There is the Miami surface that you see when you visit and the layers you only witness when you reside here for a time.
In the former there's the neon and in the latter there's the faded asphalt that's a salt gray. The growing number of construction cranes populating the Brickell and Downtown skylines appear in the same part of town where you will find a county courthouse built in 1928 that in recent years has found it difficult to procure funding for an overhaul. You see the jetset and the lux and the glamour and also find that, according to a recent study by Bloomberg, it is the U.S. city with the greatest wealth gap between its rich and poor.
When you live here, as I have for the past seven years, you get shimmer (sometimes real, sometimes not so) on a regular basis, and before long, you start to wish for things that are more substantive, authentic, and B.S.-free.
This is why I love Midtown Stadium Indoor Soccer, an indoor soccer facility in Miami's Wynwood neighborhood, so much.
At Midtown, one set of bleachers overlooks a solitary artificial playing surface in a five-a-side facility that is one-third soccer field, one-third industrial warehouse, and one-third CBGB. Sure there are other places to play small-sided in Miami, but I haven't found one in my time here that feels as organic as Midtown.
Remember the 2002 Nike soccer commercials that centered on a three-on-three tournament that took place in a cage? This place looks, and feels, like it was filmed here. Midtown is very punk rock: apart from two small windows, you're isolated from the rest of the 305 in a low-lit soccer fort. The venue's sound system adds to the ambience, with deep bass rap booming from the speakers while teams play for straight sixty-minute games late at night and into the early morning.
Look to your right when you walk in and there’s a wall of soccer scarves that could really only exist in a city as international as Miami: you’ve got your traditional Barcelona, Bayern and Benfica representation, but also some from more obscure clubs, like Chacarita Juniors, Stade Brestois 29 and yes, even Reading. And it doesn’t take long to determine the favorite club of Midtown’s proprietor, Mike Athea: both Midtown’s interior and exterior are adorned with the flags and emblems celebrating legendary French team Olympique de Marseille.
Look closely on the scarf wall and you’ll also see photos of famous professional soccer players who have played here through the years, including Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Karim Benzema, Nani, and countless others (as well as Chad Ochocinco, who’s a regular).
Call it Miami soccer's analog to Rucker Park: an accesible locale in a city with a soccer-crazed populace, where residents go to play and occasionally get visited by the game’s most high.
But in its simplest form, it's a much-needed break from a city that sometimes doesn't feel real. On any given day, you can go to Midtown, lay down your ten dollars to get into a game, and for those sixty uninterrupted minutes in an unpolished warehouse, you escape, through soccer, into the un-Miami. And that is very much real.
Midtown Stadium Indoor Soccer, 370 NW 24th St., Miami, FL 33127
(786) 253-2888
www.midtownindoorsoccer.com
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