Bootlicious

Unlucky John Terry is bootlicious (ouch)

Football is a form of religion. People wake up early on weekend mornings, arrive at houses of worship, and follow certain rituals: wearing team colors or jerseys, chanting familiar songs or slogans, and grabbing a pint with mates. Prayers are answered or denied.

It is Sunday. I woke up at 8:30 AM, donned a red sweater and jeans, and ran to my new, secret football fixture (no more rude bartenders and big, sweaty guys with shaved heads crushing me) for the Carling Cup final between Chelsea and Arsenal. A couple of friends were already there, reserving a large table in the back and drinking coffee to reach full consciousness—the opposite of most bar endeavors.

The game featured youth versus experience, with ten Arsenal players having an average age of 21 (not including the 29-year-old Almunia). Chelsea had its usual stars, including Didier Drogba and John Terry. Poor John Terry. He just can’t stay healthy. The accidental kick to his head by Abou Diaby was perhaps the worst injury I’ve ever witnessed in real time.

Arsenal dominated the first half, but Chelsea got some lucky breaks: Drogba was offside for the equalizer to Theo Walcott’s nice strike. Towards the end, Adebayor was called for offsides—another dubious decision. Stoppage time, despite the long injury break for Terry, was limited to seven minutes. For a club bringing its first team to a match against a second, much younger team, Chelsea should’ve given a more convincing performance.

In the 93rd minute, a brawl broke out between several members of both teams, starting with Kolo Toure and John Obi Mikel and quickly involving Cesc Fabregas and Frank Lampard; José Mourinho and Arsene Wenger raced onto the pitch. I thought it might be a massive fight with the managers involved! The drama ate into the stoppage time even more, and left Chelsea with 10 players and Arsenal with 9. Three red cars were given: Mikel, Toure, and Adebayor were ushered out. Fabregas and Lampard received yellow cards.

Fight! Fight!

Mourinho steps in to the mêlée

And then, it was over: Chelsea 2, Arsenal 1.

One-Trick Pony

After allegedly hitting a teammate with a golf club last week, Craig Bellamy adds a touch of class to the Champions League

In another surprising Champions League result, Liverpool defeated FC Barcelona at the Camp Nou on Wednesday Night. Even more intriguing: the Reds’ two scorers were none other than recent golf pals John Arne Riise and Craig Bellamy, who also assisted the Norwegian with his 74’ goal.

Barça weren’t the only losers. Some bookmakers offered 100-1 odds that if Bellamy scored a goal, he would celebrate with a golf swing. The Independent wrote, “For an industry that normally relies on the stupidity of punters, this was a rare example of the bookies being undone by underestimating just how daft some footballers really are.”

All the press coverage on Bellamy in the past week prompted me to do a little research on the Neckless Wonder. I started to notice a trend in the photo banks. You be the judge.

The only face of Craig Bellamy

The man seems to specialize in one pose. I started to imagine him in scenarios off the pitch.

Bellamy at a funeral (with Tony Soprano)

Bellamy having afternoon tea with the Queen

Bellamy spending quality time with a lady friend

Teed Off

Craig Bellamy draws the line somewhere

I have been a student of football violence (parse that as you will) for weeks now. I’ve learned about the disaster at Heysel stadium in Brussels. I know the special tactics employed by Red Star Belgrade supporters during the height of Arkan’s rule. And I've read Bill Buford’s detailed account of the 1989 tragedy at Hillsborough Stadium during the FA Cup semifinal, during which 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death.

But last week, Liverpool’s Craig Bellamy took football violence to a new level: teammate-on-teammate crime. Liverpool were training in the Algarve, Portugal for the Champions League match against defending champs FC Barcelona (dealing with internal strife of its own with striker Eto’o criticizing Ronaldinho and manager Rijkaard). The trouble started when club management allowed players to go out for a night on the town.

Hijinks ensued, and we now know the answer to a question that should never, ever be asked: What happens when you mix karaoke, booze, and golf clubs? Bellamy allegedly hit the legs of teammate John Arne Riise with a golf club when the latter refused to sing Robbie Williams’ “Angels.” The police arrived, and the Norwegian reportedly got away uninjured.

The hotheaded Bellamy, selected by the Guardian as the “Top Tosspot of the Year,” has a growing list of crimes and misdemeanors:

• 2003: charged with three racism offenses after a night out in Cardiff, Wales
• 2004: tossed a chair at assistant manager John Carver
• 2005: fined for calling manager Graeme Souness a liar
• 2006: cleared of assaulting two women at a nightclub
• 2007: fined £80,000 for karaoke smackdown!

Clearly, I've made the wrong career choice. All of this, of course, is merely to distract me from Arsenal’s loss today against PSV Eindhoven. Until March 7th at Emirates.

Ole ole ole ole

Fever Pitch

New York -> Phoenix -> Las Vegas -> D.C. -> New York

After a week of travel, lost luggage, sleeping in airports, and sitting through four hours of traffic, I am back in New York City. In the snow.

