Happy you came back! Not too long of a post here, but another weekend passes here in the UK, another trip for me! So, I figured I’d walk you all through it. This time, I was in Manchester for the weekend, but decided to travel from there to Birmingham, to see my beloved Aston Villa.
This was a special time all-around, because it was only my second ever trip to what I like to think of as my home away from home. And not only that, but Villa had a bit of new hope, sort of a rebirth, bringing in a new manager, Dean Smith. This game against Swansea was one I just HAD to go to.
I went in January with a friend, when I visited the UK, but that was a game against Barnsley, so the environment/competition wasn’t completely to the highest extent. That wasn’t the case this day. A sold-out Villa Park saw a little over 42,000 at the stadium. I went to buy these tickets a few weeks back, to sit in the famous Holte End, but stalled and ended up forgetting to do it. Then, we signed Dean Smith. He and his family have been Villa fans growing up, and a he’s a name Villa fans were definitely happy with to be coming in, so I knew I had to buy tickets ASAP. But I stalled, and forgot that day, again.
Then, a few days later, I get a notification from Villa’s app on my phone that the “Upper Trinity Stand” was open. That’s when I knew I was in a bad spot. That stand isn’t open often, as they keep it closed to try and completely pack the other parts of the stadium first. I go online to buy a ticket, and virtually EVERYWHERE is sold out. The Holte End completely, the Doug Ellis stand too, and there was legitimately only one seat available in the Lower Trinity, so I jump on that and buy it so I don’t have to sit up higher up in the Upper Trinity, and I am so happy I did.
Like I said, I was in Manchester for the weekend, so that Saturday morning, I left the hotel around 11am for the train, which is actually an easier train ride than it would’ve been for me from Chester to Birmingham, so that was nice. Like a dummy tourist, I get off the train kind of at the wrong stop, because I thought it was close enough for me to be able to walk. NOPE, so I call an Uber, and it was one of those distances that I could’ve walked, but it would’ve been an extra hour to my trip and had me showing up right before kickoff, so I forked up the £4 and took the sub-10-minute Uber ride. Easy enough.
I take a lap around the outside of the stadium just to take in the environment when I first get there. It really was a good one, with people in a good mood, crowds everywhere, so I figure I better get into the stadium before things get too crowded with lines and all. I get into the concourse and there I get a drink and watch the rest of the crazy Man U-Chelsea match, before I go to my seat to watch the rest of warm-ups.
And, then I got to my seat, and oh my god, that seat.
My front-row seats in Lower Trinity
Just look at that view.
As kickoff approaches, the teams walk out, and Dean Smith is officially introduced to the Villa faithful, as the Holte End belts out singing, “He’s one of our own, he’s one of our ownnnnnnnn, Dean Smith, he’s one of our own.” Absolutely breathtaking and I was in awe of the noise. It was so loud, even in a sold-out stadium like this, it sounded like it was echoing in an empty stadium. Insane.
Then, kickoff and the match is underway. A decent match all-in-all as Villa scored early through Chelsea loanee, Tammy Abraham, and Villa Park was bouncing the entire game. This was a situation we as Villa fans have seen ever-so often in this league, under Steve Bruce, where we’re up, and then sit back and concede a dumb goal (or two), and drop points.
While I was sitting there, I made conversation with the guy next to me, who actually lives in Wales, right outside of Swansea, but made the trip up to VP for the match. He likes/tries to come to about four a season, and this was one of them. He was a bit older, but by himself, as was I. I heard him the whole match mumbling to himself every time something happened, good or bad. Not mumbling in a weird way, but analyzing the game.
He and I were in the same boat, where even though it was a new manager and we were playing well, we were just waiting for the defensive subs to come on and us to “lock down” the match, but not doing so. Smith didn’t do that with his subs. Twice he took out attackers for attackers, and the third one he took off Super Jack Grealish, for a midfielder in Conor Hourihane. This third sub had some fans moaning and groaning, but me and this man (never got his name), knew it was a good sub for the last 15 minutes, as Villa had 3 matches in 6 days to play, so surely Jack shouldn’t run all 90 in the first one if he wants him to be fresh for the next two. Great smarts there from Smith.
This time, Villa do see the game out, and we walk away with a 1-0 victory, and 3 points on Dean Smith’s dream debut. A beginning to a new era. I’m not gonna address the fact that we lost those next two games in the upcoming week, cause I’m focusing on this day, but still.
