Footnotes

As I sat watching the first half of the match between Philly and KC, I wondered if my spectator luck had changed.  For the last month I’ve felt like I’ve cursed the teams that I’ve chosen to root for.  Very rarely does a team I want to win actually accomplish the task.  Philadelphia came out of the gate strong and pressed KC who didn’t appear to be prepared for this match.  Le Toux scored an early goal to put Philly on top, but when offered a second chance scuffed the ball just wide of goal on what looked to be an easy goal.  Is there such a thing?

I had an odd thought while watching the match.  Perhaps I could be a Philadelphia fan.  They have a French striker and I have a better chance of catching their matches live than the red drink team in New Jersey.  MLS Live blacks out the beverage team, and, as I said earlier, Philadelphia isn’t much further away.  Philly is local-ish.  They could be my TV team.  Like Stoke.

It’s halftime in the Stoke, West Ham match as I write this and even though the match is being broadcast live I have the strange feeling I’ve seen this game before, except the last time it was in Fulham and it was Berbatov who scored just at the stroke of 45.  What does it matter if Stoke wins?  I still get the experience of watching football, even if the quality is lacking.  And what concerns me most is why Geoff Cameron isn’t on the field and why Brek Shea isn’t starting yet.  Come on you boys in red and white, send in the Yanks!

Really, I’m just passing the time.  Taking a break in an other productive morning.  Perhaps, the Stoke result doesn’t matter so much because I’m comforted by the thought that the MLS resumes today.  And we the return of the MLS sides to action, the significance of the Premier League contests will diminish.

To celebrate the MLS’s return, I’ll settle in this afternoon with the match between Philly and KC.  I’ll root for Philly even though I’m certain my choice is dooming them to an opening day, on the road loss against the former Wizards.  Philly is almost a local team.  PPL Park is only a few miles further away than RB Arena from my sound-side bungalow.  And now that Sebastian Le Toux has returned to the blue and gold, I’ll have more reason to cheer.  Le Toux was wasted at New York last season.  And I think it was through no fault of his own.  He’s a better player than he was when he was with New York.

Then tomorrow, New York will take on the Timbers of Portland.  My only source for optimism is the thought that the Timbers are just as unprepared as the boys of the drink.

Stoke and West Ham are taking the field for the second half.  Changes?

Yesterday it was like Christmas.  Both new issues of Howler and XI arrived yesterday.  Literary magazines that I read every single word.  Howler is a work of art.  Big, expansive.  A wide canvas.  Pictures, drawings.  Good writing.  XI is compact like the Paris Review.  It’s the Paris Review of football.

I suffered from a soccer hangover yesterday.  Instead if the Champions League, or MLS pre-season matches, I read.  Today, I think I’ll be able to watch a match.  Liverpool v. Zenit.  Zenit is a club based in Russia, in Saint Petersburg.  Founded in 1925, FC Zenit is a comparative newcomer to modern football.  I know nothing else about them and don’t know what to expect.  The stories in the news focus on racism, a particular problem in Russia (why?).  One headline: “…the racism of radical Zenit St Petersburg supporters…”

Football provides a forum for talking about taboo subjects.  A line from David Winner’s book, Brilliant Orange.

Last March (or was it the end of February?) I spent the afternoon in a pub in Boston watching the US play Italy in a friendly.  This is the way I remember it: Shea comes on in the second half and gets out wide on the left side and tries for a moment of magic.  With his toe he flips the ball over the head of the defender and darts inside toward the goal.  That’s when Franz (who bleeds Arsenal red) nudged me in the ribs and said, “I hope Arsenal gets Shea.”

Before that moment, I hadn’t thought about Brek Shea beyond noting that he could probably do with a new hair stylist.  But ever since that match last winter when the US beat Italy and Shea attempted his audacious trick, I’ve paid attention.  When Shea became the hero at Azteca in the summer, he looked like a young player on the rise, one who was going to be with the national team for a couple more World Cup cycles.

But his time at FC Dallas last season was marked by injury and bench warming.  So when I heard that Shea was set to move to Stoke City to join his US international teammate Geoff Cameron, I felt immediately optimistic.

Today, Stoke City host Reading at the Britannia.  The kick-off is in about fifteen minutes.  It’s possible that Brek Shea will make his Stoke City debut.  If he does, and if he does well, then my inexplicable affection for the men in red and white stripes might just be taken past the no turning back mark.

“Who do you support?” asked Derek.  I understood from the context of our chat that he was asking which Premiership side I supported.

“I haven’t really decided,” I said.  “The brain is bad about these things.  Ultimately, it’s the heart that decides.  Stoke City wasn’t even on my short list of teams when I started following the EPL, but somehow, I find myself wanting them to win even though they don’t most often.  What’s worse is that I prefer to watch teams like Arsenal and Liverpool.  But when Stoke plays these sides that play a style of football more attractive to me, my heart is win Stoke.  If that makes me a Stoke supporter, then so be it.”

However, given the release of the findings of Europol’s Operation Veto, how could I ever don the jersey of a side that advertises online betting?  More about that in a future post.  Time to turn on the match.