Just over a decade ago, I decided that it was time to bet big on soccer. I was working as an editor at SLAM, the world’s leading basketball magazine, and the company that owned us was always looking for different publishing avenues to explore.
I’d been watching early morning and late night soccer from England and Europe for a few years, but it was living in New York City during the 2002 World Cup that convinced me that soccer was coming to the U.S. stay. New York is a city filled with people who’ve moved to the Big Apple not only from across the country, but also from all around the globe, and the one thing everyone seemed to agree on during the summer of 2002 was that soccer was everything.