There is a wonderfully unhinged Instagram reel that was recently sent to me, a precisely edited compilation of European basketball coaches yelling at the top of their lungs. It beautifully illustrates players letting them down, breaking their hardened, primarily Balkan, nerves of steel. The reel captures the breaking point for men who probably lived through, and no doubt remember, bloody wars that destroyed cities like Sarajevo, Zagreb, and Belgrade. These are men who lived through the most horrible atrocities anyone can go through- and they’re now boiling after watching their team give another turnover.
Many who’ve commented have used the reel as gentle nudge at the NBA, a funny ribbing of a league where player egos are unmatched, both within basketball and the world of sports in general. For me, when watching the compilation, I immediately lost it. Nearly falling out of my chair, a tinge of nostalgia began tickling me. Wait a second… I think I know this guy. Not personally, but the archetype of this guy, this fuming madman barking in broken English. I nearly did a spit take the first time I saw it. It suddenly dawned on me, why that nostalgic tinge had reached me, and right beside that, why this clip got me so good. It reminded me of someone. In fact, this coach, who I assume was in the throes of an important series, actually seemed like a dead ringer for someone I knew quite well- my dad, Vladimir.
Vladimir grew up as one of two children in Gomel, a sleepy but charming city in the southern corner of Belarus, one that’s less than an hour away from the border it shares with Ukraine. Born in 1960, in the middle of the Soviet Union’s most egalitarian years, he describes his life with an unexpectedly balanced mix of nostalgia and realism. He smiles when speaks of the seemingly endless forests, fishing trips with friends, and a general simplicity to life. He winces, and becomes very serious, when he’s reminded of standing in line for food, widespread corruption, and an anti-semitism that was both frighteningly casual & deeply historical.
My father had always had a love of sports, and in the Soviet Union, this could only really manifest in one sport in particular- playing and watching the beautiful game, what we Americans call soccer, but what Vlad and the rest of the world called futbol. (Like football, but a little faster on the end, and add some zhuzh to it.)
He played from a very young age, and when he was in his teens, he actually represented Belarus in the under 18’s national team. I let my mind wander on who he might have been at this point in his life. Did he let his talent go to his head? Was he the talk of his khrushchevka? Or was he calm, cool, and collected, the way I had always regarded him while growing up? He wasn’t a striker, so maybe his ego was actually pretty in line. Then again, I’ve never really probed him on it.
An innumerable amount of TikTokers have described what I’m talking about as “dad lore”, and I tend to agree- when you have an immigrant father, you are constantly wondering about their past. It’s something that stays in the shadows, when their sole mission is to provide and build a new life, especially in a country over 6,000 miles away from everything they knew, especially when they have a kid on the way. So when they do drop bits and pieces… it really does feel like lore. Suddenly, a piece of the puzzle that makes up the mythology of the man who raised you reveals itself.
A favorite one of mine is during his stint as a player for the Belarus Youth Soccer Team. My dad describes getting on a train with the rest of the team, to get to a match in a northern part of the Soviet Union. As they pass town after town, babbling brooks and snow-capped peaks, the train comes to an unexpected stop. The team doesn’t mind, the view is gorgeous and they stay marveling out the train window. A group of armed men storm their carriage. They rob the team of everything- their money, their luggage, and worst of all, their boots. At the edge of my seat, I ask my dad to keep going, to tell me how this all ends.
He looks up at me, and laughs. “We sat there for a while. And that was it!” I laugh, too. There wasn’t going to be any closure to this story, and that was okay. Just another piece of dad lore to add to the tapestry, I guess.
My father’s love of sports did not trickle down to me until quite recently- but not for lack of trying. When I was a kid, I simply had no interest. He and my mother would enroll me in nearly everything they could think of, and I was resistant to all of it. I was a brat. An asshole. I somehow survived being a direct product of dotting Jewish parents and only child syndrome, a potentially fatal mix during early adolescence. Hockey, tennis, basketball, soccer, fencing- you name it, my parents signed me up, invested in gear, accessories, and the like, only to have me lose interest just a few months in.