The ride back to Manchester was a pretty good experience too, weirdly enough to say. Getting to hear and see all of the different fans going from their teams matches, back home, I was swarmed with Wolves fans for the most part, which sucked. But it was definitely funny and cool to hear the banter going on from fan to fan, whether being for the same club, or not.
Then, on Sunday, I wake up at the hotel in Manchester, and before I take the train back to Chester, I take a tour of Manchester United’s Old Trafford, which was just beau—nah, y’know what? I’ll leave that whole story for another post;)
I said before there was way more to come, but since then, I’ve added to my schedule and there is WAY more to come, for sure!
Whew, it’s been awhile! I’ve been focusing more on posting Villa-specific stuff on the SBNation page that I started contributing for a few months back, so if you haven’t checked out that site, go and do that right now. I tied my weekly posts into that, but I just kind of felt like this page allows me to write without having to worry about Villa (although, I’m always worried about the club right now). Go check out my updated “about” page to find out what I’m up to, I don’t want to waste anyone’s time before this AWESOME blog post.
While I’m here in England, I’ve been told to “travel, travel, travel.” I’m gonna try to do that as much as possible, but obviously focus on my studies first. I got here about 2 weeks ago, now, and still I don’t start classes for another week! With that in mind, this past Saturday I got to experience something that made all my footy-loving fans, jealous as hell. I got to go see the defending Premier League Champions, Manchester City, play host to Brighton and Hove Albion.
If this match was on TV back in the States, I probably would have tried to find a better, more enticing game on, BUT that’s just not how it is for me. Trying to go to Premier League games once you’re in the UK isn’t that hard, but for top clubs, it can be quite hard to get tickets. For Man U, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, even Spurs (yea EVEN Spurs), you have to pay for some sort of membership. I went ahead and did that, for a few clubs that I won’t name, you’ll just have to wait and see where I go. To go to the Etihad, despite being home to Man City, tickets were not too hard to come across. I know it was against Brighton, but still.
I’m not the kind of guy to go an put my money out there for the public to hear (mainly because I don’t have money to flaunt), but these tickets were absolutely absurd to me. £28 for the tickets because they have an “18-21 option,” which for us Americans is about $35. Absolutely insane when you hear and see where my seats were. Right at midfield, next to the technical area (bench) and I got to be a few rows back from touching my favorite manager, Pep Guardiola and his beautiful, bald head. I’ll get into the environment itself in a sec, but talking to the elderly couple next to me, who were season ticket holders, I mentioned that if I tried to get seats like this to an NFL game, they’d be easily upwards of $100, if not maybe even $200, or $300, depending on the team/game/scenario. How wild is that?
View from my seats, the players with their mascots pre-kickoff
Now, I’m going to get into the day. I woke up beautiful Chester, U.K, about an hour train ride to Manchester, with one switch of trains. Not bad at all. And the round-trip train ride cost £16, about $20 (also, now I’m done doing the conversions for you, you can guess-timate from the first two conversions, or do what I’m doing, and use the Google machine). So, right off the bat, the £28 seat and the £16 train ride is about the bare minimum I could get away with making this trip with. Obviously, that’s not how it works, and I bought a scarf from a vendor, and some food and drink, which probably cost £20 total. Stadium food prices are awesome too, just like normal food out and about, none of that $12 for a beer, $8 for a pretzel nonsense like it is in the US. So, if you’ve been following along, the TOTAL I spent on the day was probably around £64. I still, cannot get over how cheap this day was for the experience I had at the Etihad.
You might be thinking right now, “Is Jake a City fan now?” NOPE, still Villa ’til I die, but I will say, I can 100% vouch for anyone thinking about making a trip like this, it was so worth it. I get off the train at the main station in Manchester. I walk with a bunch of City fans about a mile to the stadium, past the vendors, one of which I get the scarf from. I pass some food vendors, a lady handing out a pack of Premier League trading cards (obviously I got a pack, they were free), and I found the letter of the gate that was on my ticket. Right on up I walk, no line, they have the place running super-smoothly, and I walk into the stadium right by the section that my seats are in. First thing I do, is walk to see my seat, and soak it in.
