EPL Talk

How Did You Find Who You Support? & The Search For Credibility

Jesse Chula — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:43:56 +0000

Following up from an earlier article I’d like to pose a question to all the non ex-pat North American readers of EPL Talk: How Did You Find Who You Support?

It’s ultimately a broad question that has more potential answers to it than current injury concerns at Liverpool. But I believe the question sparks an interesting debate as Americans are still searching for their place in world football. When I first got this idea (by divine intervention), I realized it may only apply to a very select (but elite) group of people. For those born in the United Kingdom or thereabouts, you had it a bit easier than us across the pond. It’s likely you started supporting the Arsenal from the womb, or Chelsea by the end of your first year of life. However, could you imagine a life where you started supporting a football club at 12?, 15? 18? or even 23?

For readers of EPL Talk who share the same generation as I do, you may relate to a similar footballing background. If you’re American, it’s highly likely you’ve been supporting a football club no longer than you’ve been able to drive, don’t worry, everyone’s welcome. If you’re 25-35 years of age & are a passionate football supporter it’s possible you took the same road I did. Let me take a wild guess:

Step 1- You were introduced to the sport of Soccer at a very young age, probably 6 or 7 playing in your local youth organization. This was the Soccer our society often perceives when they hear the very word. A world of Moms, minivans, unlimited substitutions, lawn chairs, fair play, 14 year old referees & oranges. This is where I got my “start”, this is where the seed was planted. These were my formative years.

Step 2-World Cup ‘94 and ‘98. I was 13 at the time of World Cup ‘94 and the yonder days of the Palm Bay Youth Soccer Association were dead and buried (enter Little League Baseball and Youth Basketball – these were the sports I was “supposed” to play -by switching-over, I was able to pick a hero and role model to emulate, I could follow his every step). The savior of the casual soccer supporter is the World Cup, we all know this, but having the tournament held in your own back yard really did make an impression on us all those years ago. Here was a new world that we kind of thought we knew about. We were that much closer to the obsessive ideas we have about football these days when World Cup ‘94 and ‘98 where at the forefront of our lives. The World Cup and it’s coverage on television in the 90’s was the bridge from our innocent days in youth soccer to the spoiled-every-match-at-our-fingertips landscape of the present day. But when the Cup ended, it was another few years lost in the sea of MLB, NFL & NBA.

Step 3-The toughest and most random of the steps. You’re possibly in college by this point or a young adult. You’ve no real way of developing this passion you once had, gone are the days of Youth Soccer, the World Cup’s a few years off, and something turns your head. What was it? It’s different for everyone, but if you’ve experienced it, you know the impact that this something can have. You stumble upon this odd channel on your cable or satellite dish that’s playing this odd game featuring two teams you think you might know at an even more odd time. This something could have been a specific player, style of play, cultural reference, or even the color of the team. You remember, “hey, I like this Soccer stuff”. It’s these incredible little things that tip us over the edge. Simplistic, unique variables that reconnect us with the beautiful game. Then you think to yourself, “where was I before this?”

Once caught, it takes hold of you like a cancer spreading to various facets of your life. You spend all your time immersing yourself in tactics, history & the like. You become obsessed with it in the pursuit for one last final piece of the football supporters life,…..

Credibility.

The chase is over, you’ve now found your purpose in life. Few things will ever beat that stoppage time goal that was scored to secure a much needed 3 points for your club. For the events that will – well, you’ve secured those away for your wildest dreams. But in this (new to some of us) world of competitive European football, how can we really claim to be credible football supporters who are so far away from our team’s local grounds? How will our voice ever be heard stateside while so many other sports dominate our culture?

I’ll leave those last two questions for you to work out on your own, but remember, credibility is awarded to yourself, from yourself and by yourself. No football fan out there is better than the next. The bloke who bangs the cowbell at Portsmouth is no better or worse a supporter than you. If you truly have a sense of pride and passion for your club then you’ve arrived. It’s at this point you can stand up and scream I’M A FOOTBALL SUPPORTER, HEAR ME ROAR!!

Take pride in this game and enjoy your football.

(Feel free to leave a comment or two explaining how you found the club you support)

Observations From Saturday’s Premier League Games, Matchday 12

The Gaffer — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:24:11 +0000

As you know, EPL Talk focuses on the Premier League and not the lower leagues of England, but my day didn’t start so well when Setanta-i had technical problems which prevented me and all other Setanta-i customers from viewing the Welsh derby featuring the club I’ve supported all my life, Swansea City, against Cardiff City.

The reason I mention it is because I was forced into finding a dodgy stream of the game — a game that is undoubtedly the biggest football match on my calendar each year. The stream I did find was from Fox Sports in Australia, so I had a chance to experience for the first time a Fox broadcast from down under. It was nothing spectacular, and nothing awful — just different. They had two pundits and one presenter. One of the pundits was former Blackburn Rovers footballer and Australian international Robbie Slater.

