Green Street Hooligans might not exactly be a primer on playing soccer, watching soccer, or choosing an Premier League team, but it is rather educational, in its own way. This is what I learned from this film which is mostly about the "firms" (band of soccer hooligans that support each team), but which also features a few minutes of the game actually being played.
1) Pete Dunham (the head of the West Ham firm), assessing the various teams and their firms: "West Ham football is mediocre, but our firm is top-notch and everyone knows it. Arsenal...great football, shit firm...Tottenham...shit football, and a shit firm..."
2) Even someone as innocent looking as Elijah Wood - who always looks kind of like Frodo, no matter what movie he's in - can turn into a sociopath in one evening if introduced to the right people in East London.
3) The wimpiest and corniest of songs - "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" can sound like the choir at the gates of hell when sung by drunken soccer fans hoping to witness or participate in an ass whoopin' either on or off the field.
4) Pete Dunham, while being almost incomprehensible in speech, makes up for it with one of the coolest, most ridiculous struts in either sports or movies:
Youtube Pete Dunham
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Chaos Theory: The Corner Kick
Back in the day, we used to take a two-week break from calisthenics and flag football and our coaches would march us down to the high school pool for swimming instruction. By the end of the week, we would sometimes finish the lessons early and Mr. Zanoli - who was normally a football coach - would toss a ball into the shallow end of the pool and yell, "Kill the man with the ball!" At this point, 50 14-year olds would frantically make their way toward the ball with the intent of either grabbing it or pummeling or attempting to drown the individual who was in current possession of the ball. Actually, only 49 boys were heading toward the ball because I was trying my damnest to make my way out of harm's way. The only problem was that all of those teenagers striding toward the ball, using their arms as oars to propel them actually created a current that would suck even the most ardent of non-combatants back toward the ball.
What seemed like a really bad idea back in Mr. Zanoli's gym class, however, seems to me like a really good idea when it comes to soccer. After all of that endless dribbling and ping-ponging of passes back and forth across the field, here's an activity that has a good chance in producing a goal. Just tee it up, launch a pass into the middle of the players jockeying for position and hope that someone kicks or heads one in.
I'm looking for a team that excels at the corner kick and I definitely don't want one that continually air mails their kicks across the middle of the field, blowing the chance. After all, Mr. Zanoli never threw the ball in such a way that he missed the pool entirely. That would have been irresponsible.
Friday, November 7, 2014
Let the Club Come to You
Baseball season is over. I'm thrilled that my San Francisco Giants are world champions for the third time in five years. Growing up, I went through a long, long dry spell and never imagined that I would ever experience such success.
Like many Americans, my interest in soccer, or football - as the rest of the world refers to the sport - spikes once every four years, during World Cup season. Although I enjoy the World Cup, I have been known to make a few suggestions for improvement of the game, mostly in the interest of encouraging more scoring, but so far FIFA has not agreed to either eliminate goalies altogether, or to count any ball crossing the end line as a score.
I have, however, managed to adopt a favorite team in both the Italian Serie A League - Sampdoria (because my relatives live in that neighborhood of Genoa and I'm amused by their incredible drunken Popeye logo) and in the Mexican League - Chivas (because a friend of mine took me to one of their games when I was visiting Guadalajara and I was pleased that we missed the rioting of their supporters by one week). So far, though, I have resisted the temptation to choose an English Premier League Team for some of the following reasons:
- I never got around to it
- I thought that people who did so were putting on airs, accents, or both
- I don't really know the teams and didn't want to choose a front runner or an obvious choice like all of the Europeans that are running around with New York Yankee hats.
After consulting with my nephews - big Arsenal fans - I have decided to take an entire season, to do some research, to look for the quirky and unusual, and to find a team that matches my personality, my tastes, and what I think is right in the world.
In short, I have decided to follow the advice that my nephew Kyle gave me - "Let the club come to you." This blog will be a description of that process.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)