Return of the Raison D'Etre!!

After an absence of 18 months, tonight I return to the pitch in the role I was born to play: goalkeeper.

The needle on my butterflies meter is pinned to the right. Deep breaths, deep breaths.

Funny how things work out. Within a week of moving to New York last May I tracked down a team claiming to need a 'keeper. I had my brother overnight my gear from Los Angeles just so I could play. Man, I could not believe my good fortune! Not so fast--those fuckers gave me the run-around and it didn't work out.  They were just scrambling to find some last-second warm bodies.  I stood on the sideline as their backup keeper--clad in a longsleeve t-shit, the fucking hack--allowed goal after goal, succumbing to a loss of about 7-0 if memory serves. So they missed a perfect opportunity to see what I was made of--throw me out there in front of a team that was kicking their ass and putting a lot of shots on goal.  Fuck 'em. Joke's on them.

This time around, the team that came knocking is located in Brooklyn and named after the famed London club Arsenal, to whom I have a powerful allegiance. Also important, unlike those Central Park Rangers (if only the guy in charge of their over-30s was as nice as their website), they seem to be run by some sharp dudes. Even better, this time I'm bringing with me a powerful 27-year-old striker from Benin by way of Ghana, S. Africa, England, France and Atlanta. And possibly his compatriot, a two-footed midfield playmaker, who, I'm reliably informed, delivers creamy passes right to strikers' feet.

This league plays on a full-size pitch, and I'm told its teams field dudes who have played professionally at various levels. Right now the Brooklyn Gunners' young-dudes squad needs a replacement for their awesome but aging and increasingly injured netminder.  Tonight I make sure that's gonna be me. The Gunners also have an over-30 team, which I originally thought would be my fate, now that I'm 35. But fuck that! (Though I must say, the Rangers brought me out for their over-30 team, so I wouldn't mind facing them and dealing out a bit of the ol' (perfectly legal) ultra-violence.

I'm old, rusty, and nervous as hell. Am I in over my head? Is form temporary but class permanent? Will I impress or fall flat on my face?

Stay tuned to this space to find out!
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Top Shelf Entertainment, Tomorrow Morning on Fox Soccer Channel

Arsenal and Manchester United square off tomorrow in the first battle between any of the Premier League's "Big Four" (Arsenal, Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea; so named because they have finished in the top four spots without exception for the past several years).

There was a time when Arsenal and Man U players would butt heads in the tunnel on the way out onto the pitch, when some players (allegedly) threw pizza at the opposing manager, when an otherwise even-tempered veteran ran up to and screamed in the face of an opponent who just missed a penalty shot. Ah, good times.

The tenor is more subdued now, and the managers share more than a modicum of respect for each other. Nevertheless, both the teams are capable of playing fluid, exciting football. Arsenal especially are on fire right now, having scored 10 goals in their first 2 Premier League games.

The old adage is that the League isn't won or lost in August (or September, or October), but everybody knows that a decisive result will serve notice to the rest of the League that the winner is for real.

Arsenal's Spanish superstar, Cesc Fabregas, is listed as 50/50 for whether he'll be fit enough to play. Obviously this is a big match, and you'd love to have your biggest playmaker, but the following week holds the prospect of international World Cup qualifiers. If Fabregas is fit enough for tomorrow, he's fit enough for Spain. And if not really, really fit, then maybe he might make his injury worse by playing tomorrow and next week. I hate to evaluate things so conservatively, but Arsenal's squad is a bit thin, esp. in central midfield. As (almost) always, the manager, Arsene Wenger, knows best.

I'd look for striker Robin van Persie to come up big tomorrow.  Of the 10 League goals, none have been scored by a striker.  Van Persie will want to get on the sheet sooner than later, and perhaps United will focus too much on Arsenal's midfielders.

I'm sure there are some pertinent things to be said about Man U, but fuck them. They lost the best player in world, the poncey gel-slicked Portugeezer Christiano Ronaldo, who fucked off to Real Madrid for bags of cash (literally--I think they're putting bags like this in his locker every two weeks. They also lost a talented Argentine, Carlos Tevez, who fucked off for similar bags of money--though not as far as Ronaldo, Tevez went to hated crosstown rivals Manchester United, much to the delight the Gallagher brothers (the Champagne Supernova chaps, not the feuding watermelon smashers. As for black Gallagher, I'm not sure how he feels about it.)

