GOAL!

I first learned to enjoy soccer when I had a crush on an adorable redhead in high school who was the star of our team. I went to every home game, but it wasn’t the game I was watching. It was the farmers market that taught me to love football. Not the American kind, but the international kind. As my products tend to attract international customers, no matter what market I have sold at over the years, when the World Cup rolls around, I know my customers are going to talk about it. Best to be in the loop.

For anyone living under a rock, the World Cup is THE ultimate tournament held every four years featuring 48 teams from around the world. It’s been going on since 1930 and has only been canceled twice due to World War II. Unlike American football, which is divided into teams, World Cup teams play under the flag of their country. There isn’t an annual season. Instead for three years teams, play to qualify for the tournament that takes place in year four. Only 19 countries have hosted the World Cup so its arrival on US soil this year was a big deal. The last time the United States hosted was in 1994 and several of the games were played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. I lived in a little tourist and agricultural town 60 miles north of Los Angeles and we were inundated with fans who traveled from all over the world to watch the games so it did not surprise me in 2022 when my Argentine and French customers alerted me to their absence for the following week as they would be traveling to Qatar to watch their teams compete. Like the Super Bowl, fans spare no expense when their team is playing.

If anything, the World Cup has only enhanced my life at the farmers market over the years. Back when I did a local evening market, one of my weekly regulars called to ask if I would deliver their usual order to a local pub where they were watching a match. In exchange, they would treat me to dinner. That was the first time I really began to understand the excitement around these matches.

By the time the next World Cup rolled around, I was going to markets in the District and combining restaurant deliveries with my market days. I had to deliver to an English pub on H Street during one of the final playoff games and was surprised to find no one answering my knock at the kitchen door. I knew they were open, so I drove around to the front door. The place packed wall-to-wall, standing room only. Just as I walk through the door the entire place exploded in screams, shouts, hooting, hugs as their team had just made it into the quarterfinals.

Sometimes my lack of football knowledge gets me into trouble. I should have followed the games a little more closely when a patron’s child who came to market each week wearing his Manchester United shirt showed up in plain clothes. Where’s your shirt, I asked, and the kiddo burst into tears telling me that his team had lost. Whoops.

Soccer jerseys have far surpassed professional sports team shirts, and hats these last several weeks. While many of our patrons have left for their annual summer vacation abroad, I know some will be missing this Sunday by making the trek to New Jersey to see their homeland’s team compete. I’m thinking about one couple in particular, he from Argentina and she from Spain and wondering what side they are going to sit on or if they will split up as soon as they enter the stadium. I forgot to ask that question when they alerted, they would not be at market this week.

Fear not, footballers, you will still have plenty of time to make it to the markets before the match begins at 3 PM on Sunday. I will be looking for those jerseys. For me, I will be on the road, and just pulling in to the farm as the match begins. By the time I get everything put away and my evening farm chores completed, the match should be over. So goes the life of a farmer.