If you’re wondering what the relevancy of my opening paragraph was, where I detailed that instagram reel, it lies here. On the sidelines, in the car, and at home, my dad would berate me about my poor performance. Just like those Balkan coaches, often with the same dramatic gestures, and almost always in broken English.
Writing this out opens a pit in my stomach. In that pit, there’s a deep well filled with shame, as well as regret. I wish I could’ve latched onto something, if not for my sake, then for his. But it’s in the past now. I had a lovely childhood, but it was deeply lonely as well. My grandparents were my best friends, taking care of me when my mom and dad worked late, which was more often than not.
When I was alone, I turned to media, where a voracious interest in cultures that were foreign arose in me, especially that of Japan. I absorbed their cultural exports like a sponge, reading dozens of manga volumes a week, watching countless anime rips on YouTube, and immersing myself in the music of both pop and ambient artists from the land of the rising sun.
My father and I went to Japan when I was 17, and it remains a cherished memory for both of us. He saw how excited I was to get lost in narrow, lantern-filled alleyways. He seemed to recognize the joy on my face when I rode the Tokyo Subway. He did not say a word when I blew all my savings in Akihabara, tens of thousands of yen spent on bizarre ephemera from the world of anime & manga. Conversely, I saw my dad light up the moment we stepped into the Tsukiji Fish Market, him being a seafood lover his whole life. I watched him bewildered at a Japanese knife maker, observing a childlike glee as he looked on to his custom blade being forged. Even something as simple as a clean subway station blew his mind. The trip ignited things in both of us, and that was the most beautiful part of it, in hindsight. To be so different, yet so deeply alike, is a blessing.
It was only during the pandemic that my tastes began to shift. I still had a love for Japanese culture, along with interests in design, architecture, and fashion. But something was brewing in me. It’s hard to pin down an exact moment, but I was slowly becoming more and more sports-curious.
I started to become interested in football- not the burly, red blooded American kind, but the European variety, the kind you watch with a pint in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Initially, I was drawn to it because of the kits. Specifically, Italian uniforms from the 80’s and 90’s, which seemed to possess a sort of mythic quality. (My holy grail, a ‘97-’98 Juventus kit advertising the Sony MiniDisc player on the front, regularly goes for three to four hundred dollars on eBay. Maybe one day, I tell myself.)
And while the fits were absolutely fire, I was surprised at what actually kept my interest in football- the sport itself. Even a fairly uneventful game kept me transfixed, my eyes locked in on the pitch. A good match felt more exciting than any movie, and a great one? I’m usually averse to cliches, but one does have to invoke them when speaking of the aptly titled Beautiful Game.
To witness a great game of football is, put simply, pure poetry in motion. When played at the highest level, and played well, one really does start to believe that this sport is the most hypnotizing force in the world. It’s a dance between two teams that transcends ideology, identity, and politics. It is a small scale symphony, featuring 22 masters of their craft, played in some of the largest arenas in the world.
My dad is a lifelong futbol fan, so he knew all this long before I did. But his allegiances to any one team was murky at best. Instead, he was obsessed with who was the most exciting man on the pitch. Who was rousing the crowd? Whose performance led to not just victory, but a cementing of their name in the history books? Who did you look at, and immediately recognize that this was more than just a game? In simple terms, he looked for players that owned the moment, and owned it wholly. He had Beckham’s kit from his days at Manchester United. A well-worn Kaká jersey from his time at AC Milan. An obviously fake, but no less meaningful French World Cup shirt with Zidane’s name, shoddily sewn on the back. He is, more than anything, a fan of beautifully played football.
Which is why he was so confused when I started supporting Tottenham Hotspur, right after the pandemic began. The Spurs, as they’re colloquially referred to, are North London’s white-and-navy clad enfant terrible, a club that truly embodies the phrase “it’s the hope that kills you.”
