zach edman

This comes up every four years and I have some actual insight to this very phenomenon. In 2016, I profiled Josh Norman for ESPN the Mag. He was — at the time — inarguably one of the best corners in the NFL. He got invited by Zlatan to come watch a PSG game, so I tagged along as he went to Paris. We got to watch training a few days before the game, and at the end of training (practice for you Americans) the PSG guys invited Josh to jump in and play a bit. Josh was an elite NFL corner and a huge soccer fan. He’d played some soccer as a kid too so he wasn’t just a novice. It was comical how much the PSG guys had to slow things down to make it fun for him. It was like the scene in Friday Night Lights (the TV show) where the Panthers goof around and pretend to tackle little kids. That’s how elementary they had to make it. The tried to feed Josh to “score” a goal and it was almost condescending how much they had to pretend it was real soccer. Afterwards, someone handed us an American football. In one of the most surreal experiences of my life, I spent 15 mins throwing passes to PSG players. It was equally comical. Honestly I’ve seen something as ridiculous as David Luiz trying to catch an American Football. It didn’t just bounce off his hands, it *exploded* off his hands. At some point, the skills do not translate. You would need to live it from a young age. Americans love to tell themselves they could be good at soccer if they only cared. Maybe they’d be better if they started young enough, but I’m not convinced it would be 6-3 WRs and there is no chance it would be LeBron or Kobe or anyone 6-8; there is a reason the best soccer players world wide are mostly under 6 feet. Either way, plugging “athletes” in and arrogantly assuming they’d thrive at soccer would never ever work.