My first love is football. When I get the chance, I play football

Host: The sunlight burned low on the horizon, melting into a sea of orange dust over a cracked neighborhood field. The grass was half dead, half wild, and the goalposts leaned like tired soldiers. The air carried the sound of children laughing, a ball thudding, and the soft music of a nearby radio fading between stations.

Jack stood at the sideline, one foot resting on a scuffed football, his shirt damp with sweat. Jeeny sat on a broken bench, a bottle of water in her hands, her eyes bright with the reflection of the setting sun.

The day had been long. The match, meaningless. Yet the energy in the air — it carried something pure. Something that felt like memory.

Jeeny: “You looked… almost happy out there.”

Jack: (smirking, catching his breath) “Almost?”

Jeeny: “Yeah. Like the world hadn’t let you down yet.”

Host: A soft wind stirred the dust, swirling around them. The field lay empty now, the children gone, leaving only footprints and the lingering echo of joy.

Jack: “Fidel Edwards said, ‘My first love is football. When I get the chance, I play football for fitness.’ Guess I get it now.”

Jeeny: “You mean you finally understand love?”

Jack: “No. I understand fitness.”

Jeeny: (laughing) “You always find a way to ruin something beautiful.”

Jack: “It’s not ruin, Jeeny. It’s reality. People romanticize everything — even a game. But for some of us, playing isn’t about passion. It’s about control. Keeping the body from falling apart.”

Jeeny: “You sound like a machine. Maybe that’s your problem. You see everything as maintenance instead of meaning.”

Host: The sky dimmed, the orange bleeding into violet, and the floodlights flickered, buzzing weakly. The sound of crickets began, a slow crescendo under the evening air.

Jack: “Meaning doesn’t keep your heart healthy, Jeeny. Sweat does. Effort does. You call it love — I call it discipline.”

Jeeny: “But discipline without joy is a cage, Jack. Edwards didn’t say he played for medals or control. He said he played for fitness — but called it his first love. That’s not about health. That’s about home.”

Jack: “Home?”

Jeeny: “Yes. The kind of place your body remembers even when your mind forgets. When he says ‘first love,’ he’s not talking about football as exercise. He’s talking about the feeling it gives him — that rush, that belonging. The kind that reminds you you’re still alive.”

Host: Jack kicked the ball lazily, watching it roll through a patch of mud and come to rest near the goalpost. His eyes followed it like someone watching a lost childhood memory slide away.

Jack: “Maybe that’s the difference between us. You think love is the reason; I think it’s the byproduct. You chase feeling. I chase structure.”

Jeeny: “But even structure needs a heartbeat. You think Edwards runs drills just to stay fit? He does it because football calls him. Because for a few moments, he’s not a man trying to survive — he’s the boy who first fell in love with the game.”

Jack: “And what happens when the body can’t follow the call anymore? When your knees give out? When love becomes pain?”

Jeeny: “Then love changes form. But it doesn’t disappear. It becomes memory, teaching, presence. That’s what real love does — it adapts, like water taking the shape of its container.”

Host: The wind carried a distant sound — another group of players, far down the street, their shouts echoing through the twilight. The ball thudded against walls, pavement, metal gates. A city still alive, still playing.

Jack: “You make it sound like football’s religion.”

Jeeny: “Isn’t it? Look around — look at how people gather, chant, weep. They worship the rhythm, the motion, the unity. It’s one of the few places left where humans move together for joy instead of war.”

Jack: “Joy doesn’t win matches.”

Jeeny: “But it wins hearts. Maybe that’s more important.”

Host: Jack laughed, a deep, weary sound that was half amusement, half surrender. He walked toward the goalpost, picked up the ball, and tossed it in the air, catching it with a small, quiet smile.

Jack: “When I was a kid, I used to sneak out at night just to play in the alley with my cousins. No trophies, no goals. Just the ball and the streetlight. I thought I was running toward something. Turns out, I was just running to feel free.”

Jeeny: “And you call that fitness?”

Jack: “Maybe. Fitness of the heart, I guess.”

Jeeny: “So you do believe in love after all.”

Jack: “Maybe. Or maybe love is just another form of endurance.”

Host: The floodlight flickered, casting long shadows that stretched across the field, mingling their silhouettes until they were almost one. The air cooled, and the smell of rain hung near.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack, maybe that’s what Edwards meant — that fitness isn’t about running faster or living longer. It’s about finding the thing that still makes you feel alive after everything else has dulled.”

Jack: “So, football’s your metaphor for survival?”

Jeeny: “No. For gratitude.”

Jack: “Gratitude?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Every time you play, you’re saying thank you — to your body, to time, to all the things that could’ve gone wrong but didn’t. You’re saying, ‘I’m still here.’”

Host: A moment of silence. The wind softened. Jack placed the ball down, took a few steps back, and kicked it — not hard, but precise. The ball curved, kissed the net, and fell still.

He watched it, breathing slow, a quiet satisfaction moving across his face.

Jack: “Maybe love’s not something you choose. Maybe it’s something that chooses you — over and over, until you stop fighting it.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe love and fitness are the same thing — the practice of coming back, no matter how tired you are.”

Host: The camera pulls back, the sky fading into deep blue, the field empty except for the two of them — one standing, one sitting, both wrapped in the last light of the day.

The echo of the ball’s final kick lingered, soft but eternal.

And in that moment, between sweat and stillness, between discipline and devotion, they understood what Fidel Edwards meant — that love is not something apart from fitness, but the pulse that keeps it alive.

It’s not just the body that trains. It’s the heart — learning, again and again, how to stay in the game.