Khmer United FC

angkor wat
Originally uploaded by dangunderman.

The missus has a brother who founded and runs a school in Cambodia. Cambodia is one of those places well off most people's radar. Before learning more from my brother-in-law, all I knew about it is that the US fought there illegally during the Vietnam War, and that Spalding Gray wrote a one-man show (and movie) called Swimming to Cambodia, which I neither read nor saw.

But now I know that of the five poorest countries in the world, Cambodia is the only one not in Africa.

Football (that's soccer to us Americans) is very popular in Cambodia, and kids play in the streets everywhere you go. And yet, Cambodia is one of the few countries in the world with no national team, i.e. they don't compete for the World Cup.

(Those that don't know, by the way, the World Cup is actually a two-year-long tournament. What we enjoyed for a month earlier in the summer that ended with Zizou head-butting an Italian was just the final 32 teams. But before that, nearly two hundred countries compete in the overall tournament. And there are only, like, 206 countries. Or is it 206 bones in the body? Anyway...)

A couple of the kids at my brother-in-law's school decided to start a real team. They went all around and found the best possible players. Cambodia-being-Cambodia, the kids have only ever played barefoot, so the best players tend to have Hobbit feet. When they got equipment for the team, the players were terrible. They were getting tangled in their shirts. Balls were flying in all directions off the shoes. The lack of bruising on their shins threw off their timing.

Then one day, things suddenly gelled for the best player on the team. He dribbled his way through everyone, like Pele or Zidane-before-the-headbutt, and fired a shot into the upper corner of the goal. The place went crazy.

The secret of his success? He took off his shoes.

So the team's still getting used to playing with gear. But for the kids, this is the first step toward having a Cambodian national team. They are the Khmer United Football Club.

They're in need of a real coach, by the way. Someone who really knows how to train football/soccer teams. So if you know anyone qualified who wants to spend three-to-six months working with raw talent in Cambodia, contact the team via the website. There'd be no pay, but all expenses would be covered. And it would be a hell of an experience. I'd totally do it if I'd ever coached soccer before.

Bruce Arena just got canned as coach of the US national team. Maybe it could be his next project...

GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLL!