier League and Vardy, arguably their greatest ever goal scorer if not greatest ever player, is leaving the club.
We’re veering too hard into cynicism again. I don’t want that.
Call it faith, call it blind optimism, call it naivety. We need a bit of that in our life. The magic. The magic has to come from somewhere when normal life doesn’t provide it. We attach our emotions and even our hard-earned dollars to these outcomes. We feel the losses, we feel the victories. We form relationships with people on screens that we’ve never met or that don’t even exist in reality, and we pull for them like our own happiness depends on it.
Because, in a way, it does.
The simple conclusion is that in soccer as we do in life, we come back even when we know we’ll get our heartbroken. We feel these highs, and know that a low is coming, but we’re OK with chasing that high again even if we know we’re getting hurt along the way.
The reason we keep coming back even when we know the future looks bleak is something simple and more profound than faith or optimism or any of these wonderful things:
Gambling addiction.
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Today’s Snakes and Sparklers musical guest is Drugdealer ft. Weyes Blood.