Tomorrow's match is on Fox Soccer Channel at 9 a.m. Eastern. The pub in Manhattan that draws all the footie watchers, Nevada Smith's, is showing it on tape delay at noon, after having already shown Chelsea at 7 and Liverpool at 10. I have visions of a drunken, crowded clusterfuck, so I think I'll stay home and bite my nails in silence and solitude, thank you very much. I'll save the pub for the inglorious mid-week matches against the likes of Wigan or Birmingham in the middle of the season.

Yes, it's 6 a.m. out West. That's what Tivo or lesser cable company dvr's are for!

And if, somehow, you miss it, the English Premier League Review Show airs on FSC on Sunday at 5 p.m., sometimes 6. It's an excellent way to keep abreast of the results and see the best plays of the week.

Cheers!

And say a prayer for poor Liverpool. Their fans are hanging their heads right now, fearing their season is over...even though it's still August. Buck up, chums! It can't get worse...can it?
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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.
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Primer: English Premier League (Nuts & Bolts Part 2)

[This is part 2 of the third part of a 4-part series]

Well, the season's just under way, so it's time me to finish up this guide (see parts 1 and 2 here and here).

I've told you about the basic structure of the Premier League; now I need to fill in some of the blank spaces.

In part 1 I told you (in an aside I made during a self-aggrandizing digression) that a team gets 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw. There are no points for losing. For the most part this determines in which places teams finish. Should two (or more) teams finish with the same amount of points, the tie is broken by looking at the teams' goal differential: # of goals scored minus # of goals allowed.

Another important piece of information that shapes the campaigns of the teams among the League's elite is the UEFA Champions League. UEFA is the Union of European Football Associations. They oversee a hybrid league/tournament that runs from August through May, just like domestic leagues in each of the major countries across Europe.

The Champions League consists of the best teams across Europe, who qualify based on the domestic position the previous season. This is where the big money is. The television revenue earned by teams that are consistently in the Champions League--and consistently advance from the starting group of 32 teams to the final 16--separates the giants from everyone else, e.g. the teams you've likely heard of: Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool, AC Milan. More money and more glory means you're more likely to attract the best players (which means you'll sell the most jersey in Asia...and the rich get richer.

Playing in the Champions League shapes the domestic campaigns of the teams involved because it means playing they'll be playing lots more games, which means:
more fatigue by simply playing more
more fatigue by playing games closer together after traveling around Europe
more injuries
focus pulled away from less glamorous domestic games
more games means rotating more players through the line-up which can make "chemistry" tricky

Taken together, this means that a team still involved in chasing the Premier League title, the Champions League and the FA Cup will really have their hands full. Depending on the relative strength of some teams, their fans (and coaches and players) may consider that being knocked out or dropping out of contention may be a blessing in disguise for pursuing more likely trophies.

How does a team qualify for the Champions League? An arcane calculation determines the strength of the leagues; the top 4 teams from the top 3 leagues (Spain, Italy, England) qualify, the top 3 from leagues 4 through 6, and so on. There are a few more wrinkles here that I'm going to skip. If you do catch the bug, you'll eventually pick this stuff up on your own.

Is the Champions League the only European tournament? Of course not! That would be too simple. There is a second, lesser hybrid league/tournament, called (after a name change last year) the Europa League. In England, generally clubs 5 through 7 qualify for this tournament.

[NOTE: In the olden days--which pretty much means before the 1990s when we're talking about European football--the Champions League was called the European Cup and only consisted of the champions from each league; the Europa League was called the Cup Winners' Cup and consisted of teams that won their league's domestic cup competition.]

Let's put this all in the context of what's so entertaining about following the Premier League in comparison and contrast with the Big 3 American sports: with regard to the structure of the League (or leagues, as we've seen), the answer is, in a word, depth.

There are multiple goals at stake at multiple places throughout the league table against different kinds of competition in different formats.

Stated differently, there's a lot of shit going on. I've found that appeals to me. Perhaps it will to you as well.

Ok, that's the Nuts & Bolts.

On to the other cool stuff that makes the Premier League interesting, in part 4 of this 3-part series.
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Primer: English Premier League (Nuts & Bolts Part 1)

[This is part 2 of a 3?-part series]

Alright, with that out of the way, let me lay out everything you'll want to know (and then some).

