Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Liverpool vs. Manchester United

The beauty of cable and the internet is that I've been able to reimmerse myself in soccer, the first sport I loved. I've selected Liverpool as my team, and this Saturday morning they take on Manchester United, the Celine Dion of Premier League Soccer. While Chelsea is probably the team that most EPL fans love to hate (suck it, Barclays), my team is Man U. They're sponsored by AIG, for Palin's sake. (Liverpool is sponsored by Carlsberg - glug, glug.)

The game is at 7:45 a.m. and is not being televised by Fox Sports Soccer, which means I'll be waking up earlier than I do for my job to go to a bar and watch a game of futbol. And I'm pretty fucking excited. From my experience three weeks ago, soccer fans are a good crowd to be in a bar with. I even shared a smoke with a couple visiting from England who hate Liverpool but were very pleasant about it.

I have low hopes for Liverpool this weekend - captain and star midfielder Steven Gerrard is probably out, and star striker Fernando Torres, who is Liverpool's entry for Regrettable Haircut, is questionable. And then there's the karma. It's my mother's birthday, and she'll be none too pleased to hear I was in a bar at 7:45 a.m. Easy, easy...I'm visiting her the following weekend. Provided, of course, she takes me to a soccer bar so I can see them play Stoke City. But come on -- it's not until 10 a.m.

1 comment:

Hernandez said...

My busy schedule has kept me from viewing much EPL this season, but I plan to start catching up this weekend. I guess the only thing I've even heard about is that Arsenal is in a bit of a sticky wicket so far.

I hope that's true, and not because I hate Arsenal any more than I'm supposed to. (I like to think I hate them the perfectly appropriate amount.) It's just that as good as the Premiership is - and it's very, very good - I can't stand the fact that the same big money clubs finish at the top of the table every fucking season. Some combination of Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool are always battling it out, and it's SO goddamn predictable. It would be like going into the baseball season every year knowing that the Red Sox and Yankees will make the playoffs no matter what.

What's that you say? That DOES happen every year? Well fuck baseball, as usual. But at least this season the Yankees are out of it. Let's hope Arsenal are too.