Eric Wynalda, Soccer Guy
Eric Wynalda? He's a soccer guy. The soccerest guy to ever soccer.
You might remember the Las Vegas Lights for their kits, an exercise in one of my favorite proverbs, “overkill is underrated.” You might remember them for having Freddy Adu in their squad, or for being managed by the one and only Chelis. You almost assuredly remember them for dumping money out of a helicopter onto the field at halftime for lucky contestants to run around, picking up as much cash as they could, one of the most Las Vegas things to ever occur.
And, if you were aware of the Las Vegas Lights for any of the preceding reasons, you most likely also were aware that up until two days ago, they were coached by part-time agitator and full-time soccer guy Eric Wynalda. Why is Eric Wynalda no longer the coach of Las Vegas Lights? According to LVL owner Brett Lashbrook, some sort of rules violation occurred that resulted in Wynalda’s immediate and sudden termination, one that comes just before USL teams are set to return to play. According to Wynalda? Lashbrook isn’t a soccer guy. And he’s a soccer guy. Former USSF Presidential nominee and “oh yeah, that guy” of Soccer Twitter Paul Lapointe further confirmed that Wynalda is indeed a soccer guy.
Clearly, when soccer guys and non-soccer guys get together, they don’t mix very well. Like Play-Doh and pancake batter. But all of this begs a question. What is a soccer guy?
From what we can immediately gather, Eric Wynalda is a soccer guy. Which means that soccer guy cares about soccer first, soccer last, and soccer in the middle. A soccer guy is a person who lives and breathes the game, whose waking thoughts revolve around players and formations, the way the ball explodes off the foot, the way the net ripples and moves at the moment of impact.
A soccer guy does not give one single care to anything outside of soccer. You think a soccer guy gives a rip about a pandemic? Tough luck, pal. You think a soccer guy cares about the world progressively catching fire, both figuratively and literally? Hell no. A soccer guy only cares about the heat radiating off fresh bermuda grass, decapitating the heads from the stalks with a drilled pass skimming the ground with all the gentleness of a wax strip your friend Tanner slapped on the back of your leg when you weren’t paying attention. You want to know what a soccer guy is?! A soccer guy eats a bowl of soft ground studs for breakfast, with almond milk, so his tummy doesn’t hurt too bad afterwards, but still. A soccer guy rubs salt on his turf burn just to remind himself to feel every once in a while.
The soccer guy’s departure leaves a sizable hole in Las Vegas’s club, one that club mascot Cash the Soccer Rocker doesn’t know quite how to deal with.
Too bad, Cash. Wynalda’s a soccer guy. And soccer guys gotta go where there’s soccer, not where there’s only no soccer and non-soccer guys. Non-soccer is death. Soccer is life. He will drink it from the seams of the ball, the mother’s milk of a water-logged Brine Phantom soccer ball, the one that weighed ten pounds after you played with it one time in high school. That shit’s like ambrosia to soccer guys. The taste of water-logged soccer balls and the smell of the insides of shin guards. The residue of electrical tape on your socks and the weight of a soaking wet Under Armour longsleeve stuck to your body. They sustain the living and bring life to death, poking their twisted limbs from the Earth. Soccer guys, one and all, their soulless husks cursed to wander the Earth for eternity, searching out other soccer guys.
That’s what a soccer guy is.
I Stand By This Take
There are a few good songs. But that catalogue is hot trash, and Carousel is an absolute abomination.
Always been mildly fascinated by guys Wynalda's age - the eldest children of the eldest Boomers. Guys who are now around 50. Something very peculiar about that age group. They all grew up wanting to be *villains* in the pop-culture that was made for them - Stan Gable or Johnny Lawrence. They definitely never wanted to be the heroes of those movies. The last generation of earnest pure Alpha worship. They weren't great with like, human compassion or subtle nuance. But if you needed somebody to whip Argentina's ass and slam Diego Simione into a wall at halftime - hey. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Ramble on, Eric.