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Zak Ibsen played soccer in Germany, for the United States national team and in Major League Soccer. Growing up on the California coast, he also played the game on the beach.

But his life was nearly ruined, not by his addiction to the sport he loves — but to crystal methamphetamine.

This was supposed to be an article about how Ibsen, a 37-year-old guy, represented the United States as it attempted to qualify for this autumn’s FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Dubai. In a way, it still is, or was, until Ibsen talked about how crystal meth helped end his M.L.S career in 2002, then left him homeless and living out of his van. In those years, he somehow managed to stay clean for finite periods of time, long enough to play for the United States in the 2006 and 2007 beach soccer championships (both in Rio de Janeiro), before descending back into a drug-induced maelstrom that few people ever escape from.

“I was not a good guy to have around,” Ibsen said in a telephone interview from his home in San Francisco, where he lives now with his girlfriend and 2-year-old son. “I guess it’s kind of weird, because I have a part-time job at a brewery. But there’s no drinking and no drugs for me.”

The night before the interview, Ibsen was in front of his TV set, watching a replay of the United States’ semifinal loss to El Salvador on Fox Soccer Channel (which last week replayed all the regional qualifying matches) in the Concacaf Beach Soccer Championship in June in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Both Mexico and the United States were eliminated in the semis as El Salvador and Costa Rica qualified for the final.

“It was great to see the games on TV,” he said. “Really nice. But just too bad we didn’t qualify.”

Ibsen, a Santa Clara native, played on U.C.L.A.’s national championship team in 1990, then went to Germany, playing for FC Saarbrücken and Bochum in 1993 and ‘94, but never making an appearance for those clubs’ first team. He knocked around M.L.S. from the league’s inception in 1996, playing for five teams (New England, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Jose) and winning championships with the Fire in 1998 and the Earthquakes in 2001.

“Frank Yallop traded for me with San Jose and we had a great run in 2001, he’s one of my favorite coaches,” Ibsen said. “Things were going well, we were having a lot of success, but I guess I started crossing the line. Frank stuck with me in 2002 when he could have cut me loose. There was a lot of drama and by the end of the season it was obvious that soccer was no longer a top priority for me. After my M.L.S. career, those were real hard hard times. In ‘03 and ‘04, I was out to lunch. I’d be gone for six months, I mean really gone.”

His professional soccer career in shambles, Ibsen succumbed to a “massive drug addiction” that left him living out of his minivan, basically homeless, as crystal meth took him by the throat, much in the way he used to smother opposing strikers as a defender on the soccer field. The drug, which has devastated people and communities throughout the United States, is a particularly easy one to become addicted to, but is also a particularly difficult drug to kick.

After a 60-day stint in rehab, Ibsen was slowly drawn back into soccer on the beach by a network of friends and guys he used to play with going back to 1994, when the first world championship was held (outside the auspices of FIFA) in Brazil. In those days, Ibsen recalls playing with Americans like Eric Wynalda, Eric Eichmann and David Vanole on the beaches of California and Copacabana. At the time, beach soccer was a mostly made-for-TV event that drew an impressive international roster to play the game on the sand. They included: Eric Cantona (France); Johan Neeskens (the Netherlands); Alessandro Altobelli and Claudio Gentile (Italy); Mario Kempes (Argentina); and Zico, Junior, Edinho, Romario and Edmundo (Brazil).

With the game gaining popularity around the world, FIFA stepped in and took the tournament under its prodigious wing in 2005. France won the first tournament, before Brazil put together a string of three titles. Last year, for the first time, the finals were played outside Brazil, in Marseille, France. The tournament this year will be played Nov. 15-22 in Dubai. Ibsen said he had heard that FIFA was supporting the addition of beach soccer to the Summer Olympics, partly to take advantage of the success of beach volleyball.

“It was disappointing not to qualify,” Ibsen said. “I thought that us and Mexico were the two powerhouses, but on that day, we were upset. It would have been great to qualify because we could have gotten out the word about about beach soccer. It’s kind of a big setback. But the interest is there and it would be nice if American soccer fans saw it as something worth supporting. I think it can find a niche; we have the player pool.”

Although there are beach soccer leagues in the United States, in California and Virginia, for example, Ibsen said the people involved in beach soccer were trying to lure the regional qualifying matches for the next go-round to Huntington Beach, Calif.

“I think that for the U.S. to host the finals is a bit of a stretch,” he said. “The first thing is to host qualifying so it gives us the advantage.”

Ibsen said he wanted to remain involved with the game, as a player, coach or both.

“I came to realize that after all these years, all I ever wanted to do was play soccer,” he said. “It’s the only job, the only life skill I have. I really don’t know how to live life beyond soccer. It’s still the centerpiece, still the thing I’m most passionate about. I love to compete and I have unmistakable determination. I feel the most comfortable on any soccer field in the world.

“There’s this connection with other players, an unspoken language. The game is such a joy and I’m so grateful to be able to play, because for years I didn’t. I couldn’t. Every time I step on the field — where I can express myself — it’s a blessing.” {#}