US Fans. Surrounded by guns, surrounded by Mexicans.
Greg Lalas has a certain crazy about him, but sometimes it works: Why Donovan should play in Mexico [SI]
Freddy Adu may never get a chance in Europe [SBI]
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. Two guys apply for an NT job. . . [Three Match Ban]
Dani Alves now tests better in the wind tunnel [The Spoiler]
The best of the world’s female soccer presenters [The Best Eleven]
What do you do when you score a coup and beat everyone on the ESPN scoop? Moan that now there are too many channels on which to watch football in America [EPL Talk]
Mad Jens to hang up his boots, quit throwing others’ off the pitch [SI]
Finally:
This would have given dead Bigus a heart attack. Post on how an American can change their favorite EPL team without shame [Run of Play]
I got my first look at Melissa Theuriau today when watching the Arsenal Celtic pregame on a Canal+ feed.
She is amazing.
“My team choice sucked, so I’m switching to the team that has the guy with the bitchin’ mohawk. Oh, and I’ve already woven some petty sophistry about ‘playing the game the right way’ and several other American sports clichees to justify my dilettantism.”
Seriously. I think this kind of s**t is why European football fans fans hate American football fans. You pick a team, you stick with it. If you’re not ready for that pedestrian level of commitment, don’t pick a team, pick a player, and let the side pick you. But this switching s**t is just ridiculous, and smacks of front-running.
I think that’s a frankly ridiculous attitude to take. You’re telling me that, to speak of basketball for a moment, that a Portland fan couldn’t adopt a new team during the Jail Blazers era, or that a Seattle fan is stuck with Oklahoma City for the rest of his life? The Torquay-till-I-die attitude, while admirable on one hand, is also exasperating. There are reasons to change allegiances. Relocation, change of ownership, Joey Barton… Sometimes, it’s not you leaving the team, but the team leaving you.
Maybe it is a ridiculous attitude to take. But if you’re going to up and switch teams just because a few guys got arrested, or some lean years hit, then why support a team at all? I don’t care for Craig Bellamy one little bit, but I’d have cheered my ass off for him had Spurs signed him in January. I don’t have much use for Pavlyuchenko, but I cheer for his goals just the same. I root for laundry, not for the people wearing it, nor the people in the front office.
I share the attitude as phil. You root for the laundry. I live in Philadelphia, and I was kinda perturbed that so many people here questioned rooting for another team when Michael Vick signed with the Philadelphia Eagles. The only way I change teams is if that team moves to another city.
Change teams? I am disgusted.
I’m curious how yanks on here came about selecting their team to support. Mine was as an impressionable 12 year old at World Cup 94 and meeting Dennis Bergkamp at one of those fancy pre-cup sponsor parties. Obviously he moved to Arsenal in 95 which was about the time you could get the weekly EPL highlight show on the local market sports channel (I think it was fox, not 100% sure anymore) at like 2 in the morning. etc. etc. Still, to this day, the nicest professional athlete I’ve ever met.
with lionel bienvenoue?