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 ...
So let the world keep it. I really tried to watch the last world cup, and that darn buzzing noise from the fans kept me awake.
I'll amen that and add that I have never watched a complete game of either football or soccer. Water buffalo on vacation from the swamp could easily substitute for those behemoths called NFL lineman. That's athletics?
So let the world keep it. I really tried to watch the last world cup, and that darn buzzing noise from the fans kept me awake.
I just finished watching a great game tonight. Justin Verlander pitched 8 and a 3rd no hit innings and struck out 14 batters.
‘tis a shame that Heineken would get in the way.
Interesting. And I’m glad the manager left him in in the 7th inning, but you know that’s because he had a no-hitter going. I long for the days when the pitchers pitched the whole game routinely.
Verlander pitches a lot of complete games and I suspect he’ll be doing it for a while. There’s no violence in his motions which is where most pitchers injure themselves.
Jim Leyland calls him a horse.
It would have been Verlander’s 3rd no hitter. Last year he pitch the no hitter and turned right around a couple of weeks later and went into the 9th inning with no hits.
Yeah and if a frog had wings he wouldn’t bump his ass every time he hopped.
What can you expect from Barnsley, Millwall and Blackpool against a crazy Russian billionaire who often looks like this at the games and all that Londonistan Arab advertising money?
Meanwhile Berlin (half the population of Londonistan and in a much larger country) has to face the whole Volkssturm!
Borussia Dortmund have their hands full holding the title with a fervor. Bayern have come into those games half spent from higher struggles.
I'll put up a good ol' American NBA riot against any Euro-wimp riot any day!
What a final!!!!
European Champions!
You should try watching Rugby League. They are the pro-league in England and the major rugby league competition in Australia.
It’s a lot closer to American Football, where a tackle ends a play which you have a limited number of them like downs in American Football. So a drive might end with a try (touchtown), or a field goal attempt or just a punt.
I love both variations of Rugby, but the Rugby league code might be a good way to get into Rugby for an American familiar with the American code.
Go Brisbane Lions.
Short sample from a state of Origin game - The biggest Rugby League event of the season. State of Origin is between Queensland and New South Wales and is a massive rivalry. Sort of like an annual Australian rugby superbowl between two major rivals.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EwUavS48K8&feature=related
Dfwgator - Congratulations in finishing above us this season :) Our club is truly in a mess at the moment.
Cheers.
It’s odd that. Soccer is the “people’s sport” in Europe. I.e. the sport of the poor more than any elite endavour. For that you have cricket, tennis, equestrian etc.
I think the travel schedules would be prohibiting, but I would not rule it out in the future.
If there is money to be earned, the fat cats of Uefa would walk through a wall of fire.
Perhaps in some limited form, where a winning team from the Americas join the knockout stages would be a viable compromise.
Messi is as far as my old man is considered already the best player to have played the game, and he has followed soccer since the 60’s -so including your peles and your Maradonas.
I agree.
Though I have only been sat at the main stand (see talking “northerner :P)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SArLJdrVF_4
Check that out.
I will never understand soccer fans being highly upset about those of us who care little about it not bowing down to that point. I don’t mind one bit whether they like American sports or not.
You: It’s odd that. Soccer is the “people’s sport” in Europe. I.e. the sport of the poor more than any elite endavour.
Ah, perhaps it is not so much European elitism than European collectivism/socialism combined with upper-class American elitism that bugs the average American.
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