And I have lost my football virginity.

Cardinals Stadium in Glendale, Arizona

Leader of the Failed Fortune Tellers Association of America

Crowded house: 64,462 fans

It was a balmy 78º last Wednesday night; I wore white short sleeves, an act of incidental patriotism. The horrendous traffic on the I-10 and 101 N made me fifteen minutes late, so I parked haphazardly in the makeshift gravel lot, grabbed my bag, and raced about a quarter of a mile to the stadium. All around me swarmed fans dressed in green, white, and red. Some had painted faces; others waved Mexican flags in the air or wore them as capes. Some sprinted whilst the fatter, older ones walked at a leisurely pace. They wore jerseys with “R. Marquez” and “Fonseca” on the back. I heard distant chants of “Mé-xi-co! Mé-xi-co! Mé-xi-co!” tempered by the less frequent “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” They donned Dr. Suess-like hats with a fiesta theme. They blew baritone horns in a call-and-answer pattern that vibrated through the air, deep into the night.

Breathless, I handed my ticket to the attendant and entered the University of Phoenix Stadium, home to next year’s Super Bowl. You know that scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy first encounters the Land of Oz in its technicolor splendor? Where everything shimmers in emerald greens, brilliant blues, and all the colors of the rainbow? This was my experience. When I made it past the ticket stalls and pushed through the crowds, I caught a glimpse of the pitch. It was the most beautiful, vibrant expanse of green I had ever seen, radiating magnificently under the stadium lights.

I moved forward in a trance, ignoring the people in my way, until I made it to the edge of the seating area and concentrated on the 22 men traversing the pitch below. I had an intense need to see and know everything at once. My senses revealed their limitations. I watched the Mexican team push the ball forward in attack mode. I heard a collective inhale. I strained to find Bob Bradley. Where was Bocanegra? How was Hugo Sanchez dressed? Two little boys to my left waved a big sign in the air—what did it say? What play was the JumboTron showing? Was the guy wearing the Uncle Sam hat of Mexican descent? How much time was left? What were the Mexican fans yelling whenever Tim Howard kicked the ball? Was the crowd really doing the Wave?

Fans anticipate the approaching Wave

I snapped out of it and decided to find my seat. Almost everyone around me wore green; they yelled things in Spanish and cheered whenever Mexico gained possession of the ball. The Wave was indeed happening, and the crowd participated with unexpected fervor, urging multiple ripples around the stadium.

I hadn't done this since the bullfight in Spain!

The Brazilian chapter in The Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup asserts that football writing tends to be more about the epiphenomenon of being a fan rather than the phenomenon of the game itself. I have been to basketball, baseball, hockey, and American football games. I’ve attended a rousing Agassi match during the U.S. Open; I’ve seen a bullfight in Spain; I’ve even been to the Olympics. But none of these experiences, despite their significance and popularity, comes close to the level of energy and excitement in the stadium that night.

Father introduces son to the greatest of pastimes

The football fan is essential to the game. I saw people paying as much attention to the pitch as to the people around them. They unfurled large banners and flags. They blew horns (incessantly). They laughed and threw their arms up for the Wave. They chanted songs and slogans. I now understand how violence can escalate to the levels recently seen in Italy and France. Stampedes and riots are merely a few steps beyond the acceptable and tenuous threshold of crowd behavior that Bill Buford identifies keenly in his description of group dynamics.

At a Yankees game, the crowd gets excited. But the energy generally flows in one direction: towards the field (save the experience of one unfortunate friend who had a hot dog flung at him during a Red Sox-Yankees match-up). Most people just eat, yell, and watch, mirroring the desultory pace of the sport.

Since the clock only stops at half-time and the end of the game in football, the crowd must focus. Scoring a goal is a rare and difficult thing. It’s not like making a shot in basketball. Buford describes the concept of “dead time” in football:

The goal itself is a see-through box of threads, and unless you are looking upon it from up high or into it from straight on or viewing it with the benefit of television cameras, you cannot tell when the ball has actually gone through and scored—until it has hit the back of the net. In every goal except the penalty kick, there is a small period of perception when there is neither goal nor no goal: dead time. Dead time is not a long time in clock time—there is the moment when the ball appears to be about to cross the line, and, later, there is the moment when it definitively hits or fails to hit the back of the net—but in any kind of emotional chronology it can seem endless.

The game’s constant motion, combined with the difficulty of scoring, serves up a concentrated, pent-up anticipation in search of release. When that release happens, as it did in the 52^nd minute, the crowd exhibits signs of rage, disappointment, euphoria, and an intimacy amongst strangers that would be unacceptable under most circumstances. Landon Donovan assisted Jimmy Conrad to a 1-0 lead. 64,462 fans reacted. I found myself chanting, “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” and high-fiving strangers. People hugged. Others threw their hands up in despair. I saw a wife comforting her crestfallen husband. When Donovan solidified victory with his 90’ goal, people chucked beers from the balcony above and the stadium bled green as Mexican fans clogged the aisles towards the exits.