How the League is structured

Though it might seem mundane and merely fundamental, the Premier League's structure (which is basically the same across the top leagues in Europe) provides a great deal of its appeal and marks it as foreign and exotic compared to the Big 3 American sports (sorry, hockey, you remain a niche sport--which I think you'll admit suits you better).

There are 20 teams. But it's not always the same 20, you see. At the end of each season, the three teams at the bottom of the table are dropped into the division below. The term for going down is relegation. In one sense, this is like getting sent to the minors. But in another sense, it's nothing like that, because the divisions below aren't merely farm teams. They represent cities and towns all across England and these teams all have varying degrees of ambition. Some of these teams are even former greats that have fallen on hard times.

Think about that. The Premier League could never have a perennial punching bag with an owner that didn't care, like the Clippers. It gets new punching bags every season, to be sure, but these teams are full of piss and vinegar because they've clawed their way to the top of the heap, or, rather, clawed their way to a new heap. And that heap is a potentially huge pile of money.

Think about this. Toward the end of the season, teams that have no shot at the title may still be involved in some drama and some meaningful games. Think about all the meaningless games played in American sports once playoff spots have been determined. Of course, there are still teams in the middle whose games mean little, but the higher you finish, the bigger your share of the dough.

So what's the format for how these teams play each other? The answer provides yet another contrast from American sports and, in some ways, is a better alternative. I think so, and my wife--herself a huge sports fan--also thinks so.

Each team plays ever other team twice, once at home and once away. Perfectly equitable, no doubt. Less obvious but more important, the number of games--38--seems to me to be quite the sweet spot. Part of the appeal of gridiron (American) football, both professional and collegiate, is that each game really matters because there are so few. But if you like the sport, that means there are so few games to watch and the season isn't all that long. The club soccer season is just like the school year: middle of August through end of May, taking the summer off. There's just something awesome about that, right?

At 38, each game is still meaningful but not quite so make-or-break like college football. And because each club plays every other club, there's no schedule disparity like in pro football where some teams have creampuffs in their division they get to play twice, and games outside the division for one team may be against teams far weaker than those for another team. Here, the playing field is much more even (at least schedule-wise. As we'll see, there are several factors that keep the playing field tilted).

When it comes to basketball and baseball, nobody can deny there are too many wasted games. Ask any player what he'd do if he were commissioner and invariably they'll tell you "shorten the schedule."

But there's also another reason many games are meaningless, which brings me to another fundamental difference between the League and the Big 3--one that freaks out a lot of Americans as being very foreign: there are no playoffs. That's right, no playoffs. The team that finishes on top after playing everybody home and away is the champ who takes home the big trophy and the bragging rights. Crazy, right? The team that has the best season wins, simple as that. The appeal of that may not seem clear in print, or even in your head, but the more you follow the game the more it will begin to appeal to you.

But , you say, there's something about a scrappy upstart peaking at the right time and knocking of a big dog. The answer addresses your concern but again, it will seem quite foreign to you. During the 38 game season, which constitutes the whole of the Barclays Premier League (Barclays being the bank whose sponsorship is so large it extends to getting its name into the League's name), there is another, separate competition. It is called the FA Cup. FA being the Football Association, the governing body which rules all football in England--both the national team and the club teams. This competition is old--over 100 years old. Unlike the Premier League, it is not a season but a tournament. A tournament that lasts the length of the season!

It is strictly a knock-out competition--there is no best of 7 series. There are fourteen rounds; the first six are for the smaller teams to qualify. And when I say small, I'm talking semi-pro. Guys with real jobs. Fields (or pitches, as they're known to our cousins) are often of sub-high school quality with only the barest of bare-bones bleachers for the supporters. And yes, some of these "minnows" can rise up and knock off a Goliath. Nothing, and I mean nothing in the Big 3 American sports can compare to that. As the tournament advances and the minnows fall by the wayside, there still remain large professional clubs that ply their trade far below the ranks of the rich and famous and they, too, get a chance to knock off big teams and even advance to the semi-finals and final, which take place in England's biggest stadium. The day of the FA Cup final was long considered England's "Super Bowl".

Sadly, in the recent era of big, BIG money (you may have heard that Manchester United sold a player to Real Madrid for $130 million) it has become nigh on impossible for an also-ran to make it that far. But the structure is still in place to allow it to happen, even if the culture isn't.

