Kobe Bryant's Death Reverberates Around the Soccer World

Kobe Bryant's life and identity transcended basketball, and if that wasn't clear before Sunday, it became clear in abundance as the tributes from around the world poured in following the tragic helicopter crash that took his life, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna's and the lives of seven others.

Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers all-time great, was remembered across all walks of life in the aftermath of the shocking news, including–but clearly not limited to–the soccer world. Bryant was a huge soccer fan. He had a large connection to the sport, both domestically and abroad. Living in Italy as a child, he became an AC Milan fan. He also supported Barcelona and maintained a presence in global soccer, be it through fandom, his work as a Nike athlete, charity matches, commercials or punditry. 

Sunday's horrific events will launch scores of memories and legendary tales about Bryant's life. As it relates to soccer, there are quite a few as well. He famously nutmegged Kevin Durant for an assist in a 2016 game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and he explained how his thorough court vision could be attributed to his soccer-playing days as a kid.

“It’s just soccer,” Bryant would later explain. “Yeah, that comes from my days in Italy.

“Most of the time, American basketball is only taught in twos: one-two, pick and roll, or give and go, or something like that. In playing soccer growing up, you really see the game in a combination of threes, sometimes fours—and how you play within triangles.

“You see things in multiple combinations. And growing up playing (soccer), my eye and my brain became accustomed to seeing those combinations in threes and fours versus one and two.”

One of the other famous stories involving Bryant and soccer took place nearly 15 years ago, when Barcelona was touring in Los Angeles. Ronaldinho, one of Bryant's Nike teammates (and whose samba moves and signature pinkie-thumb-out hand swerve Bryant used in a 2010 World Cup commercial), introduced Bryant to a young Lionel Messi, boldly telling the NBA star that Messi would go on to become the greatest of all time.

“A long time ago, Barcelona came to Los Angeles,” Bryant told ESPN when recollecting the meeting. "Ronaldinho, who was a good friend, I was talking with him and he told me ‘Kobe, look, I’m going to introduce you to the guy who is going to be the greatest player of all time.'

“I said: ‘You what? You are the best.' But he said: ‘No, no. This kid right here is going to be the best.' And that guy was Lionel Messi, who was only 17 at the time.”

Another Brazilian star created a bond with Bryant over the years. Neymar, another Nike teammate of Bryant's who enjoyed his visit to PSG training a little over two years ago, said he found out at halftime of PSG's win at Lille on Sunday about the news. He dedicated one of his two goals to Bryant, flashing the numbers two and four with his hands (homage to Bryant's No. 24) before pointing skyward.

"I went to look at the messages on social media at halftime, I found out that Kobe was dead," Neymar said on TV through a translator, according to the AP. "It's very saddening for the world of sport and for all of us. Not only for basketball fans but for everything he did for the sport. I knew him and made this celebration for him, for his number. I hope he rests in peace."

Bryant's impact was felt across both the men's and women's games. He was a staunch supporter of the U.S. women's national team and met with and applauded the USWNT from near and far. He attended the 2010 and 2014 men's World Cups in South Africa and Brazil. This past summer, he was field-side at the Rose Bowl in the August kick-off match of the USWNT's victory tour, donning a U.S. women's kit. 

He was also a close friend of U.S. and Orlando Pride forward Sydney Leroux. 

"She's like my little sister," Bryant told the AP in 2017, as Leroux's husband, Dom Dwyer, was about to make his U.S. men's national team debut. "I would send her books that I'd read that had helped me, or talk to her every now and then about focus and training. I remember getting the call that she was having a baby and how excited we all were."

It's little surprise, then, that Bryant's death–and the inability to truly quantify how an athlete and human of his stature could be gone at 41–reverberated specifically around the global soccer community as word made the rounds. Tributes poured in, from Messi to Ronaldinho, to Cristiano Ronaldo to Didier Drogba, to clubs and players of all statures, all around the world. 

Bryant was a global phenomenon. That was certainly known during his peak years as a player, but if anyone had any doubt that his stature decreased over the years, the planetary reaction to his death put that notion to rest.