The Chewable Game

We found a football several months ago and gave it to Gomez. A big, muscular, slobbery dog simply must have sports equipment.

It was a standard American-style football, a lopsided brown egg of a thing which appealed to him because it rolled in strange ways. Gomez learned to grasp it by pinching the white laces in his teeth and he'd march around with it, looking like a demented monkey with heavily advanced cancer of the mouth.


And like any obsessive parent, I feared my child was headed down The Wrong Path and vowed to intervene. It was time to get that dog a proper football before we lost him forever down that wretched hellhole vortex of NFL fandom. Time to introduce Gomez to what Brazilian star player Didi called The Beautiful Game.


His eyes lit up as he beheld the box: THIS, he gaped wordlessly, IS THE ONE TRUE FOOTBALL. Futbol. Footie. The Beautiful Game. Hell, it's even called "soccer" in some of the more backward nations of Earth.


CHRIST ALMIGHTY he cried (wordlessly), GIT IT OUTTA THE BOX! I MUST FULFILL MY DESTINY! He was hooked already, and the ball hadn't even touched the pitch.


And then, it was pure magic. It was as if he'd been playing for years. Gomez is a natural defender: Once he gains possession, it's quite hard to get it past him. He's a full-body player with a keen sense of baiting an offside trap.


But he's also showing great promise as an attacking midfielder, by developing a unique way of advancing the ball with feet and face. I've checked the FIFA rulebook and it says nothing about kicking the ball with the side of one's face. I suppose it's technically somewhere between a dribble and a header, but it's a thing of beauty to witness in action. Of course his face becomes obscenely filthy during this contest.


Needless to say, the ball suffers as well. But it seems we've succeeded in getting our boy off the devil's wretched American style football and on to a much greater game. The timing is perfect as well, since now father and son can bond over the World Cup qualifiers: Against all odds we're supporting England in this household (currently leading Group 6 with Croatia a comfortable distance behind), but are also sympathetic towards Argentina (currently at a nail-biting 4th place in the South American group) and Netherlands (currently at the top of the European Group 9).

In truth, we named our dog after my childhood spiritual hero Gomez Addams, of The Addams Family fame (and that's John Astin's portrayal, not that criminally awful Raul Julia version in the films), but if this enthusiasm for the Footie keeps up, we can always say we named him after DC United's prodigal hero Christian Gomez. And given our boy's natural powers in the midfield position, it makes good sense...