Giants third baseman Matt Chapman follows soccer because he owns “a small, small amount” of an English Premier League squad, Leeds United, which was promoted last season and avoided relegation this year.
Ross D. Franklin/AP
With the World Cup about to get under way, we figured this would be a good time to check in on the San Francisco Giants’ players and staff to see which teams they support, or if anyone plans to check out the games anywhere. It’s the most popular sport on the planet!
Well … maybe not so much in a baseball clubhouse, which is about 80% indifferent to the biggest sporting event in the world taking place, in part, in the Giants’ backyard. But with some persistence, we found a few soccer-heads and futbol fanatics.
That might be a stretch, but there is some interest, lots of love for Barcelona — and one very interesting soccer fact to come out of this week’s question, of course from someone who once played for the famously soccer-mad A’s front office, so we’ll start there as we ask:
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Are you a soccer fan, who’s your team and will you follow the World Cup?
Matt Chapman, third baseman: I own a little piece of a Premier League team. I mean a small, small amount. The 49ers ownership group invested, and my financial people are friends with them.
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Chapman: I invested in Leeds United, so I follow them. They moved up from the lower division (Championship) and won it. They were in the Premier League this year, and then they avoided relegation, so they’re staying in the Premier League. They have a huge fan base, and not this year (the Chapmans are expecting their second child in July) but next year I’m going to try to get there, that would be cool.
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I did play soccer growing up, I probably should have played longer, but I played football (American football) in high school instead of soccer. I was a wide receiver and a safety.
I’ll be rooting for the United States for sure. I like soccer. I want my daughter to play, for sure.
Jung Hoo Lee, outfielder (with Giants translator Justin Han interpreting): I’m definitely interested in the World Cup, and I’m excited to see it. Of course I’m rooting for Team Korea. If you talk about sports in Korea, baseball itself league-wise is No. 1, but if you talk about international matches, nothing can beat soccer over there at home. So I’m really excited to watch them.
I pay attention to the European teams that have Korean players — when I was young, Manchester United had Park Ji-sung and after that, Tottenham had Son Heung-min, Bayern Munich (Kim Min-jae), Paris Saint-German (Lee Kang-in), they’ve all had Korean players. So I have interest in all of those.
Luis Arraez, second baseman: I follow Barcelona, because Lionel Messi was there. When Venezuela is playing, I pay attention a little bit — but I don’t have time. When they play, we play.
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I was a good soccer player when I was little but my mom didn’t like it. She wanted me to play this (gestures around the clubhouse).
Tristan Beck, reliever: International soccer is great, country against country is always fantastic. I was at the Euro Cup in Krakow, Poland, in 2012 — we didn’t go to a game but it was a host city and the atmosphere was great, and we also went to the Brandenburg Fanfest in Germany, which was awesome. It’s cool meeting the rest of the world on their terms.
America having some host sites this year is going to be amazing, but really getting to buy into an international tournament — we always see the Olympics, but you rarely experience that either in a host country or with international fans on that scale — I think that adds a lot, seeing their passion and drive.
My mom always talks about Stanford Stadium hosting World Cup games back in the day (in 1994) and how there’s an enclave of Cameroon fans there because they were the Cinderella team that year.
Obviously I’m going to root for the USA but being in Germany for the 2012 one, I hope they succeed. And my mom is from Wales — they’re not in, but England’s an option, the Three Lions, of course.
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Erik Miller, reliever: I used to be really into it in high school, I would play the FIFA video game a lot, so I could name you every roster of every main European club. Not as much anymore, but I still follow it a lot and I like seeing all the squad announcements for the World Cup coming out, I saw all the discourse about England’s team, like (Cole) Palmer and (Harry) Maguire, I was like, “Holy s—, they’re not playing this year?” I would be very interested in going to a game.
Tony Vitello, manager: I played a lot of soccer, my dad was a soccer coach and I love it. I think people that don’t understand the beauty in the game just haven’t taken the time to really understand it. It’s the same as a European thinking American football is stupid. My buddy Pat Noonan has made it really fun to follow the teams he played for and now he coaches Cincinnati, but I was always a big Bruce Arena fan and it’s been cool to follow the local teams of where I’m at. I’m a little bit of a fair-weather fan, I grew up in a unique household where we didn’t have an NBA team, we didn’t have an NFL team — so I fluctuated with Pat and now with San Jose.
When the World Cup starts, Italy’s always got my heart. (Editor’s note: Italy has failed to qualify since 2014.) Part of it is the USA more times than not breaks your heart, but cheering for those two teams has been a lot of fun, and then I saw Messi and Neymar play in Barcelona. I’ve seen Michael Jordan play but I’ve never seen an athlete look so much different than everybody else on the field than Messi, and that was with Neymar and (Luis) Suárez and all these guys. I’ve been a huge Neymar and Messi fan ever since then. I would say Barcelona is the team I’ve cheered for most out of everybody.