The Beautiful Game.

Ayyyye! The World Cup is here, and you're either feeling like everyone's suddenly an expert or like an outsider because you're not.

If you're the latter, stawwwp!

As the purveyor of culture you are, you can't be blocking yourself from the new and the unfamiliar... especially on this global scale.

Come close. I have a secret: I knew nothing about soccer and still helped launch one of the most successful expansion teams in MLS history. I'm talkin' record attendance, a rabid fanbase from day one.

For context: between cheering for my brother in the PAC-10 at ASU in the 90s (Go Sun Devils) and wanting to be a backup dancer for Janet Jackson, soccer wasn't exactly on my radar growing up.

So when Chris Breen hired me to work on Atlanta United, I was... surprised. But I quickly learned I didn't need to understand the offside rule (although I did learn). I needed to understand why people put on for their team. What representation on that pitch means to a city. All the emotion underneath the fandom. THAT I understood completely. The game was new to me, but that feeling of fandom never was.

Don't wall yourself off from things you "don't know." You understand far more than you think, because emotion IS the universal language. And the things you don't know? Ask somebody. Because the people are always your key into the culture.

Now, get into it and turn on a match. I hear it's a beautiful game. 😉

Vamos!