John Wolyniec. Marco Pappa. Fabián Espíndola. Things of that nature.
In 1852 Karl Marx, observing the European political revolutions of the mid-19th century, wrote “all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice … The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” 1More accurately, this piece of writing is Karl Marx adapting a quote from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel that may or may not actually originate in a letter that he received from Friedrich Engels in 1851.
This is a very famous and also often misquoted passage, but the basic idea that Marx is introducing is that historical figures tend to present themselves and their movements in the context of earlier histories and movements, that we are all in the process of defining our present by points of comparison to what has come before. We are all, willingly or unwillingly, in a constant process of Remembering Some Guys.
Introduced to the popular vernacular by Deadspin (RIP) writer David Roth — but existing in the ancestral reptilian deep brains of people for millennia before that — Remembering Some Guys is the process of sitting down and reeling off the names of long-retired athletes of varying degrees of distinction. The most popular version of Remember Some Guys is the video series Roth created on Deadspin (RIP) and still makes on Defector, in which he goes through a pack of baseball cards and remembers stuff about the players contained therewithin.
The phrase “Remember Some Guys” is usually used in a sports context because it is such a perfect description of a very common kind of sports conversation: You can easily picture, for example, a bunch of dudes with mustaches and “Dennehy”-era Serengeti accents keeping themselves entertained for hours by naming a bunch of their favorite Bears offensive linemen. But insofar as it describe the way that being reminded of a name taps into your pleasure centers in a peculiar way, the concept transcends talking sports. For instance, you could argue that the primary emotion in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Remembering Guys, in that the films constantly deploy references and winks to comic book lore to generate any kind of reaction from the audience.
Anyways earlier this month Sacha Kljlestian played in a couple of U.S. Open Games, and that is an incredibly 2well important step in the development of American men’s soccer.
If you are unfamiliar with Kljestian, here are some basic facts about one of the great folk heroes of 2010s US soccer: Drafted in 2006 by Chivas USA, the defining tragicomic heroes of that era of MLS, Kljestian hit the scene as a silky creative midfield player, combining an eye for a threaded pass and a smooth shooting technique with an aesthetic somewhere in between early Tim Lincecum and whoever your favorite Winter X Games bronze medalist is.
Later, he cut his hair, grew out a mustache, moved to Belgium, won a bunch of league titles, made his way back to MLS as a New York Red Bull, developed a killer partnership with Bradley Wright-Phillips, and retired. Along the way, he scored perhaps the greatest meaningless hat trick in USMNT history, with three brilliantly-taken goals to beat Sweden in a January 2009 friendly that — based on my memory of the game and YouTube highlights — had maybe a couple of dozen people in attendance. 3Something that has always been strange to me about Kljestian’s career is that he basically stopped getting looks for the USMNT when Jürgen Klinsmann became head coach. Klinsmann’s whole deal was that he wanted the USMNT guys to be playing in Europe, and yet Kljestian spent four years winning the Belgian league and playing in the Champions League and Klinsmann basically didn’t care? Not like he should have been starting at the 2014 World Cup or anything, just something that has always puzzled me. On the other hand, trying to understand Jürgen Klinsmann is a fool’s errand.
After officially retiring in January 2023, Kljestian became a studio host for MLS’s new Apple TV coverage, but was briefly coaxed out of retirement this spring after a chance meeting with the general manager of USL League Two side Des Moines Menace. The short version of the story goes like this: Kljestian happens to go to a gym in Southern California founded by a former Menace player, the GM Charlie Bales sometimes goes there when he’s in town, the Menace roster is in flux for the early round of the US Open Cup, and so Kljestian ends up filling in for their first round match.4The long version is in This Athletic article, which has a whole bunch of fun facts and anecdotes.
But then they win their first match, and Kljestian gets to remembering some guys. Below is Des Moines’s roster from their second round matchup with Union Omaha.
Admin on the bench so Soccer Ops Manager has been given social passwords #BuckleUp (version 2 of these tweet, we weren’t kidding)
— Des Moines Menace (@MenaceSoccer94) April 4, 2024
SOCCER MASTER’S STARTING XI
📺 – https://t.co/FirDaqWWoC pic.twitter.com/c8VfzTMl0e
Joining Kljestian in the Des Moines starting eleven were stalwart 2010s LA Galaxy defender AJ de la Garza, slightly less stalwart early 2010s LA Galaxy goalkeeper Brian Rowe, Sporting Kansas City legend Roger Espinoza, Orlando City and Canada winger-turned-urbanism-activist Tesho Akindele and Euan Holden, who technically never played in MLS but is Stuart Holden’s younger brother and also once went viral for striking up a romance on a plane.
On one level, this is just one of the wonderful and weird things that can happen in the United States’ national cup competition, where a semi-pro team affiliated with a burrito chain recently beat an MLS reserve team, and where Clint Dempsey once tore up a referee’s card. And it was a genuinely fun internet moment to react to the successive names who joined Kljestian like Vince McMahon.
But there’s also something reassuring about Remembering Some MLS Guys — even more than just the general comfort of Remembering Some Guys. American soccer history is long, but it is weird, sporadic, and often regional. If American soccer fans of the 1970s sat around and reeled off their favorite players from the original NASL, they would name worldwide legends of the game who largely made their mark elsewhere: Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer, Eusebio, Johan Cruyff, George Best.
For most of American soccer history, our lack of a stable national league has robbed us of the chance to collectively half-remember good-but-not-great or great-but-not-all-time level players. And it’s those players who really make up the foundation of a national sports culture. Stars are one thing, but it’s the fondly remembered role players, the cult heroes, the people who the Streets Won’t Forget, that form the rich deep lore that a sport needs. These smaller players, who leave their mark in more esoteric ways, create the complex and often kind of silly history that let leagues exist not just as corporations and year-to-year competitions, but as actual cultural institutions that people have ties to.
For a sport to develop stable roots in the culture, great player important, but so are less great players who become fan obsessions, or journeyman left backs who manage to stick around the league for a decade, or a defensive midfielder who subs into a Saturday night game and makes you say “Oh I really could have sworn that he retired.”
The Des Moines Menace roster is a sign that American men’s professional soccer has reached a critical threshold: It has stuck around for long enough that players are now reaching second appearance of all great sports personages: a half-remembered collection of moments you probably caught on cable, a collection of highlights you watch on YouTube, a nice play once made on an otherwise unmemorable Tuesday night. A Guy to Remember.
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