Wow, oh wow, that view. The Brighton players were warming up on one half, while the majority of the City team was still yet to be seen, except for the goalies, who had already begun their warm-ups. There were also a bunch of people that obviously had some sort of VIP experience to be on the field, and somehow they looked to be even more in awe than me (didn’t think that was possible). I’m there about an hour before kick-off, so I go back to the concession/restroom area to get some food and drink. First thing, they don’t take cash at a lot of the tills, so there was little to no lines everywhere. Once again, it was very smoothly run by the club. One of the things to note, however, is that alcohol is not allowed at the seats, so there are loads of people in the common areas, watching screens, filling out bets, drinking, eating, socializing, doing whatever pre-match. I don’t exactly know the extent of the “no alcohol at the seats” policy, but I’m assuming it’s at least the entirety of England. When I went to Villa Park in January, the rules were the same. I find that kind of cool, that they can stick to that, despite probably not making nearly as much money on alcohol as stadiums in say, the US do, selling it TO YOU while you’re in your seats. Anyways, I finished my beer and pie, and went to my seats for good about 30 minutes till kickoff.
Meat and Potato Pie (my first ever pie, 8/10 I actually was a fan of it) and of course, an ice cold beer.
City players were out there warming up, legitimately right in my line of sight. The stadium starts to fill up, there’s a few empty seats in front of me and to my left, but other than that it looked decently filled, even on the upper-levels. Fans were singing songs through the stadium as the warm-ups continue. The teams leave the field for a few minutes, before the starting eleven come out with their “mascots,” who are the little kids. They walk out and across and shake hands of the opposition and refs. Not gonna get into the details of all the standard pre-match stuff, just emphasizing how close this was to me, and I could see everything.
As I alluded to above, the couple next to me had season tickets. I could tell immediately, because just as myself and my family at Baltimore Ravens games, they knew the majority of the people seated around them, and walking by them. Familiar faces. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this yet, but I was all by myself for this trip. F a comfort-zone, this was the first step to really starting to adjust to the culture and environment that is the UK. Only thing not typical about Saturday is the weather was like 60º (Fahrenheit, I still don’t know, nor go by Celsius) and sunny. Usually at matches you see on TV, it’s pouring rain and you can see the crisp, chilly weather. Not this day. I kindly ask the man that’s next to me, “so you guys are season ticket holders?” and he responds, “oh yea, have you just come from America?” Now, I’ll preface this with my outfit and look: I’m not wearing ANYTHING that would shout, “I’m not from here,” but by that one sentence, that one question alone, my “accent” stood out. I chuckled “yep, you can tell?” and he and his wife laugh and nod. Immediately he starts a great conversation that I wish I remembered every detail of but throughout the game he was just commenting on things how they usually go, and of course, they rang true. From the action and where it usually is, to when the subs warm up, to which subs would come on, he was spot on.
Let me just go back to the subs for a second. I picked the seat I sat in, after some research, and knowing how close I would be to the bench, meaning the coaches, subs, etc., and I 100% made the right choice. If and when I go back, if I don’t find a way to sit with the singing-all-match City fans, you bet your ass I’ll be right back in that section. From City legend and club captain Vincent Kompany, to Gabriel Jesus and future world class player, Phil Fogel (you can QUOTE me on that, the kid is very, very good), I could literally hear Guardiola say, in about the 65th minute, “Gabi!” At which point, Gabi Jesus turned around, finished his stretch, and took his warm-up top off to get ready to sub on. I will never get that Spanish accent calling “Gabi!” out of my head. Jesus looks over towards the general area I am in, because we’re that close, and applauds us for applauding him.
Speaking of things stuck in my head, one of the songs I learned from watching the Amazon Prime series on Man City (go watch if you haven’t), is: “Say that you want me, All of the time, Say that you need me, Always be mine,” These are echoed twice and then, (if you know you know), “WE’VE GOT *Clap clap* GUARDIOLA, WE’VE GOT *Clap clap* GUARDIOLA.” Now, I tried to explain that as best I can in written form, but look it up if you’ve never heard it, seriously it’s one of those things that’s absolutely bone-chilling when you hear it in person. Even not being a City fan, as I am. The end to that chant with the *Clap clap* was stuck in my head the entire rest of the night.