One interesting observation however was that they used to the Sky Sports feed for the Swansea versus Cardiff game, with the Sky Sports graphics appearing near the top left corner of the screen, while the Fox Sports logo was positioned near the top right corner.

After thoroughly enjoying Swansea’s 3-2 win against Cardiff — which was a very entertaining game, I had the rare treat of watching three 10am ET/3pm UK Premier Leagues at the same time. Tottenham against Sunderland on TV, with the Aston Villa against Bolton game also on-screen via the picture-in-picture feature, and then the Manchester City versus Burnley game on my laptop courtesy of a now-functioning Setanta-i.

Here are my observations from the three games, as well as the late Wolves against Arsenal match:

Congratulations to Owen Coyle and his Burnley team for a very impressive performance against Manchester City. Sure, City’s defensive mistakes were awful today, but Burnley defended incredibly well in the first half and limited City to very few chances. The Clarets especially played the offside trap well pushing high up the pitch and preventing City from launching their blistering attacks that were such a part of their game during the beginning of the season.
The second half was a different story for Burnley as City were able to spread out the Burnley defenders to create more room for cut-backs to the edge of the penalty area where Manchester City began playing target practice. However, even though City were able to play themselves back into the game, their defensive frailties become apparent again as they let Burnley score a late equalizer to make it 3-3 through David Nugent, who is playing like a man reborn this season. As for City, I think it’s time to bench Wayne Bridge for a few games until his form improves. The most expensive defender in English football? You’re having a laugh.
Perhaps the most entertaining game of the day — and possibly the weekend, we’ll find out after we watch the Sunday and Monday games — was Tottenham Hotspur against Sunderland. My man of the match was Heurelho Gomes, who made several critical saves to give a good indication that the 2-0 scoreline to Tottenham was not indicative of how tight the game actually was.
Sunderland’s Darren Bent should have received a yellow card for his dive that led to the penalty after Gomes rushed in to try to get the ball. The incident was exactly like what Wayne Rooney did earlier this season against Arsenal at Old Trafford. As it was, Gomes saved the penalty from Bent and justice was done, but not via a correct refereeing decision but instead through a poor penalty attempt by Mr. Bent.
Aston Villa made mincemeat of Bolton Wanderers in an impressive 5-1 victory at Villa Park. The most interesting incident in this game for me was the Villa penalty which was saved by Jussi Jasskelainen, but then my “favorite” player Steve Sidwell struck the rebound against the post before James Milnar knocked in the subsequent rebound to score for Villa. Where were the Bolton defenders to allow Villa two extra bites of the cherry?
In the Wolverhampton Wanderers against Arsenal match, the game was over by half-time after horrible marking by Wolves and a couple of unlucky own goals. Still, even though Wolves came out with a lot of bravado, the difference in class between the two sides was on evidence at Molineux. For Arsenal, this was a walk in the park but still a very important three points after a 4-1 away victory.
Wolverhampton supporters didn’t have too much to cheer about on the pitch, but at least their fans had a bit of fun after the game kicked off and they started singing “En-ger-lund, En-ger-lund” to make fun of Arsenal’s lack of English players. Plus, even toward the end of the match when Wolves were down four nil, their fans were singing “Super, Super Mick, Super Mick” as a tribute to their manager Mick McCarthy. Now if only their footballers played as well as the Wolverhampton supporters sang.

By the way, while I was scrambling to find a feed of the Swansea against Cardiff game, I did watch ITV’1’s broadcast of the FA Cup first round tie between Paulton Rovers and Norwich City. The opening of the program was highlighted by comic book graphics, which was a refreshing idea especially since most football shows have predictably boring intros. As soon as the opening was cover, the ITV presenter was standing on the Paulton pitch in one of the quaintest grounds you could ever imagine a football match to be played with the rolling hills overlooking the ground.

Excellent coverage by ITV. It’s just a shame that neither Fox Soccer Channel or Setanta Sports decided to show any games from this round. We’ll have to wait until early January before we see FA Cup games on US television.

Photo credit: SCFC.co.uk

Fan Diary #15: Curse You, Lisandro Lopez! Now, Get In There And Win It In Italy…

Ethan Armstrong — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:21:15 +0000

So… to review… for Liverpool to qualify for the Champions League round of sixteen one of the following scenarios needs to occur:

1.) Liverpool beat Debrecen AND Lyon beat Fiorentina AND Liverpool beat Fiorentina.

2.) Liverpool beat Debrecen AND Lyon draw with Fiorentina AND Liverpool beat Fiorentina by at least three goals.

