VATICAN CITY — The pitch overlooking St. Peter’s Basilica has an imposing reverence about it, sitting as it does in a place where centuries of history create a sense of ecclesiastical gravitas.
That reverence is shattered the moment the whistle blows, bringing the beautiful game and the beatified game together in the Clericus Cup, Catholicism’s version of the Champions League.
"The Clericus Cup is as big as it gets in the Catholic realm," said Scott A. Gratton of the United States, a seminarian at North American College. "It literally is like the World Cup to us."
Tarcisio Bertone, the Cardinal Secretary of State and an devoted fan of the game Americans call soccer, created the annual five-a-side tournament in 2007. Sixteen teams, comprised of players from 70 countries, are drawn from the international seminaries throughout Rome. Many of the players come from the United States, Rome and Latin America.
Through a series of league and play-off games, Cup teams challenge each other in highly competitive, yet scrupulously brotherly, matches during a four-month season. Pontifical North American College topped defending champions Gregorian Pontifical College 3-0 to take the title last year.
The point of the tournament is to "reinvigorate the tradition of sport in the Christian community" and foster friendly competition among soccer-loving seminarians and clergy throughout Rome.
"We take our faith into our football," Gratton said before a match against Pontifico Collegio Urbano that was featured in Ford’s Fantastic World of Football documentary series. "I think it’s refreshing for people to see young men who are studying to be priests but who can still play soccer and who love the sport."
Play is intense but respectful. In addition to the red and yellow cards every soccer fan recognizes, the Clericus Cup features a blue card signaling five minutes in the "sin bin" for unsportsmanlike conduct. After all, even men of God occasionally play too hard.
"Competition is encouraged," said Australian Lewi Barakat. "It is human nature to be competitive. But it’s a question of what we are fighting for. On the field we battle each other and do our best, but at the end of the day, there’s a greater battle and we’re all on the same side."
North American sports something of a ringer in defender Mark Paver, who played for the Blackburn Rovers as a schoolboy and semi-professionally for 10 years in the UK. His dreams of turning pro didn’t quite work out, but he’s found an outlet for his passion in the Clericus Cup.
"I’m now quite old for a soccer player, but I’ve still got enough in me to compete at this level," he said. "And besides, it’s a lot of fun."
North American played a hard-fought game to a 2-2 draw with Urbano College, an honorable result for a match with no shortage of slick attacks, canny defending and some truly inspired goalkeeping, due in part, perhaps, to the hand of God.