Now, let’s talk about the actual footy being played… It’s safe to say, in what I like to think is still my semi-young life, and career, I’ve seen dozens of soccer games live and in person. From NCAA, to MLS, to an Aston Villa game and even a handful of US Men’s National Team games, I have NEVER seen anything close to this. City absolutely ball on the pitch. Pep’s style and the players on that field put the cherry on top to a breathtaking experience as a whole. I’m the guy that watches the game, but also looks at Pep in awe, and how he watches the game, thinks and kicks the ground to himself, talks to the players and his coaches throughout the game. Good, isn’t good enough for Pep.
Raheem Sterling tries to turn on the right side and runs into the defender, Pep loses his mind. You can see him gesturing and I know he’s saying to just lay it off to his outside-back, Kyle Walker, and turn and go. Next play? Ball to Sterling, he lays it off to Walker and turns and makes his run. The play works and a chance is created. Sterling immediately looks to Pep for recognition, and Pep at this point is applauding and praising him for what he’s done. That’s exactly how things should work, and it’s WHY they work for City, and Guardiola. He calls Bernardo Silva over, and you can see he’s telling him to play simple 1-2 touches and get the ball back to feed it out wide, next thing that happens? Silva gets a ball, plays 1-2 touch footy, threads a ball through the middle to Aguero who has his shot saved. Pep yells out at Silva “WIDE.” Even though a decent chance came, it’s not what he asked for. Good.Isn’t.Good.Enough.
If you go and watch City’s first goal from this game, it comes just how Pep would draw it up. Sterling plays Aguero who lays it off to David Silva, who plays a ball far and wide that Sané runs on to, who eventually finds Sterling sprinting to the back post to slide and tap it in. Pep loves it. The players buy into his style that he praises them for, and it works. Not only does it work, it works to a goddamn T.
I was lucky enough to see legends play in this game for City, such as Aguero, and his last play of the game before he was subbed off, was a glorious run from 30 yards out, nutmegging a defender, finding Bernardo Silva who plays a wall-pass give-and-go back to Aguero, who slots the ball home to put City up 2-0. Jesus comes on for him as the crowd sings Aguero’s name and Pep too, applauds him as he comes off. When things don’t work for the team, Pep looks like he only blames himself. This is why things seem to be working at City, and I can’t express how beautiful it is to watch, in person, basically at field level.
Up 2-0, Phil Fogel comes on and I get to see a legend in the making, play for a solid 8 minutes against a weak Brighton side. Still, this is an experience to remember. The couple next to me has seen all they want to see after the 85′ in a dominant performance from their side, and they say goodbye to me. But me? I don’t care if all of these people have seen enough, I’m staying there as long as I can. Soaking it all in. Final whistle blows, players and coaches shake hands, Pep and City applaud the crowd too, as songs I don’t know are still being sung all around the stadium. I scoot over a few seats towards the tunnel and get to see all of these players exit the field.
What a game, what an experience. There will be more to come, I promise!
Sorry for the missed past week–Spring Break in Miami unfortunately prevented me from writing for you all! So, as some of you may have seen, my original “Soccer State of Mind” blog posts are now on SB Nation’s Aston Villa page, 7500 to Holte (those will still be consistently coming on that site every Monday late afternoon). I’m gonna change it up so I can still have this blog site active, so I will now use this site for which games to watch for in the upcoming week, instead of combining that into my SSOM posts, which will still recap the past week. My intentions for this is to give the average person, who is looking to get into the beautiful sport, some insight on which games you should avoid watching, and which games are absolute dimes to watch out for.
This week is a very special one again, mainly consisting of international games.
Tuesday
Starting early in the day, we’ll probably get a deeper look into the depth of France’s squad as they have an easier match this go-around as they face the the World Cup hosts, Russia.
2:45… 7-1… When these teams face, craziness is expected. Brazil takes on the Germans that embarrassed them at home 4 years ago, once again without Neymar. This is my early prediction for the finals of the World Cup, if the bracket works out that way after group stages. Along with France, Brazil and Germany are two of the deeper squads in terms of talent from top to bottom.
Germany celebrates in their 7-1 win versus/in Brazil World Cup 2014
England-Italy will be decent as well, battle of two teams who are just above mediocre right now, not sure how England do in the World Cup, as Italy missed out, but we’ll see!
