american soccer fans from the eras preceding my introduction to the game often point to divergent hooks that got them into the european league scene: pbs reruns of bundesliga fixtures, nasl, and 'soccer made in germany' episodes aired during the eighties. but earnest fans of my generation will point to the computer game 'fifa 98: road to the world cup.' a groundbreaking game (by my ten-year-old recollection), fifa 98 locked in many false impressions of professional soccer that would take years to undo in my mind. foremost amongst these misapprehensions were:
1. andy gray's commentary is delightful.
2. zinedine zidane is bald and his name is pronounced 'zih-dain.'
3. bernard lama was good.
4. competent professionals play indoor soccer.
5. oceanic world cup qualifying is entertaining.
but besides outright misperceptions, there were also perceptions shaped by novelty and novelty only. most specifically to this post was the whimsically-pixellated character of luis oliveira, the brazilian-born forward for belgium and fiorentina. a dynamo up top beside batistuta for la viola, oliveira demonstrated the best of fifa 98 attributes (pace) and a wonderful blonde mop on top of hazelnut-hued skin. think henrik larsson color contrast before he disgracefully sheered his dreads. the very idea of a blonde black dude who was from brazil, played in italy, but represented belgium just tickled me beyond what is today explainable, and thus i chose fiorentina as my favorite side in italy. the smattering of serie a games i saw before the turn of the millennium turned out to be the autumn of oliveira's career (he was shipped off before 2000 to begin a drawn-out descent into the basement of the italian professional game and i believe directly replaced by enrico chiesa), but he turned me on to fiorentina.
the deal was eventually sealed by a controversial photograph of edmundo feeding a beer to the chimp, pedrinho.
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