“The Secret Language of Soccer” is a lyrical meditation on the world’s most universal sport, where individual feeling and collective attention collide. Through shifting images and restrained intensity, the poem renders soccer as a space where technology, desire, and fate quietly converge.
Set against Canada’s rise in world soccer—its men reaching the Round of 16 at the 2026 World Cup for the first time in history, its women’s program sustained at the highest level, and its role as co-host of the FIFA World Cup 2026—the poem situates the game within a broader cultural threshold.
Across cities, stadiums, and oceanic distances, soccer unfolds as both spectacle and structure: a system of motion, silence, rupture, and return. Within it, spectators become witnesses to something at once familiar and unstable, where meaning emerges in split seconds.
In this shared field of attention, identity becomes collective, momentary, and luminous. We are 26.
The Secret Language of Soccer
By Cathy Xinman
Let the world fall silent.
Let no horns be sounded.
Let summer stay sober.
Let the crowds not erupt.
Beneath the vast uproar,
the grass is the most anxious soul,
helplessly swept into passion.
A little soccer ball needs no oil
to ignite the world.
Again and again,
it searches for an outlet.
Go beyond.
I am no longer a blade of grass.
You can change everything—
change luxury,
change destiny,
change devils into angels.
Yet you cannot change
the ecstasy of coronation,
money and modern technology
under the watch of VAR,
the ultimate triumph
of high-definition cameras
and ruthless algorithms.
You cannot change
that we are 26.
The sun has grown immense.
The earth burns hotter than ever.
From the stadium
beneath Vancouver’s snowy mountains,
we fly to Toronto,
then Houston,
toward the FIFA World Cup 26.
Cheers!
The long-awaited rawness and grit.
Victory and heartbreak
in a single instant.
The most faithful
are not the supporters,
not relentless pursuit,
not tireless falls.
They are the fans at fever pitch,
the blazing love for you—
beyond negotiation.
The colors defended in the stands.
Faces wet with tears,
standing together.
A thousand voices
Goal—
No.
…
Goal!
We are the game.
We are 26.
It is no easy thing—
for the child
a little taller than I,
to see my strength;
for the child
a little quieter than I,
to hear my labour.
What do you love?
You love the screams, the dancing,
the overwhelming tide
of colours beating as one.
With heads held high,
you strike above me.
Each new moment is given to you.
The tenderness of the pitch
is given to you.
Joy and sorrow
become one shared heartbeat.
Kissing the earth’s desolation and grief,
immense vulnerability surges like a tide.
You wave to the crowd.
Let me trust you, my companion.
Let me love you, thank you.
Let us sing of beauty and endurance.
My heart already belongs to you.
You are all heroes.
We are 26.
We are moving toward the sea,
singing upon waves and surf.
The next second rushes toward us.
Ah, hope—
you are shouting
above our heads.
There is one more thing.
It is about sweat.
It is about tears.
I lift my eyes.
Tell the grown-ups—
the old stories are fading away.
Miracles are always right before us.
This is my secret.
Did you hear it?
I love you.
Cathy Xinman writes poetry in English and Chinese. Find her English-language collection, Where You Love Yourself, on Amazon. You can also hear her poetry on her TikTok page. The Toronto Spark is on Bluesky @torontospark.bsky.social.