Argentina-Spain is also a battle of the beasts at 3:30, Spain still looks as dirty as ever in the midfield with this new generation too, and they might’ve actually figured out their striker situation so they don’t have to play Big Kicks F.C. up to Diego Costa again this WC. Messi and Argentina hope to not lose yet another heartbreak final this summer, so we’ll see how they match up against the Spanish giants.
PRIMETIME EVENT!!! Kidding, not really. The not-in-world-cup United States youngin’s step forward to face Paraguay, in a rematch of the Copa America game that I got to witness the US win 1-0 in Philly a few summer’s ago. Time to see what this new generation’s made of, there’s a lot of young players playing overseas that could be the future.
Young, up-and-coming Tyler Adams looks to earn his second cap for the US Men’s National Team after his first one earlier this year in a friendly versus Portugal
Wednesday and Thursday are filled with games to not watch, and honestly there’s probably no need to even look at the scores of these second-tier American games.
Friday
A solid MLS game with Toronto FC and Real Salt Lake, and then some English Championship games that aren’t Villa, so I don’t really care about those
Saturday
We have league games again! I’ll be waking up early to watch Liverpool have a shootout with Crystal Palace, and then no real good games until 12:30, I’ll be watching Villa take on Hull (hopefully an easy W), next to the German primetime rivalry: Dortmund-Bayern. Maybe Dortmund can withstand Bayern’s dominance and shock the Bundesliga.
Over to the MLS in the afternoon, the newly found LA rivalry between LAFC and the Zlatan-filled Galaxy team that I’m super pumped to see in action. DC United tries to turn things around against Sporting KC. That’s really it for the MLS and Saturday, now onto Sunday.
Sunday
I’ll probably wake up early to watch Arsenal and hope they continue their form against a really struggling Stoke team that cannot get anything going. Chelsea-Spurs should be a good battle immediately after that, to see who is going to lock in those Champions League spots for next season behind Man City.
And after that I’ll probably be playing Fortnite the rest of the day instead of trying to stream some of the games from other leagues, if we’re being honest.
That’s really the end of the preview for the upcoming week, comment if you think I missed anything, but everything I have on here is definitely worth watching! They will be very hype games, if you’re looking to watch some soccer this week(end), these games are where to start!
Thanks for coming back to another week! For those of you who thought this wouldn’t actually be a regular thing, you’re wrong (for now at least).
Gonna start this week by saying how sad it was to wake up yesterday morning to the news of Fiorentina Captain and Italian national, Davide Astori being found dead in his hotel room before their match. Once again I’m not breaking news so if you want more info on that, search Google. I cannot begin to imagine how that feels for everyone around him, so thoughts to everyone affected. Because of this, all Italian Serie A games were cancelled yesterday, Sunday 3/4.
Astore getting the captains armband from a young boy on what would be his final game, February 25th, a 1-0 W over Chievo
Going off cancelled matches and into ones that were played, this one maybe could have been called off or stopped early or something, but Spurs absolutely turned it on to third-division Rochdale in the 5th round FA Cup replay, it was snowing so hard I could barely see the 6 goals that Spurs put in, go in.
After the embarrassment to City, laying a 3-0 egg on Sunday, maybe Arsenal bounce back against a team that’s facing a tough Chelsea squad on Sunday, right? WRONG. How Arsenal is it to lose 3-0 in a cup final, and then less than a week later, do it again but AT HOME. 2 straight 3-0 L’s to Man City carried them with just perfect momentum to lose at Brighton… If I’m being honest, as much as I like to troll Arsenal and my friends who are all fans of the club for some odd reason, I love the way they ball when they ball, so I’ve always been about Wenger for his style of play but it’s time bud. Let the club move on and start with someone else now, save your pride and resign! I don’t want these last few months, maybe even years to tarnish his legacy, though, he’s done some great things, but yea it’s just time.
Alright now that we time-traveled from Friday to Sunday, let’s go back to Saturday. Remember I said last week how all of the games were so boring I would sleep in and probably watch MLS when I woke up? Yea I was wrong. For some reason I set my alarm for 7:30am and woke up to watch what actually ended up being a decently exciting game between Burnley and Everton…I said exciting not good play don’t get ahead of yourselves. The tree of Burnley Chris Wood got subbed on and did what else but escape Ashley Williams’ and his ball-watching on a corner to head home in the 80′ for the winner. Williams also got a red card 6 minutes later just thought I’d throw that in there to rub some salt in the wound, sorry Ashley.