So, let's summarize:

The 3 worst teams at the end of the season get dropped down to a lower league.

There are 20 teams who play 38 games--2 games against each team, once at home and once away.

The champion is the team who finishes on top at the end of the season--there are no playoffs.

There is, however, a knock out competition that runs concurrently with the "regular" season.

Ok sportsfans, I think this is a good place to stop. Be assured, part 2 of Nuts & Bolts will be up later tonight.

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Primer: English Premier League (Self-Serving Intro)

[This is Part 1 in a 3?-part series]

Nobody's asked for it but I've been promising it, so here it is, sportsfans, just in time for the start of the season this weekend. Before I dive into a detailed explanation of the ins and outs, the whos and wheres and whys, I've got to address why you'd even want to care. As with most everything I discuss on this blog, you should care because I do.

Also, of course, because following the Premier League is, ultimately, more rewarding than following baseball, basketball, or (gridiron) football--professional or collegiate. You heard that right. I grew up worshiping the big three sports--and I still follow my teams in each of them--but I really don't care about the other teams, players, coaches or stories that make up the drama of a season.

I'd wager it's a combination of fatigue, a desire for something novel and new, increasingly crappy television coverage, and the superiority of soccer generally and the Premier League specifically. (NOTE: I'll be using soccer and football interchangeably. For the record, the origin of the term soccer is English and dates back to the very origin of the sport, so when Brits or Euros make fun of our use of the term as somehow provincial, they can fuck right off. I know the day will come when I'll have one too many in a pub, make this point, follow it up with "You can fuck right off" and get my ass kicked. It would be worth it.)

I'll admit right up front I'm a pretty big Anglophile. I'm well aware that had a lot to do with how quickly I took to their league. But it really has nothing to do with how quickly I took to the sport. Sure, I, like millions of American boys and girls, played organized soccer growing up--before moving on to focus on one sport, or other more mainstream sports like rockclimbing and throwing the hammer or javelin. So for many years I never gave the thought much sport.

But soccer began creeping into my consciousness in 1994 as the World Cup came to America and FIFA Soccer came to the Sega Genesis. Lots of videogame sparring plus attending games--U.S. v. Brazil on July 4 at Stanford and Costa Rica v. Romania (or was it the U.S.?) at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. Fun to watch, fun to play in a videogame, and after witnessing the Brazilian fans mobbing the intersections, banging drums and climbing up on streetlights after beating the U.S., fun to experience.

Can't say I paid too much attention to the World Cup in 1998--at that point really the only opportunity for an American to watch world-class football. I had continued to sporadically play soccer videogames, and Fox Sports had begun showing some English club games (NOTE: the World Cup involves national teams, like in the Olympics; countries also have professional leagues, wherein teams are referred to as clubs. Because it sounds more sophisticated than team, I don't know.) Anyway, I don't really know why I paid so little attention then.

But come 2002, I watched a whole lot of World Cup. And I began following the English League when the season began later that year. A year later, on my honeymoon in Thailand, I stayed up until 3am one night to catch an English League game involving Arsenal, the team I had chosen to root for (or support, as they say over there. They have supporters, not fans--but make no mistake, they're every bit as fanatical).

Not long after that I and a partner in crime who was there at the beginning in 1994 and had begun to follow soccer as well, got the crazy notion to start a recreational team. Had he and I played soccer since we were boys? No. Well, actually I had played goalkeeper in intramurals in college, but since our team largely consisted of guys who had played high-level soccer through high school, I didn't have to do much. Did the fact that we didn't play soccer, or know a bunch of soccer players stop us. Fuck no!

Somehow we managed to round up about 20 men: some who had played soccer through high school, some who were great athletes who picked it up quickly, and some who had played in college. Friends-of-friends, co-workers, distant relatives, a dude who rode by on a bike and asked if we needed more players--we were a rag-tag bunch. We started during the summer in the San Fernando Valley when temperatures hovered around 100 degrees. Early on we had a hard time fielding enough guys to have substitutes--I recall guys puking from over-exertion (but not me, I was playing goalie again. I had planned to get in shape and play out in the field, but our goalie pulled out at the last second. As I stare at my fat belly 5 years later I still rue that turn of events).

Over the course of a few seasons we clawed our way up and eventually went undefeated and won the championship in our division. A culmination of teamwork, persistence and hardwork (wrangling at least 11 guys out of 20 to show up every week was a tough goddamned grind).

