Way back in the day, I was a decent high school football player and team captain. Soccer? I was average at best. But soccer was always more fun.
Part of that was Toby Charles on the 1970s-1980s TV show “Soccer Made in Germany.” Charles narrated the game like poetry for Americans before soccer was cool here. The other part of it was the nine years I spent as a kid growing up in Germany.
Mike Kirner is a Coral Springs High School alumnus. (courtesy, Mike Kirner)
I fell in love with the sport long before Beckham. Before Messi. Before MLS even existed. I was lucky. I kicked a ball around with legends who built soccer in South Florida. When the Fort Lauderdale Strikers packed Lockhart in the late 1970s and early ’80s, we had world-class talent in our backyard: Gerd Müller, maybe the greatest pure scorer ever. Teófilo “Nene” Cubillas. Ray Hudson. Gordon Banks, England’s iconic keeper.
We even had Pelé and Franz Beckenbauer — the Kaiser himself, who to me is the greatest player ever — in the same NASL, playing for the New York Cosmos.
My favorite memory? In 1984 at a Mullins Park pickup game, I accidentally nutmegged Cubillas. No skill involved. But 40 years later, a nutmeg against a South American legend is still a nutmeg.
Back then, there was real hope. South Florida was producing wunderkinds: Eric Eichmann, Jozy Altidore, DeMarcus Beasley, Brian Benedict. Pioneers like Linda Gancitano of Coral Springs helped break barriers with the early U.S. women’s national teams.
We thought and were told daily that this region would become America’s soccer capital. We had everything: passion, international influence, year-round play, throngs of soccer moms, kids inspired by Strikers and NASL pioneers.
Fast forward four decades.
World Cup games are finally being played in South Florida. The most famous athlete on Earth wears Inter Miami pink and is a billionaire. And yet we’re treating soccer like an afterthought.
We’re hosting several World Cup matches for the planet’s biggest sporting event in an open-air stadium during a South Florida summer.
Heat indexes over 100. Afternoon storms more reliable than Tri-Rail. And we decided the best showcase for world soccer is a stadium without a roof.
The excuse? Cost.
Seriously? This is Florida. When politicians want something, money appears. We built a climate-controlled arena for hockey — a sport most Floridians never saw on natural ice before the Panthers. In the ’70s, the only ice we saw down here was at the back of 7-Eleven, where they had that big metal freezer and ice bags inside for $1.
We renovated football stadiums. We subsidized massive entertainment districts. We found hundreds of millions for everything except a world-class soccer venue worthy of the sport’s global stature.
Even Inter Miami’s new stadium is moving ahead without a roof, though everyone involved knows exactly what a South Florida summer feels like.
The problem isn’t money. It’s commitment.
For decades we said we’d be America’s great soccer market. The demographics were right. The culture was right. Nine months of perfect weather. The history was already here. But the rhetoric grew while the infrastructure didn’t.
Today, Florida has two pro hockey teams with talent from Canada, Scandinavia and Russia. Both play in climate-controlled arenas. I hear the players get free Slurpees during practise.
What do we have for professional soccer in sweltering South Florida? Ice towels. Cooling stations. Orange wedges. I’m not sure if they also get free Slurpees. Elite athletes enduring conditions better suited for a July roofing crew than a World Cup match.
South Florida never lacked visionaries. Gerd Müller believed. Nene Cubillas believed. Ray Hudson believed. Linda Gancitano proved what South Florida could be and helped shape American soccer history. A generation of local kids believed.
We had 40 years to build something extraordinary.
Instead, with the world at our doorstep, we’re relying on shade, misting fans and crossed fingers.
So I ask again: Florida, how did we screw this up so badly?
The world has come here to watch the beautiful game.
I only wish we’d built a home worthy of it.
Mike Kirner is a Coral Springs High School alumnus.