Gooners

Following a sports team is meant to be a fun diversion.  It's just a game, after all, isn't it?  But caring how your team did last night, really caring, is not rational.

Somehow that doesn't stop me.

I enjoy Nick Hornby's writing -- a couple of his books (High Fidelity, About A Boy) were made into pretty good movies, too.  His first book, Fever Pitch, was an autobiographical look at his lifelong obsession with the English soccer team Arsenal.   He made the same point: it doesn't make sense to be in a foul mood for a few days after your favorite team has lost, or joyous after they've won.  And yet, this self-awareness doesn't change anything for him.

Reading this book about 7 or 8 years ago got me interested in European soccer, especially the English league, and Arsenal in particular.  Through the magic of the Internet I found I could follow how the team was doing, who was playing well, what the competition was up to, etc.  At that time Arsenal had developed the reputation of playing "beautiful" soccer -- sharp passing and ball movement, with lots of scoring, led by Arsenal legends Dennis Bergkamp, Patrick Viera  and Thierry Henry.

You can see where this is going: a book warning me about the seductive irrationality of being an Arsenal fan...made me an Arsenal fan.  As if the Cubs, Bears, and Bulls weren't enough to follow.

I rarely get to watch a live game, but I do on occasion.  A few years ago Arsenal was duking it out with Chelsea for the league lead, so I went to one of the "soccer pubs" in Chicago to watch the crucial late-season Arsenal-Chelsea match.  There I was at Ginger's Ale House on Ashland, at 8am on a Sunday morning, and it was packed with supporters of both teams -- about 50:50, and everyone cheering like mad.  It wound up an exciting 2-2 tie, as I recall.

One oddity to European soccer, at least odd to an American sports fan, is the overlapping competitions.  Here in, say, baseball, you play the regular season, then the playoffs, then the World Series, and you have a champion.  There each country has a "regular season", but concurrently one or more tournaments with lots of overlapping teams.  It's as if the Cubs played the Cardinals on Tuesday in the Major Leagues, then played the Kane County Cougars on Wednesday in the "Illinois Cup" competition, then the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday in the "Lake Michigan Hoo-Hah".  So you might be disappointed that your team got knocked out of the FA Cup by Manchester United, but you'll get to play them again shortly in the Champions League...

Another is that they don't "trade" players -- they just buy them from another team.  I'm sure there are rules, but it seems much simpler than the convoluted "salary-cap-mid-level-exemption-luxury-tax-free-agent" stuff that happens here.  In 2003 the Spanish team Real Madrid gave the English team Manchester United $40 million, and got David Beckham.  Simple.

A final oddity (my favorite) is "relegation".  Each year the worst 3 teams in the top league are "relegated" to a lower league for the next year, while the best 3 in the lower league move up.  It's (sort of) as if the Yankees had a really bad year, and had to play the next year in triple-A, while the Toledo Mud Hens moved up to play in the majors.  Strange, huh?  And yet it's logical, and it does create some suspense at the "bottom of the table" at year-end, as teams try to avoid getting sent down.

So that's my confession for this week: I'm a fan of the Arsenal Gunners -- a "Gooner".  Looking ahead at the schedule there may be a chance for me to get to Ginger's on a Saturday or Sunday morning before the season ends; if I do I'll be wearing red and white, and cheering like mad, for no sensible reason.

Pat