I've Been Busy, Dammit!

Whew! First post in over a year! So much to write about....in April of '09 I went to Manchester and saw two matches at Old Trafford, and though I was debilitated by a terrible cold, it was a memorable journey with my brother jake, one I'll never forget. Last summer was slow for soccer, but this EPL season has been very exciting (as long as you're not a Scouser) and of course once June 11th rolls around the World Cup will be here.

Time will tell if I write about the trip, but the order of business for today is the final two weekends of the Premiership. As things stand, Chelsea hold a two point lead over Manchester United with two games to play. This weekend, United visit Sunderland and Chelsea travel to Anfield. If United have any hope of surpassing Liverpool's record 18 top-flight championships, they will need help from their Merseyside rival, who sit seventh in the league table and are without Fernando Torres for the rest of the season--a season that Rafa Benitez surely cannot wait to conclude. Liverpool, though desperate, will not edge their way into the top four in the last two games. They simply need too much help from teams not likely, and even less willing, to give it.

I'm a unique fan, in that I came into my fanhood relatively late in life and I don't live in England. As an American, I can distance myself from the "regionalized warfare" that football sometimes becomes, especially in regards to derby matches and heated rivalries. I follow United, but I see almost every Liverpool, Chelsea, and Arsenal match as well. I've watched quite a bit of Fulham this year so I can keep an eye on the best American in the Premiership, Clint Dempsey. I've also seen quite a few Wolves matches because my friend Martin is a Wolves fan and I like their manager, Mick McCarthy. I am more a fan of English football as a whole than any one club, and I feel that United best embody English football, at least in the past few years.

I preface my shocking statement with this justification becasue--shocker alert--I really wish Liverpool were better this year. Liverpool is supposed to be there, in the top four, every year. Seeing Liverpool sitting seventh may inspire the longstanding, passionate English United fan to paroxysms of ecstacy, but I don't hate Liverpool FC. (I do hate their supporters' club, who got World Soccer Daily fired from Sirius satellite radio last year, but that is another story for another day.) My two favorite sports are both football, so I'll make an American football analogy. I hate the Dallas Cowboys, and I can't stand their obnoxious "America's team" fans, but even I don't want to see the Dallas Cowboys mired in the cellar of the NFC East. The Dallas Cowboys are supposed to be a good football team, year in and year out, and when they go 1-15 the entire game suffers. The same deal goes for the Yankees. It's no fun if the Yankees flat out stink, and it hurts baseball as a whole. Certain established franchises just need to be there, at the top of the league.

There need to be institutions in sport, and while I can live with the one or two year anomaly, Liverpool's current direction is troubling. They've NEVER won a Premier League title, they've been struggling to win for twenty years now, and there are some signs that they'll get worse before they get better. The ownership situation is a mess, but maybe that's a good sign. The name Liverpool Football Club is one of the most recognizable and bankable franchises in sport, and an influx of huge (Middle Eastern?) money could help restore the club its due prominence.

That's all my time for today! Hopefully it's not another year before I post again.