It’s a mix of both tragedy and comedy with this team; glimmers of genuinely brilliant futbol one match, a display of profound self-sabotage the next. Usually finishing in the top 5 or 6 spots, it’s been a while since the Spurs have gone on a truly magical run within the English Premier League.
I initially became interested in Tottenham because of what their supporters went by, which is not the best but definitely not the worst way to choose which team you’re gonna like. Football in Europe, like a noticeable amount of historic pastimes on the continent, has an underlying degree of antisemitism to it.
Like any form of hate, the pendulum swings wildly. It can be subtle team discrimination, all the way up to full-flung Nazi symbolism, the latter often coming from ultras, whose name stems from their extreme fanatical tendencies, including inciting violence, hate speech, and an impassioned desire to enforce their club’s perceived ideology, even going so far as to die for it.
It was just another part of being a Jew in a part of the world that viewed you skeptically at best, and vicious at worst. It’s why I was stunned to see that Spurs supporters passionately declared themselves ‘THE YID ARMY’. It was a surprising embrace of Jews in a game that often either lampooned or hissed at us.
My father and I began watching the English Premier League together when I moved home in 2021, shortly after graduating from UC Davis. We would rise early on Saturday mornings, brewing tea and cooking omelets while observing who made it on the starting 11. I didn’t know much about the actual rules and regulations of the game- that’s where my dad came in. That’s a corner, he would explain. Here’s what a decoy run is, and why it’s so good, he’d tell me. Along with tactics, he knew the history, and filled in the wide gaps I had of both. For the first time, I didn’t want to even pretend that I knew more about something than my dad. (A bad, rebellious habit I picked up at a young age.) This was his world, and he was letting me experience it with him. I was happy just to get the ticket in.
He had a lot to say when we watched the Spurs. While I was blindingly excited anytime we got the ball, Vlad remained realistic. After most games, he’d say ‘well, that wasn’t very exciting.’ I’d frown, then simmer, then cool down.
The worst part? He was right. Spurs simply did not play heart-pumping football. Offensively, they were cautious, nearly...respectful. (Two words you never want to use to describe a team that needs to go on the attack.) When they gained possession, the game slowed down instead of speeding up, as if someone mistakenly hit rewind instead of fast forward on a tape. Players look confused on the pitch, and even Harry Kane, England’s golden boy and one of the best strikers to ever play the game, couldn’t salvage what was happening.
This was the style of play under Antonio Conte, an Italian firebrand who was only half as good at managing a club as he was handsome. True to his nature, he went out kicking and screaming, blaming the heritage of the club for the lackluster end of the season. He quickly got the boot after the viral press conference, and a new man, Ange Postcoglou, stepped up to the plate. Under him, Spurs have become exciting again. There’s a buzz to the offense now, it feels like more of a frenzy than a yawn. Defensively, we’ve got a ways to go, but Spurs have felt sharper than they have in years. Most of all, there’s a passion swelling up in both the supporters and players. It feels like everyone actually wants to be there.
In fact, this season was the first where I would actually wake up early enough to go to a bar and watch the game. Sometimes, my dad would join me, too. Most recently, Vlad and I decided to sit down and crack open a beer as we watched Barcelona versus PSG in the Champions League.He pointed to Robert Lewandowski, a striker for Barca. We watched as he crossed up defenders, and headed for the goal. Suddenly, my dad perked up- did you know we’re actually a quarter Polish, he asked? I shook my head, and he started telling a story of how his mother, my grandma, would take trips between Belarus and Poland, loading up on books in Yiddish to keep the language alive in her home country. A couple times she even took my dad along, too.
The game felt worlds away while my dad told this story, until PSG scored, and my dad roared out of his seat. ‘Now THERE is a goal’, he exclaimed. I got up to fetch another beer. For what felt like the first time in a long time, we had a laugh, something about drinking awful beer while it’s still light out. We laughed, and then sat up. The second half was about to start.
