You can’t spell globalization with out “Gooaal!”

Like so many boys I wanted to play our version of football. I saw the gladiators pummel each other on the television. The sport that taught me how to multiple by three and by seven was captivating.

Unfortunately, my parents feared I was too small to play football. Their belief was I was not big enough and didn’t display an aptitude for hitting people or being hit.

It was the summertime and they were looking for a fall sport for me to play. Then they asked me the seven words that started my obsession and are the root for my upcoming adventure: “Well, William, do you want to play soccer?”

That was 1989. Well before I knew what a World Cup was and why so many people are borderline lunatics around a simple game with even simpler rules.

Mike Shannon was my first coach and the one who convinced me that a game could be played without our hands. We wore blue jerseys with black shorts and played at a field across from the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport that has since been turned into a Par-3 golf course.

Even as a four year old, I loved everything about the game. Thanks to Coach Shannon, I was even excited to go to practice!

Most of those days playing at Airport Field are a blur, but it was hard not to think of them as the 2010 FIFA World Cup kicks off June 11 in Johannesburg.

I will be there, in South Africa, in part because of people like my parents, Mike Shannon, Skip Arrich, my girlfriend and so many others who encouraged a love for soccer that never left — though my skills as an outfield player eventually did.

There is little questioning that Tallahassee is a football and a baseball town. What I was surprised to find out once I arrived her for college is this place has a soccer undercurrent that will sweep you up, whether one is looking for it or not.

Gadsden County’s obsession is worse than anything here in Tallahassee. The Sunday League games have a cult-like following in part because the word on the street is those are the most competitive games within 50 miles of here.

It has been said countless times that soccer will become the next big thing in America. I have gone from the clueless four-year old, to the indifferent pre-teen to the pudgy goalkeeper as an adolescent, continual bench warmer at the varsity level and weekend warrior as an adult and have yet to see the sport take off in the “mainstream” like some would hope.

It may make for an interesting conversation with my editor when I return, but I have always surmised there have been two glaring reasons why the sport has never become as covered as football, baseball and basketball.

Soccer is not a sport Americans created or dominate, at least at the men’s level. Since hands are not used for scoring—unless you are Thierry Henry—it will never compare with the big three sporting behemoths in this country.

But the game is not why I am going to Johannesburg and Cape Town. Soccer is about the cultural experience that has stopped civil wars (Cote d Ivoire), been a one-finger salute to a fascist (Spain), made national pride acceptable again (Germany) and healed a country like South Africa after years of decades of blatant racism.

Of course the sport has its seedy elements, hooligans, prissy players, uber-capitalistic carnivores and issues with refereeing — “Google Thierry Henry handball” and the hubbub over a perfect game in baseball will seem minute — yet it’s all part of the imperfect beauty of the football.

Many weekends in the fall are still spent following, covering and reading about America’s version of football. But those who know me well know which football has always been my sport.