While theses seasons passed, I was mainlining English soccer. Watching whatever games were on the Fox Soccer Channel. Waking up early to go to a pub to watch Arsenal when their games weren't televised. Picking up info and insight from the passionate knuclehead English ex-pats on FSC's Fox Football Friday. I was in deep.

And I'll be damned if that didn't payoff in actual physical ways. At the end of a game, with mere seconds to go, our team was down by one goal and we needed to draw to have a shot at the playoffs (NOTE: you get 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw. Traditionally in football there are no playoffs, but hey, this was a rec league in America.)

So I, as the keeper, run the length of the field to join the rest of my team in a corner kick which was likely to be the last play of the game. (NOTE: for a corner kick, play stops, a player places the ball at the corner of the field while everybody else gangs up in front of the goal awaiting the incoming kick). There I am, trying to sneak into the fray unnoticed--wearing bright yellow, all 6'1", 250lbs of me--and nobody on the other team really tries to defend me. Here comes the kick, curling in perfectly, heading directly for...me? no way? Yes. At this point, time slows for me. It's heading for my head? Yes. I'm really gonna have to head this? I haven't headed a ball since I was 11. It's getting closer. I better not fuck this up. BAM!

I strike it square, textbook perfect. Right past their keeper. Holy Shit! Pandemonium. Game over. The other team loses their shit, screaming at the ref, screaming at us. They think I punched it with my hand, such is their disbelief. Nope, no hand of god here. Of course, for the rest of the life of our team, if anybody wants to get my goat they straightfacedly claim--to new members I forced to listen to my tale--that I punched it in.

Never thought I'd top that--and for sheer drama, I didn't. But a year later, on a full-sized field in

Santa Monica, I did what I'd been claiming to do for a few seasons and I put on a regular jersey in the second half of a game in which we were blowing out our opponents. I figured I'd play in defense, run around a bit, have a little fun. Soon after I'm out there, our defense takes the ball away, passes it up to the midfield. I'm in the defense out on the left. I haul ass up the field and figure this is all the energy I've got so here goes nothing. We keep moving the ball up the field on the other side. The other team's defense disregards me--whether they were just tired or in disbelief at the freight train of crazy heading toward them I'll never know. Our midfielder with the ball sees me and sends a long, arcing pass my way across the field.

Again, this one's heading for my head, and time once again slows down. I consider heading it since that's my signature move, right? But I realize I'm a bit too far from goal to pull that off (I swear, I'm having these thoughts in splits of seconds). So I receive the ball with my chest, bouncing it up and forward. Perfectly. Enough time in the air to take my measure, see where the goalie is, and--before the ball bounces--connect perfectly and hammer it into the far side of the net. A meaningless goal, a meaningless game, but THAT is the greatest moment of my life. And I was capable of doing that solely because of how much fucking football I'd been watching (well, that and the fact I've got incredible hand-eye coordination and control of my body. But still!)

So what was my point? Soccer is awesome and so am I. Together soccer and I produced something greater than I thought possible. Who knows what you might accomplish if you read the rest of this primer and dive in head-first?

Part 2 to follow shortly.


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Your Morning Freshness

Ah, Eric the King, Eric Cantona.

His career ended just as I was becoming aware of English soccer. His strength, precision, and what I can only call a compelling arrogance are something that I have yet to see from another footballer. For you David Beckham fans out there, he wore number 7 at Manchester United because Cantona, his idol, did.

During the 2006 World Cup Cantona did a series of ads for Nike, wherein he sported a beard and shoulder-length hair. So did I during that time, and I received more than a few comparisons to him from patrons of The Fox and Hounds. Needless to say, that pleased me greatly. And the comparison took on another dimension when I scored THAT goal for Barton Hall FC--my collar was popped, like his, and--at least in my mind--after scoring I turned to survey the mere mortals who were lucky to share the same pitch with me. But seriously, that goal was the greatest moment of my life and likely always will be. Even if I were to have a child. Or become president. Or find out I won the lottery while aboard a spaceship piloted by a resurrected Bob Marley.

In the coming weeks, watch this space for a primer on following club soccer in Europe, with a focus on England. Can't wait for August, when the season starts up. I didn't play it much growing up, and I was a rabid fan of the big 3 American sports, but I now feel it's the most rewarding sport to follow.
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