3.) Liverpool beat Debrecen AND Fiorentina’s players are abducted by space aliens and replaced with cyborg footballers (this invokes an ancient Uefa rule that states any match influenced by extra-terrestrial involvement is automatically forfeit – see: Wolves v. Martians, 1972).

Curse you, Lisandro Lopez, for putting us in this position with your (gorgeous) late strike.

Of course going into the match I had an uneasy feeling. After all, Voronin was starting again. And since Pepe Reina is more likely to take a shot on goal, this usually doesn’t bode well for Liverpool.

But – and I hesitate to say this (in fact I’ll check my temperature after finishing this sentence just to make sure I’m not running a fever or a black plague or anything) – Voronin actually looked good to me in the opening minutes. My two thoughts were:

- Maybe he just needs to play the continental matches, like the year Dirk Kuyt couldn’t score in England but tore it up in the Champions League. And…

- Oh God, what if Voronin actually scores? I think I’ll be more mad at him if he comes up good. I mean I’ll take the goal but still… when one bemoans a player every week and then he scores the clutch goal in a teetering Champions League campaign, it leaves one feeling stupid.

Of course Voronin is too awful to let me down (so to speak) on that last point. Liverpool’s best looking chance in the first half came when Mascherano put Voronin in on goal, one-on-one with Hugo Lloris. At first I thought it was Torres on the ball. I blame the grainy TV feed (when are we going to get all the matches in high-def already?) and the positioning made the player look like someone with pace. Then I saw the flutter of the ponytail. It was Voronin. Still. One-on-one. All those goals scored in the Bundesliga. There was no way he was going to fu… and he kicked it straight at the keeper. Did they ban all goalkeepers in the Bundesliga last season and nobody told me?

The first half ended and we consoled ourselves knowing we had more chances than Lyon. Along with Voronin’s “attempt”, Dirk Kuyt took a cheeky first-time lob on target (it would have been one of the best goals of the campaign if Lloris hadn’t managed to get a hand to it) and Torres took a shot in traffic but couldn’t get it off quite right.

In the second half things looked up when Rafa took Voronin off and put Babel on.

Not that Babel’s lived up to potential that much more than the Ukranian but he does shoot on goal, he does have pace, and this was the perfect scenario for him: a match Liverpool all but need to win and a chance to prove his worth after a dismal start to the season.

Sure enough, Babel got his chance in the 83rd minute. A screaming shot from distance. It rattled into the back of the net and we went mad. It almost a carbon copy of his late goal against Chelsea in the Champions League two years ago. Unbelievable. Seven minutes to go and we’d been defending well. It looked like a win. A much needed win.

Although, I should have mentioned the fright we got before Babel’s goal.

On 79 minutes Lisandro Lopez streaked in, turned two of our defenders, gave himself a clear look on goal and took a ballsy shot. He curled it wide but what a signal of intent. A fraction of a second more to set himself and that shot is on target and likely going in.

So when Lisandro ran onto the bouncing ball in the 90th and none of the Liverpool defenders seemed to know where he or the ball was going – when he burst into space, I just knew he was going to make us pay. It was that inevitability we see going in our direction when Torres carves out a decent swath for himself in sight of goal. Only this time it was an opposition player and two points hanging timidly in the air. And everything came crashing down as Lisandro’s shot sailed home. It was breathtaking. It was devastating.

So all I ask (in case the space aliens don’t show up in time) is that Lisandro carves out a couple chances like that against Fiorentina. Liverpool need the planets to align if we’re to survive the group stage. But a couple Argentine wonder goals toward a Lyon win would help put us back in sight and then we’d only be in need of a couple miracles of our own. That’s not too much to ask.

Premier League On US TV Schedule Revealed For January 2010

The Gaffer — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:18:43 +0000

Several Premier League clubs announced today changes to their January fixtures so matches can be moved to TV timeslots. As a result, we can infer which matches will be shown on the US soccer TV networks.

January’s highlights include:

Arsenal v Manchester United, Sunday, January 31, 11am ET, Fox Soccer Channel
Liverpool v Tottenham Hotspur, Sunday, January 10, 11am ET, Fox Soccer Channel
Birmingham v Man United, Saturday, January 9, 12;30pm ET, Fox Soccer Channel
Hull v Chelsea, Saturday, January 9, 7:45am ET, ESPN2

Be sure to read the complete TV schedule of Premier League matches shown in the US.

Poll: Who Will Win Sunday, Chelsea or Man United?

The Gaffer — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:37:13 +0000

Without a doubt, Sunday’s game between Chelsea and Manchester United is the biggest of the season between the two clubs who have the best chance to win the Premier League title this season (sorry Arsenal fans). So, it’s no wonder that so much importance is being placed on this game. Not that who wins will decide anything, but it will be a massive psychological boost for the winning team and will show which club has what it takes to win the title.

But who will win? Vote below.