Primer: English Premier League (More Cool Stuff)

Alright, so that's settled. I promised you more cool stuff. Here it is (this is going to be more of a throw-it-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks type than the others, so hang in there). Personalities This is a key for any sport. In soccer, it's easy to see the expressions on the players' faces. Which is important, because--as you'll soon get sick of hearing--there is nothing more important than passion. You'll see players who are "hard men" (har har) who are physically intimidating and have no problem kicking the shit out of you, elbowing, grabbing, etc. There are players who will fall down at the slightest breeze clutching their faces as if Tyson just struck them. There are players who thrive under pressure and those who will literally disappear at such times--the camera tends to follow the ball and you'll notice there are times when you won't see a player or hear the announcer mention him for most of a game. You've got guys--just like in other sports--who are only in it for the money and don't give a shit who they play for, and guys who will stick around with a club far longer than you'd think out of loyalty. Then you've got the special brand of cocksucker who will play well, say the right things, kiss the badge on his jersey after scoring...then lose interest and hope for another team to swoop in and pay him even more. Yes, Emmanuel Adebayor, I'm looking at you. I don't give a shit if you scored for you new team this weekend. Arsenal scored 6 with none coming from a striker. Have fun watching the Champions League on tv, bitch! And Man city fans, he'll be saying the same shit about you guys when he moves on--not to AC Milan or Barcalona like he so desperately wishes, but to some other unglamorous, cold-as-shit English city. Let me go back to the guys who fall down so easily. They are indeed a scourge on the game. Many English fans like to think it's just the greasy foreigners that perpetrate such shenanigans. That's not true by a longshot--the English have their own special brand of fucked up xenophobia. Now, this problem could be easily remedied with instant replay--either at the time it happens (which might slow the game down, yes) or by retroactively punishing the perpetrator. Lots of ink has been spilled about this but it probably won't ever change. Which is sad, because to American eyes, it's pretty fucking disgusting. Think about how much you hate to see a flopper in the NBA. In soccer it's a million times worse. But you'll get used it, don't worry. Sometimes it will fuck your team over, and vice versa. Anyway, personalities. These different types of players are distributed over a ton of different nationalities. the Premier League makes the NBA look like a Republican town hall meeting. If a country has a national football team, they probably have a player at a club in England. Here are some well-worn stereotypes: You've got spicy Latin players from Italy, Spain, Portugal and France with their flashy technical skill. Stoic, physically tough Germans and Nordic players. Equally tough but smaller and full of fiery spirit are the English, Irish and Scottish. Americans are goalkeeper because they grow up playing sports with their hands. Brazilians and Argentines are of course the best but their best players avoid the Premier League because it's too physically demanding, too far from home, and the food sucks (this applies to a slightly lesser extent to Italians, Spanish, Portugese but not French--they're down with the Premier League because of this gentleman). Who knew you didn't have to save up nationalistic vitriol just for the Olympics every four years, right? It's on display all season long! Finally, with regard to personalities, are the coaches. Well, we call them coaches here, but in football it's the manager, aka the boss, or gaffer. The major difference is this--almost without exception, teams follow the Bill Parcells/Pat Riley/Mike Holmgren model, i.e. they select the players and they are in charge of what happens on the field. Thus, they all have huge egos just like the three aforementioned coaches. This makes for a ton of entertainment. Mindgames, bullshitting the press, the refs, talking to players on other teams who are still under contract, complaining that the owners haven't given them the money to succeed. I'm probably not doing a good enough job of communicating this, so just take my word--the managers are far more integral to enjoying soccer than they ever are in the Big 3 sports. I and everybody else are still mourning the departure to Italy of former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho. That suave, cocky bastard was unlike anything you've ever seen. He got banned from a huge game so he sat in the hotel, watched on tv, and talked in his assistant's ear through bluetooth covered by a wool cap. He made baseless accusations and unparalleled boasts. In his very first press conference he dubbed himself The Special One. He accused another manager that was concerned with Chelsea's dealing of being a voyeur who stares through people's windows. Ah, Jose, please come back! We hate you/miss you so much!. Pressure on these guys is high and they get fired all the time. Some you get attached to you, and some you are glad to see get canned and wind up in the lower leagues, hoping that they make their way back up so they can get fired again. I'm looking at you, Mick McMarthy of the newly promoted Wolverhampton Wanderers (who, I believe, are Robert Plant's favorite team). Aha. I've set myself up for a good segue. As an American, who to root for and how that works over there When I say "favorite team" I don't mean it in the American way where you are free to root for whoever strikes your fancy (which has become even more true after decades of free agency...unless of course you're within 10 feet of Michael Winston Brown, in which case, well, he needs his own blog to let loose on this topic). I've been able to discern this much. You are a supporter of the team in the town in which you grew up. That's simple, right? Unless for some reason, before age 8 or 10, you fancied some other team for some other reason. As long as you stick with them for the rest of your life, you're cool (this is the Nick Hornby/Fever Pitch rule). But what if you live in a city like Manchester, with Manchester United and Manchester City, or Liverpool with Liverpool and Everton? Well, that's pretty much going to be determined by who your father, brother, uncle, etc. roots for you. Anybody that grows up a contrarian and decided to root for their family's rival will have a tough row to hoe. I suspect that my wife would have been a Liverpool fan if she'd grown up in a Everton household, for example. That doesn't mean anything to you, as an American, does it? Well, sort of. You're gonna be considered a "plastic" fan no matter what, just like somebody that started rooting for Chelsea after a Russian billionaire swooped and bought himself a competitive team. Or some Japanese girl who likes Manchester United because she had a crush on David Beckham. Or--god-forbid--somebody who supports Manchester United but hails from and lives in London and rarely attends matches at Old Trafford. You can mitigate this, or course. Pick a team, stick with them, learn a bit about their history and you'll be fine. You're American so they'll all be laughing at you anyway. Which is ok, because in the '80s they'd have beaten you senseless. All of this, of course, leads us to the inevitable $64,000 question: which team will you support? A question so important I will tackle it in another post. Until next time, sportsfans.