Despite living in America for many years and wishing the American Soccer team well, deep in my heart, I am routing for England.
I remember as a child, sitting with my grandfather watching the famous 1986 World Cup Final between Argentina and England and watching Maradona score a goal with his hand (which in England we still don't accept). I remember how upset my grandfather was or at least he put on a show for us, and we too were not all that happy with the results.
Either way, growing up in England, you can't help but take in a bit of the soccer fever.
Soccer is a game where there is little time to rest and relax, and for most of the time the players are running up and down the field as the ball is passed from one player to another.
In a soccer team, you will have multiple players with different roles, with one being the goalkeeper, others being strikers, others being midfield players and so on. The game cannot be won when each player is playing for their own success and aspirations. Even the strikers as important as they are, cannot succeed without the help of their colleagues, or else all their goals will be worthless, if there is no defense and the opposing team score too many goals.
Ultimately for the players to succeed they all need to realize that this is a team and collaborative effort.
Sports and Soccer may be healthy outlets for people and countries to challenge their passions and identities, but they are also great metaphors for life itself.
In soccer or many other sports, the players cannot simply quit the game when the going gets tough and they are losing. Additionally, they must always keep in mind, that it is the team effort that will help them succeed, more than just their individual unique qualities and strengths.
In life too, we are all players on the team, we may have different roles and functions as we seek to score, succeed, and stop incoming goals. Some of us may be apt at being goalkeepers, in other words we may be good at preventing negative things from occurring, others may be strikers, creative, ambitious and brilliant people, who are always there to cause the next Mitzvah or new invention to happen, others are defenders who are busy helping the goalkeeper on the home front, while others are somewhere in between busy passing the ball up and down, not always getting the recognition they may deserve.
Yet just like soccer, it is when we realize that we are all playing on the same team and have a shared common goal, that we will succeed and win the game.
The stakes in our game are big and the prize isn’t simply the World Cup. The game and the strategy include passing the metaphoric ball to another, enriching their lives and the world around us with more positivity and goodness, throwing in an extra Mitzvah when we can, studying the strategy of how to morally succeed through a dose of Torah Wisdom and Jewish teachings, being willing to run across the field to stop an incoming negative event, not giving up even when we seem to be losing at times, and learning how to use a foul misplay to make a comeback and make things better.
We are in this together albeit with different positions in the playing field, but together we will succeed and score the winning goal.
Let’s give a cheer for our team and get ready for the big win!
Shabbat Shalom
Yisroel