Posted on 05/18/2012 2:47:30 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
LONDON—Words can barely describe the jaw-dropping season finale staged by England's Premier League last weekend, but that didn't stop every pundit, Twitter wag and pub crawler in Britain from searching many beers into Sunday night for new ways to say "best season ever."
The day started at 3 p.m. with seven of the league's 20 teams still playing for something important: not just the championship, but also to secure berths in a prestigious Europe-wide competition and the right to stay in the Premier League at all, under rules that annually demote the weakest teams.
It wasn't settled until minutes before 5 p.m., when two improbable late goals delivered Manchester City—the world's only underdog lavishly bankrolled by an Abu Dhabi sheik—its first title since the late 1960s. Former Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher described the feeling that swelled up in City supporters when he told the BBC: "I just swore a lot. I cried, I cried like a baby." Celebrating in a Santiago, Chile, bar, he "may have tried" to rip a TV off the wall.
Observing the mayhem from my usual perch at the Gunmakers pub in London's Marylebone, I left the television undisturbed, but marked a personal milestone of my own: I've made the switch from American football to real football. After years of trying to sneak away from the National Football League—with its weaponized linemen, bounty-hunting defenses and periodic bursts of action to break up the commercials—I am finally, completely finished with it. You may be ready for some football, but I'm so bored with the NFL.
As an American, this puts me at loggerheads not just with my countrymen—this year's Super Bowl was the most watched program in U.S. history—but also my colleague and boss, Wall Street Journal deputy editor in chief Gerard Baker.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The bigger story in soccer which trumps American sports is losing, and dropping down to the second league.
Soccer is contact sport look at the riots at the end of the games.
I watched a little of rugby on tv last year and had some difficulty figuring it out. Every time I thought the play was dead, it started up again.
Give blood, play Rugby!
If you watch a baseball game with two teams you don’t care about....I would say even if you enjoy baseball, odds are you would probably find it boring.
And I’ve seen a lot of boring 9-6 NFL games in my time as well.
I got hooked on the EPL, because I took the time to learn the teams, players, traditions and the rivalries. Once you get vested in a team and follow them (my team is Everton), you literally watch the games from the edge of your seat.
My advice for anyone with a negative knee jerk reaction to this story is to scout out one of the better high school teams or players in your area this fall and go watch a couple games. I would’ve laughed at this story a few years ago. But after seeing a few very talented teams and players in person, I now find live soccer to be the most compelling sport to watch. I emphasize the words ‘live’ and ‘talented’. A kid with a gift of handling a ball with their feet is something to behold.
Supporting soccer inflammatorily?
Or supporting Soccer Moms inflammatorily?
Hillary's running.
Soccer & hockey ... rather just sit and watch grass grow.
Well, I'd finally riot too if made to sit still through 3+ hours of that mind-numbing display.
He got caught up in the proximity bias of the mood of others around him in London. Let’s see what he thinks when he tries to watch it alone at his own house. Better keep the coffee brewing non-stop.
Soccer is a gentlemen’s sport played (and particularly watched!) by hooligans!
Rugby is a hooligan’s sport played by gentlmen!
Having read this piece in the paper edition of the WSJ this morning, where it’s titled differently, and cleverly, I was hoping to get here before the highly original, unanticipated and persuasive posts like “boring”, “for faggots”, and “Socialist”, but I failed again.
Sluts of Curling?
Amazing that London can have 5/6 teams in the Premier League, and Berlin can’t even get 1 team in the top division of the Bundesliga.
I wonder also why is it, that Borussia Dortmund can kick Bayern’s tail all over the place, and yet they flop so much in Europe, while Bayern always seems to find a way to make it to the finals.
Seriously, how do you know when a play ends?
Seriously, how do you know when a play ends?
Soccer is a sissy sport. They flop around like hooked fish at the slightest bump or bruise and their drunken fans riot the streets.
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