My relationship with football

Or shall I say soccer because I was raised in the US? I'm writing this because I need to. The sport was such a long chapter in my life, and thanks to my newfound unemployment, I've been able to watch by far the greatest number of World Cup matches ever in my adulthood. So, I'll start from the beginning. I think I was around six years old when my parents enrolled me in ballet and gymnastics courses. I was never any good, and I still recall never being able to advance past some arbitrary level two in the latter. When I was eight years old, my parents took me to the widely anticipated family comedy film Kicking and Screaming. I was already kicking a soccer ball in our backyard as soon as we got home. Soon enough, I was enrolled in a recreational league. I took to the sport very well and very quickly. Little did I know that it would play such an instrumental role in my youth for an entire decade. No one else in my family had ever played the sport, so I can't say anyone influenced me. I…