When The 12th pulls a story out ‘From the Vault,’ we’re resurfacing stories from Timothy’s career writing about the sport from Las Vegas to Barcelona. Each edition comes with added commentary on the story’s relevance today and a link to the original.

Not too long after our family moved from Cali, Colombia to the U.S. in 2001, we decided soccer would be one way to maintain our children's connection to Latin culture. We quickly found out that there was a huge online store selling all things from the game, from cleats to balls to jerseys of the Colombian national team.  

Soccer.com became the place to look for Christmas presents.

Fast forward a decade-plus, in 2014, now living in Georgia with my son Dylan entering his teen years and a player (see last issue) and another Christmas approaching, I was curious one day about the online football giant's origin story. Fortunately, an editor at the Guardian indulged my curiosity and greenlit a pitch.

Without spoiling your read, the story brings me back to the 1994 World Cup, and if you live in the U.S. and love the game, how you've likely heard a constant refrain of "how much the game is growing" for the last twenty-five years. That tournament led the Moylan brothers to found soccer.com to take advantage of that game's "arrival" on U.S. shores.

It's similar to how political pundits seem to always refer to Latino voters as a sort of "sleeping giant." Every four years, the phrase returns, and it parallels how the increasing presence of immigrants in this country is taken–de facto–as a sign of growing affection for soccer.

After seeing the World Cup draw in early December, it's hard to tell what all that growth means. The ceremony's weird, golden, made-up statue with no clear relation to "peace" given to the leader of an administration that has already denied visas to one country's football federation (Iran) and is murdering fishermen from countries who will be competing.

Many things can be true at the same time. Trump only crashed the ceremony because he knew people are watching–and that he was going to get a shiny participation trophy.

Success attracts party-crashers.

I still love the fact that soccer.com workers play futsal in their warehouses, and stop work to watch the beautiful game. 


How soccer.com became an integral part of American fans' Christmas Days

If Santa is bringing you a soccer-related gift this year it may well come from a company started by two teenage brothers in the 1980s

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