The Villa game, along with a few other Championship games were postponed due to weather, so televised in the States, I had 2 options: Stoke vs Southampton snooze-fest or Tottenham toying with Huddersfield. I played Fortnite for the first half instead. Turning Stoke on second half, and when I called Wood a tree, I kinda meant a big stocky guy, cause there’s no one longer than the legend, Peter Crouch. Coulda sworn he was gonna head home the winner too, but that game ended 0-0, what a surprise. The best part of that game, actually, was when the final whistle blew and they switched over to added time of the Leicester game, where the blonde Algerian magician, absolutely BANGED a free kick in the 97′ to rescue a point against Bournemouth. I’ll give that to you, Mahrez and Algeria, but the G.O.A.T Landon Donovan still has your number (happy belated btw LD10).
Spanish league was pretty straightforward Saturday, and Ronaldo got his 300th La Liga goal, along with number 301, in a return to their winning form with a 3-1 W over Getafe.
Bundesliga was decent, my game of the day was Dortmund vs Red Bull Leipzig and this 1-1 battle did not disappoint with both teams having chances throughout the game until the very end. Reus keeps his back-in-action form up as he nets a goal, and it could be the perfect timing for this form, as the German’s look to defend their World Cup title in a few months. I love that Reus is balling, I just hope this doesn’t affect Pulisic who was benched, maybe for rest, maybe for Marco.
Liverpool dominated again in the late game of the day on TV, with Salah and Mane scoring yet again. That counter attack is so dangerous, and now it kinda looks like their defense might be figured out, team on the rise??
Sunday, no Serie A as I said due to the tragedy of Astori, but over to Spain again, King Leo went King Leo and scored another free kick banger, his 600th for club and country (anything you can do I can do better). They win over the second-placed Madrid, Atleticó. Normal Sunday in Germany, Bayern scored 4 and shut out Freiburg, and oh yea look at that, back in the U.K., another Man City W as Arsenal lose.
Pep and City’s class broke down Conte and Chelsea’s bus in front of the net, and got the goal they needed, right after halftime. The game may have been 1-0 so Chelsea hung in the game, but I think it’s safe to say the 71% possession and 13 shots City had, to Chelsea’s no chances on target are really what describes the game
Ending the overseas week with Manchester United taking on Crystal Palace, a pretty straightforward game for United, so we’d think. I was debating finishing up writing and posting this before/during the game, but I decided to wait, and thank god I did. After a dreadful 50-55ish minutes to start the game, United flipped the game on its head as Chris Smalling scores his second goal of the campaign to give them hope. In the early minutes after this happened I, along with probably 95% of the people watching, could sense the equalizer coming. It came. Big Rom, yet again, nets a goal to bring United level! With 14 minutes left, to note.
Immediately after the ensuing kickoff, future world #1 (after Neuer retires), David de Gea, stretches out to deny the former Villan savior, Christian Benteke of another signature headed go-ahead goal. 90+ minutes go by, who else other than… Nemanja Matic? I mean if I’m a United fan I’m loving it but from a neutral point of view I’m still scratching my head about how Matic scores a world class goal like that, minutes after having a chance cleared off the line. 3-2 United final to wrap up a solid week of football overseas
Finally, in my time zone, soccer is played in the afternoon. That’s right, you read that right, MLS IS BACK. I was so excited to see this ever-so changing league, with a brand new team in LA with celebrity owners, this could affect the sport in this country so much (if only we had the US this summer to look forward to). The day was very strange all in all, but my main headline and ranting point is over VAR.
This system was put in to make the sport better and clearer, to eliminate obvious mistakes…that’s just not what it’s doing. Okay so now this is the end of my recaps, so if you don’t want to hear my tirade on VAR, I hope you come back and read again next week, but I think you’ll like this rant to really understand the new horrible system.
Video Assistant Referees are implemented into some leagues now, as trials, in order to perfect the already perfect game, with catching and being able to change mistakes that no referees should make. Instead, what it is doing, is going back and reviewing any controversial call, which could be called either way. This is the referee’s job to decide in live play, and like I said, should only be used when 10/10 times the referee should call it the other way.
