Apropos of Nothing: Real Football

Alex Cohen is the producer of the A Dime Back Podcast. In his “Apropos of Nothing” series, he talks about things that have nothing to do with UConn sports.

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I hate American Football. This is not a very popular opinion. I don’t hate the players or the game itself necessarily; it’s everything surrounding the sport. The clown-car groups known as the NFL and the NCAA have shown just how poorly an organization can handle issues of almost any level of complexity. I don’t want to waste space with every proverbial buttfumble these bastions of incompetence have committed, but let’s just say that it boils down to Roger Goodell making up rules as he goes along and enforcing them with an inconceivable lack of consistency, and both organizations’ abject failure to make real adjustments to the game in order to address the horrific realities of head injuries.

Beyond all of that, it’s personal. The sport ruined the greatest basketball conference in the country. Big East basketball, and the tournament that accompanied it, was sublime. I could wax poetic for 10,000 words about how wonderful that league was, and how that tournament was the single best sporting event in this country, but then I’d be getting off topic from this off topic post.

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I grew up with no professional sport loyalty. My old man didn’t have any teams except UConn. That’s how most people end up with their teams. They choose their dad’s teams (or, more entertainingly, the rivals of their dad’s teams). I have always been a sports fan and have followed baseball, football, and basketball, but never with a team. I always gravitated towards certain players. In baseball, it was Manny, basketball was LeBron (and all UConn players), and football was Brady/Manning (my allegiances have flip-flopped in ways that would make John Kerry blush). I always thought this made the sport better for me as a fan. I was a free agent, unencumbered by history. I could choose my own path. I just never did, until I fell head over heels for The Real Football.

(I’m annoyingly going to call soccer “football” from here on because that’s what it is. When a similar number of people watch the Super Bowl compared to viewership for a regular season match between Real Madrid and Barcelona, the latter carries more gravitas and deserves the name. Get over it.)

I played football growing up and was really into playing the sport, but for one reason or another, never really followed the professional version of it. I knew who the great players were. I rooted for the national teams. I just didn’t have a club team or even a league that I followed.

Things started to change around the 2010 World Cup. Perhaps the dulcet tones of the Vuvuzela lulled me into a football hypnosis. The timing was impeccable. I was just disillusioned enough with American Football to the point where I could be convinced to throw my energy to a different sport.

I started, as had been tradition for me, liking players. Zlatan, Messi, Suarez, Gerrard and many others piqued my interest. The incredible talent of these players inspired me, but then I saw this video:

It left me feeling invigorated. The passion of the fans, the gravity of the moment, the incredible nature of the comeback victory, all of it set against the club’s anthem, You’ll Never Walk Alone…it was all I needed to come to the right conclusion. I needed a team.

The simple solution would have been to choose Liverpool on the merits of being inspired by that video. However, I wanted to do some research first and make sure it was the right choice for me. How cool is that? Most people are stuck with their teams because of geography or familial heritage. I got to do research for myself and have some say in the matter.

The first step was choosing a league. It really was a choice between the best leagues in the world: The English Premier League, La Liga (Spain), Serie A (Italy), and the Bundesliga (Germany). I chose the EPL because it has a consistent level of talent throughout the league, and more importantly, it’s much easier to follow in the U.S. You can watch ANY game with a cable subscription and some fancypants app use. The other 3 leagues are certainly worth following and I even have some teams that I tangentially follow during the season in each of them, but my choice was made. (For those of you wondering why not MLS, well…it’s just not among the best leagues in the world, and I wanted to watch the best football I could. I’ll avoid further inflammatory remarks.)

Now, it was down to picking a club. First and foremost, I did not want to choose a club that would ever be in real danger of being relegated. See this for an explanation of how promotion/relegation works. That basically left it to Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Everton, and Tottenham Hotspur. I eliminated Tottenham and Everton from the list because it just seemed like I would never experience much happiness with them. Both have histories of selling off prized assets and that didn’t sound like a good time.

I eliminated Manchester City and Chelsea from the list because the method for their recent rise to prominence rubbed me the wrong way. Mega-wealthy oil billionaires bought each club and all of a sudden, those clubs were able to bring in loads of world-class footballers and coaches. It felt…icky. That feels silly to say considering I’m weighing the merits of billionaires against each other. At least with Chelsea, it wasn’t all that. They also have a Bond Villain for a coach who is pretty much a monster. Intellectual dishonesty aside, it was down to Liverpool, Arsenal, and Manchester United. I eliminated Arsenal because I really wanted to pick a side in England’s most intense and bitter rivalry: Liverpool/Manchester United. Due to Manchester United’s incredible success since the dawn of the Sir Alex Ferguson era, it felt like front-running to pick them. Additionally, one of my best friends is a Liverpool fan and I didn’t feel like arguing with him, so I ended where I started. Liverpool Football Club.

Boy, have I fallen hard. It was so easy to fall in love with the culture of the club. It has such a rich history filled with incredible highs and tragic lows. They have a historic stadium that is revered by fans and players alike. They have this wonderful anthem that inspires pride and unity. I have never felt this way about any team, save UConn men’s and women’s basketball. I used to lament that I didn’t have a pro sports team, but it all led me here and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Disclaimer: I totally acknowledge how ridiculous it is to deride the NFL for fucked up practices and then go full bore on football, which is governed by quite possibly the most corrupt organization in existence. If the NFL is a clown car, FIFA is a clown cruise. Maybe it’s just that the NFL is in my face all the time, and I can insulate myself from having to bother much with FIFA. I think the most accurate explanation for how I now feel about the situation is best explained by John Oliver, who is also a Liverpool fan and is the fucking MAN (officially endorsed by the entire A Dime Back crew). At the end of the day, even with all the corruption, the product on the field is still incredible, and I will totally watch it. Oh and also, Real Football didn’t ruin the Big East.

Now, will somebody PLEASE root for Liverpool with me and my buddy Jerry? You’ll Never Walk Alone doesn’t have the same impact when it’s just the 2 of us singing it.