I tried out Sacramento Republic’s “Let’s talk soccer” program. It was pretty cool

Last week, I saw Sacramento Republic promote a program called “Let’s Talk Soccer.” I was intrigued.

The deal was, you go on the club’s website, sign up for a session at a specific time, answer a few basic questions, and wait for your appointment. On the appointed day, someone associated with the club would call back.

I signed up right away, for a couple reasons. First, I love to talk soccer, and living in a house of non-hardcore fans, I don’t get to do it that much these days. Second, I cover Sac Republic, so I thought it would be nice to try out and see what happened.

And so on Monday, I received a call from a Sac Republic club employee, and chatted for a little more than a half hour. We talked about all kinds of topics: Sacramento, of course, and Sac Republic, as well as how we got into the sport, which teams we support, here and abroad, rolling out this program and other community outreach efforts during this time.

It was a good talk, and I would urge you to do it if you’re at all interested.

• You can talk soccer
• You might learn some things (I did!)
• You can meet someone new
• You can make a connection with someone you didn’t have before

In this era of zoom calls and facetime sessions and such, we have ways to stay connected with friends and family who are not in our households. At least we have that.

But with society shut down due to the coronavirus right now, we don’t have that opportunity to go to a party, or a bar, and talk to someone new. We can’t go to our significant other’s work party and learn someone there shares the same passion as us.

This isn’t that, exactly, but since I participated in “Let’s Talk Soccer” as a regular person and not a reporter pumping a captive team employee for news, I will admit it was nice to make that new connection. How often, exactly, do we tend to chat on the phone with new people these days?

So I would urge you to check this out, again, if you have any interest. The point is to have a conversation, they’re not selling you anything, it’s not one of those “Win a prize!” scams that turns out to be a 3-hour sales pitch to buy a timeshare. It is what it says it is: A chance to have a conversation about soccer.

And thanks to SRFC for taking the time to talk to me and the others who have signed up for this. It’s a fantastic way to build even deeper roots with the community.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.