I was watching the DC United-Orlando City game (Vamos United) and in about the 30′, a DCU player got clocked and a head injury. Didn’t seem like much but an incidental arm in live time, but the ref decided to go look at the video review. After about a minute and a half, he comes back and gives the Orlando player a red… seriously? I’m all for my favorite team playing 11v10 but if that happens in the first game of the season, it’s bound to happen not in my favor at some point or another and you’ll hear about that when it happens I’m sure.
The last games I watched over the weekend before today’s Man U game were Sporting KC vs NYCFC, and the old LA team, LA Galaxy, are trying to flip last year’s script of lowest point total, as they beat Portland, who had the most points in the West last season.
Now, the Sporting KC game got out of hand, despite being down the whole game, down by 2 the last 30ish. A penalty was awarded for SKC, to make the game 2-1 with 10 mins left to play, until the ref trotted alllll the way over to his screen at the midfield sideline, and determined that it wasn’t a penalty, but also did not award a yellow card for diving/simulation. Even after watching the replay, it should’ve been awarded a penalty, so I have no idea what the VAR could be helping if its a decision like that. Six minutes later, SKC is through on a breakaway when they’re fouled for what seems to be a penalty, no call…initially. The ref goes to VAR ONCE AGAIN and changes his mind, gives a red card to the NYCFC player who made the challenge, but it was right outside of the box as shown in video. Both cases could have been called either way, neither should have blatantly been called the other way, which is what VAR is supposed to be for.
One of the reasons I am so concerned over this is because it was just announced that it will be used at this summer’s World Cup… You can’t even get it right in the MLS, imagine the reactions for the biggest event in the world. Good luck corrupt FIFA
Thanks for reading my rant/recaps! Feel free to share/contact me and hope you read again next week!
What’s up guys, thanks for taking time to read this blog, feel free to let me know in the comments or personally for any suggestions to make this better, I’m trying something out here!
Okay so just a quick overview to how this is gonna work: As a soccer, futból, football, whatever you may know it as, fan in the United States, things are a little less traditional here for the sport, as I’m sure many of you know. I’m here to give a week-to-week look into that non-traditional viewing of the sport we all know, love, and idolize.
Now, that being said, the way I’m gonna go about all this is also non-traditional. I’m not gonna sit here and give a game-by-game recap of all of the games across the pond, around the world, that’s for Sky Sports, Fox Sports, ESPNFC, or however you all get your footy updates. I’m here for a more conversational outlook on the games that have happened over the past week, which ones I got a chance to watch and my reactions. Also, I will preview what you SHOULD be watching in the upcoming week, for those who are unsure which games will be good, but are looking to get into the beautiful sport.
***DISCLAIMER*** All things in these posts are my own opinion, which means every once in awhile I’ll throw in something about my favorite, and the biggest club in England, Aston Villa. Also, I’ll try to hold it in and keep it to myself, but I’m sure at some points there will be rants about the US Soccer Federation, and the US Men’s National team.
Let’s get started yea?
Usually these posts will be on Monday’s, wrapping up the weekend games, and previewing potential midweek, and that upcoming weekend’s games, but today I happen to be starting on a Wednesday, so what sue me for the $50 I have in my bank account.
RECAP:
I’m not gonna get into the midweek games from last week, that’s a little too dated at this point, so let’s start with Saturday’s games:
I woke up around 7am EST to be put right back to sleep by a dull Stoke-Leicester game that ended 1-1 after Jack Butland forgot how to catch and gifted Leicester with an own goal.
I came out of my Potter-Foxes coma to see a slaughter of West Ham by the lethal Liverpool counterattack with all three of their front-three scoring second half goals (Mane, Firmino, Salah)
Going to our first foreign language country, in Spain it was just a typical week…kinda? Real showed Alavés who Real Madrid still are, with Ronaldo scoring a brace and his 299th La Liga goal. This itself is news, but the bigger news came at the dying embers of the game when they were awarded a pen, Penaldo to get 300 goals and a hat trick on the game, surely on this 89′ PK, right? WRONG. Ronaldo did NOT want to go into the record books with that Penaldo name, he wants to do it HIS way (tap-in or a header, obviously), to get that 300, so he gave it to Benzema who slotted it home for 4-0, but don’t even get me started on Benzema as a starter for Madrid, that’s a whole new conversation/rant.
