It’s Too Much

I rarely have a conversation about men’s sports that isn’t also about money. Sometimes the terms of a player’s contract will be dropped like an ordinary piece of news—the overall value, how many tens of thousands of dollars per week that comes out to. Someone will say we should probably pay our teachers and nurses more; someone else will note these athletes are paid less than what they’re worth to the far wealthier leagues and owners they play for. Other times, financial anxiety percolates up from some deeper, more personal and heartfelt place, causing one’s dad to call out to rookies through the TV screen and beg them not to go spending all their newfound cash on stupid crap.

In the US’s pre–World Cup friendly against Germany on June 6, American left back Antonee Robinson drove his foot through a ball that was falling steeply from fifteen feet in the air, drilling it into back of the net from just outside a crowded box. It was an incredible goal.…