Team USA heads toward the locker room (as Tim Howard hugs Bradley)

As for me, I stayed behind until a sweeper kicked me out. I sat in my seat reading a book under the stadium lights. It felt good to be there; 90 minutes is never enough.

Closing time

How hard it is to be a boy

A year and a half ago, Salon published an interview with young novelist Benjamin Kunkel that offered an honest, keen perspective on the consumerist dating scene in New York. Today, it has published the antithesis: the whining manifesto of a self-absorbed twit in search of a wife.

Eric Schaeffer, a 45-year-old filmmaker/actor, publishes a weblog called “I Can’t Believe I’m Still Single.” He complains about “how hard it is to be a boy.” There are too many salacious, incredible details to recount here without rewriting the article, so see it to believe it.

Sadly, there is one Benjamin Kunkel for every 100 Eric Schaeffers in New York City. And if these are my odds, and the other choice—so skilfully addressed in “Couple Brought Together Through Mutual Desperation” on The Onion—is all I have, then I can believe I’m still single.

Gollllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The U.S. defeated Mexico 2-0 in tonight’s international exhibition game. But the biggest shocker? Carlos Bocanegra’s hair. It looks like he’s lightened it and grown it into a shapeless, unflattering mass. Is this a translation of British style gone horribly wrong?

Carlos’ hair should be red carded

It was my first live football match. I sat in a sea of green. Waiting for a goal is a collective, visceral experience. As much as I’ve studied the game in books, photos, and televised matches, it wasn't until last night that I really began to comprehend a point made in The Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup: football is both beautiful and difficult. I’ll write in detail about the match and upload my own photos when I have my camera cable and more energy.

In the meantime, here are a couple of my “2006 World Cup look-alikes” photos assembled last summer. Seeing some of the Mexican players tonight reminded me that I never posted them.

Wayne Rooney provides inspiration beyond the pitch

Gerardo Torrado and Richard Simmons both know how to work it

On the jib

The U.S. team warms up this morning in Arizona

Current temperature: 79°
Feels like: Paradise

I am no longer in New York City.

I arrived in sunny Arizona on Super Bowl Sunday, just like the American players called in from Fulham and Everton. And, like these guys, I’m adjusting to jet lag and a 40-60° temperature change.

The U.S.-Mexico friendly takes place tomorrow night at the University of Phoenix Stadium. A mostly pro-Mexican crowd is expected amongst the 50,000+ audience, so I’ve decided to root for the U.S. (if not just for the hot Carlos Bocanegra).

Blackmouth strikes again

My latest read is Bill Buford’s Among the Thugs, which chronicles the actions of Manchester United supporters during the height of English football hooliganism. I love this book. Its passages flow like that of a novel: the characters are fantastical—some of them as wild and disturbing as a Tolkien invention. You expect violence, but never know when or how it will unfold. His descriptions of the pack mentality, the escalation of violence, and the rationalization of that violence by the thugs shed light onto the dynamics of group structure, nationalism, and identity. With remarkable clarity and hilarity, Buford defines a range of tactics used to navigate through the movable crush at a football stadium: the simple squeeze, the shove, and the counter shove.

Now I can’t help but draw parallels to my life. Buford, also a California native, didn’t know much about football. The first match he attended was a U.S.-Mexico game. After a close encounter with a “football special” train in Cardiff, the writer began to take a greater interest in the sport. Noticing that lads go to matches on Saturdays, he made a decision:

I thought I’d go on my own. I didn’t know that it wasn’t done, that lads went with lads or that lads went with dads, but there was so much I didn’t know—which was the point.

This spring, I will be attending a major game in London by myself. English football has changed dramatically since the days of Among the Thugs, with police monitoring and stadium improvements, but it’s still atypical for a woman (and a non-white woman at that) to attend an EPL game alone (and I have been advised to avoid calling it “EPL” whilst in England; it’s just “the Premiership” there).

The book explains the meaning of another phrase: being “on the jib.” It means never spending money. I am on the jib here in Arizona. I have a car, nice lodging (with a King-sized bed and swimming pool), and meals. It’s 80° in February. And I get to watch real football.

Stay tuned tomorrow night. The U.S.-Mexico rivalry airs at 9 P.M. on ESPN2 and Univision (my recommendation). I bet Steve Nash will attend.

***

In other news, Liverpool FC have agreed to American ownership, following the paths of Aston Villa and Manchester United. Portugal defeated its former colony, Brazil (playing without Ronaldinho and Robinho). And England and Spain meet tomorrow in what should be a good competition.

Danger, Fred. Hugo mad! Hugo smash!

As I browsed through some photo galleries earlier today, one particular picture caught my eye. I glanced at it quickly:

Perez Burrell shows the yellow card to Mista of Atletico Madrid

Now, I am jetlagged and tired. And with the lighting of the photo and the position of Mista's right hand, this is what I saw:

Mista teaches Perez Burrell to never yellow card him again

Go actual bears