Part 1: A Bizarre Love Triangle — The Global F.C.
For many of us, professional football begins as a far-fetched dream. Some of us play club growing up, advance to high school, and if we’re lucky get the chance to play in college and beyond. While a small percentage of us will make the jump and sign a professional contract, most of us will not.
Our September feature story is a three-part series dating back to January 2011 where we follow the story of Jake Mann, a former student-athlete at Colorado State University, whose passion for soccer and adventure landed him a trial with 2006 FIFA World Cup winning coach Marcelo Lippi’s Guangzhou Evergrande in China. We’ll touch on Jake’s half-Chinese half-American heritage, his experience abroad, and how one life-long passion sabotaged the other.
Here is his story:
I was on a subway enroute to the highest-profile professional soccer tryout of my life. Weeks earlier, through a family friend, I was connected to a former Chinese National Team player from the 80’s. He was briefed on my pursuit of professional soccer and offered to host me at his family’s home in Guangzhou while I trained for my tryouts.
Minutes after propping my backpack up against the guest room wall, my host offered up some tea. We sat and sipped together as I flexed my good-not-great conversational Chinese before turning in for some rest. His heartfelt hospitality was immense and I felt welcomed upon arrival, eager and ready to pursue my dreams.
This story is not about triumph, nor is it about overcoming the odds to turn heads at a trial where I didn’t belong. It’s not even a story with some tips about what not to do. It’s a funny and transformative footnote during my brief spell as an aspiring professional athlete. An athlete who just weeks before this debacle got police-escorted out of Shanghai Shenhua’s training ground after walking in like he owned the place.
This story is about how the culture, community, and my surroundings for the next 6 months in China would come to define me in more ways than I could imagine. This story is about how food conquered football during one of the biggest stages of my life.
Now that you’ve had a peek into my soul, how about a fun fact: I’ve fallen asleep standing up before. On that subway ride to Guangzhou, swaying back and forth as the train hurtled down the track, I fell into a food coma. In this dreamlike state, I felt helpless as one of my life’s true loves sabotaged the other. Then, 11 a.m., chugging pre-workout in-between burps, fighting to keep my eyes open, a subway ride away from playing for one of the game’s greatest managers. How did I land in this predicament, blowing it before my chance had even arrived? Two words: Dim Sum.
The morning of the biggest try out of my life my host suggests we go to Dim Sum for breakfast. Mind you, Guangzhou is considered home to the best Dim Sum in the world. Not in the country, not across the continent, but the world. Stacks upon stacks of steaming baskets filled with dozens of dumplings and delicacies sounds like something out of my most wet dream. So how could I, someone who loves food more than life itself, NOT over indulge?
If you’ve grown up in a Chinese family like me or live near a major city’s Chinatown, then this southern Chinese delicacy has probably never been too far out of reach. For those where Dim Sum is a foreign and inaccessible entity all together, I feel for you. Although commonly described as a meal consisting of snacks and small plates (insultingly simplified to “Chinese brunch tapas”), Dim Sum is more experience than meal. It’s a custom that fosters a sense of community and encourages sharing. Sharing the many varieties of dumplings one might encounter at Dim Sum. Sharing tea with one another, making sure everyone always has a full cup from which to sip. And of course, sharing or spilling the “tea”, a.k.a. gossiping/catching up/talking shit.
I’d like to think today, presented with the same opportunity, I’d show a bit more discipline. Ultimately we’ll never know. What we do know though, is that I did not get invited back to sign my first major pro contract. Marcelo Lippi wasn’t even there. I played 15 forgettable minutes in a scrimmage on the practice fields outside the stadium. The only moment I can’t seem to erase from my memory is a giveaway I committed while attempting an outrageously unnecessary outside-of-the-foot pass, which received collective groans from all in attendance. The MVP of this day was most definitely Dim Sum and little did I know this experience would be a defining moment in my pursuit of professional soccer.
The story continues
Come back for Part 2: A Match Made in Heaven, Friday 09/11 at 12 pm EST.
Originally published at https://www.globalfootballculture.com on September 9, 2020.
