American soccer writing, history & data.
Please check out my Atom and RSS feeds (your choice) where you'll get reminders when I post pieces on occasion on this site's soccer blog.
I'm also on Bluesky if you want to see my more cheeky, off-the-cuff soccer (and other) takes. @dancreel.com on Bluesky
For some reasons, there's never enough time.
Posted on Sept. 12, 2025, 2:30 p.m. | Categories: Data[This blog post was originally published on July 17, 2023.]
At least for me.
I started thinking about this earlier today as I was mowing the lawn. My spouse and I often have discussions about how our brains work. While the term “neurodivergent” has become trendy and overused, as I’ve gotten older, it’s become a boon in helping me understand how I relate to the world around me.
Part of last night’s discussion was about obsession. During the talk, my wife said that she told one of her co-workers about how much work I do about soccer and the co-worker said it sounds like an obsession.
I’ve never thought of myself as and obsessive, and the discussion didn’t change that. As I was pushing the lawnmower, I started thinking back to that comment and thinking about all the soccer research I do. I do a lot of research on soccer - specifically, soccer history.
I really enjoy digging into old newspaper articles and old websites to uncover information and write down what I find. I’ve got spreadsheets full of league seasons, the teams, the games they play, and interesting and important information to go along with it. There’s a never ending geyser of soccer history to uncover and it’s awesome to discover it and pass it along.
I love doing research and I love writing. I’m good at both. My ability to write information, thoughts and ideas is much better than my ability to vocalize them. But, I don’t write nearly as much as I’d like.
And when I say write, I mean writing with some thinking behind it. I can dash off an odd piece, social media post, or tweet without much thought. I’m talking about writing something that takes some good amount of mental energy.
As I cut the grass, I started wondering why the outlet for most of my “obsession” with soccer history is research and not writing. I do feel, on a regular basis, the discrepancy between the amount of research I do and the amount of writing I do.
A big part of it is due to how my brain is wired. Another big part of it is how my life is structured. Putting those big parts together gave me some insight.
I’d love to do more writing and, yes, research but my work-life balance simply won’t allow it. I have a 9-to-5 civilian job, I have a family, I have two dogs, and I have to sleep. But why does that not impact my ability to research and my ability to write equally?
Honestly, I’m able find time to do research much more easily in the bite sized chunks my life allows. For writing, I need more downtime. I need to know that I have a set amount of time I can think and write. When I’m doing research it’s easy for me to “stop in the middle”, do something else, and then get right back to it.
With writing, I can’t even begin to start the process if I think I might get interrupted. That’s how my brain works. It’s a similar experience with watching television or movies. It’s hard for me to enjoy a show I really want to see if there might be distractions. And, I don’t want to even start something if I know there’s a good chance I’ll be interrupted.
I enjoy writing. But, it’s hard for me to start because I have to enjoy it to do it. And to enjoy it I need to know I can have time to do it.
I’ve found out so much fun soccer history stuff and I want to let other people in on it. I hope I’ll find more time to write about it. Because it would be nice to be able to say, “Research is hard. Writing is easy.”
Last modified on Sept. 12, 2025, 2:34 p.m.