“Anything you can do I can do better”-Barcelona to Madrid. Yup, that’s right, tiki taka wins again. Ronaldo and Real win 4-0 at 10am EST? That’s cute wait till 2:45pm and watch Barca rip Girona for a smooth sailing 6-1 W. Suarez hat-trick, Messi brace, but the big story was Coutinho and his BANGER. Took a little while to get him from Liverpool, but they clawed him away from Klopp and oh my god was it worth it. Coutinho was Liverpool’s savior whenever they needed it, but he’s really showing what he can do with this Barca side.
Some boring games in the Bundesliga on Saturday, including a shut out Bayern draw, led to me dreading Sunday’s games (not really)
The build-up hype for Sunday EPL was great. Solely because of the history behind Chelsea-Man U. Mou faces his former club, where half the team just up and stopped trying for him before he was sacked. Matic plays vs Chelsea again, and just even the current standings made this game all the more matter. I loved the way Man U played growing up, with the Ronaldo, Tevez, Nani, Rooney, era, obviously managed by the great Fergie, but lord help me it’s impossible to stay awake at 9am when Jose Mourinho decides to sit back and play the most boring soccer possible in the first half. Willian continues his form from the Champions League game and dinked one home right after the half hour mark, shortly followed by Big Rom and his equalizer 7′ later. with about 15′ left, Jesse (Messi) Lingard goes beast mode and scores a header, yea that’s right, Lingard with a header winner vs Chelsea in the 75′. He and Pogba had a nice little tribute to BlackPanther with the “Wakanda Salute.”
Jesse Lingard celebrates with the Wakanda Salute from “Black Panther” with Paul Pogba after Lingard’s 75′ winner vs Chelsea
After my first half hatred of Man U and their play, they became the first team in this rivalry to win after conceding the first goal, and they crucially remain in the Champions League spot on the table, above Chelsea.
In the Carabao Cup, Arsenal gon’ be Arsenal. They put up a half chance in the beginning of the game, then it was allllll Man City to cruise to a 3-0 W and the trophy. That’s really all I have to say about that game.
Atletico also put on a show for the fans in Spain, beating Sevilla 5-2, which was really 5-0 until the dying embers gave Sevilla a little less embarrassment.
To wrap up this weeks games, Monday, even god’s do sit too. Pulisic on the bench for Dortmund, partially due to the main skipper, my boy Marco Reus’ return. Reus continued his comeback form, scoring an early goal which could have been the winner if they didn’t fall asleep and let in a header off a corner in the 73′. A huge draw for Augsburg, but a disappointing drop of what should have been an extra 2 points for the W for Dortmund.
What To Watch For
It’s Wednesday now, so feel free to turn into the FA Cup for what’s probably the biggest game in third-division Rochdale’s history, as they play Spurs at Wembley in a Fifth-round replay. I think Spurs don’t mess around and it’s not a scrappy game at Rochdale’s patchy field, so I can’t see Tottenham dropping this game.
A few other smaller cup games to complete the day, in Spain and Italy, and as I’m scrolling down…OH, FC Dallas, MLS teams are starting to play again this week in CONCACAF Champions League (The only legit CL, sorry UCL), and MLS games return this weekend! Hoping for a big season here, it only seems to be growing.
Tomorrow, Thursday 3/1, Arsenal gets a chance at revenge vs a Man City team who are just coasting through the league, minding the gap. I see Arsenal going balls to the wall trying to win this game, but I’m seeing a draw at the Emirates.
Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll be tuning into the Premier League Saturday morning. Do I really need to see Liverpool doing what they did to West Ham, to Newcastle? Or should I wake up at 7:30am to watch Burnley host whatever this Everton team is? Nah, I’ll probably stick to my MLS on Saturday, when my boys from home, DC United, go south to Orlando for the weekend.
What I will be doing, at 12:30, is watching the recently balling Red Bull Leipzig team go against Dortmund. Watch that one I’m telling you it’s gonna be a good one.
Sunday’s games pick up a little more with Chelsea facing the next team from Manchester, Man City who will come off a 3 days rest going from Arsenal to Chelsea, so I feel a Chelsea W coming up, unless City decide to rest players vs Arsenal, in which my predictions for both games would have to change.
Thank you all for reading, I’ll be back on Monday with a little bit of a shorter post, without the introduction! Let me know any suggestions, I’m just trying to get better here!
"Soccer" State of Mind 