Football is an amazing game.
I mean that equally on both sides of the Atlantic.
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While Americans have a notoriously lukewarm attitude toward "soccer," allegedly because it's boring, but also partly (I suspect) because we aren't very good at it. Our greatest moment as a footballing nation came in a 1-0 victory over a poor Algeria side (though, in fairness, it was an EPIC moment).
We wonder why so many could love a game that's so often boring and unfair, rife with mercenary superstars and corrupt management, that often ends in a tie. We wonder whether we could eventually do the same. It seems possible every four years when we come together to watch Donovan and Dempsey and co. lead us into the knockout stages of the tournament, only to quickly fall to Ghana. We then trade in the international game, with all its patriotism and pageantry and intensity, for sparsely attended Major League Soccer contests in exotic locales like Kansas City. Turn on the World Cup and you realize how great the game can be. Turn on the MLS and you realize how appealing that Real Housewives marathon looks.
I first started watching football during the 2006 World Cup out of this vague sense of guilt, that I was somehow wrong for not appreciating our world's self-appointed "beautiful game." ESPN promised the world a chance to see dazzling superstars like Ronaldhino and Beckham up close on daytime television. The two, of course, combined for one goal throughout the tournament, their much-hyped sides eliminated early on. Instead, the trophy went to Italy, an elderly team much better at keeping the ball out of their own net than putting it in themselves.
The final featured two early goals, one for each team, then 80 minutes of soul-crushing boredom, before I learned to love the game for good. After 108 minutes, the France legend Zinedine Zidane barreled his bald dome into a flopping defender's chest, acquiring a red card that forced him to watch his nation's penalty shootout loss to the Italians from the showers. I had no idea what was going on, but for the first time I understood why so many people cared. Now I'm one of them.
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The situation: first-place Manchester City needs a win at home against 17th-place Queens Park Rangers to capture their first English league title in 44 years, with second-place crosstown rivals Manchester United needing a win and a City draw or loss to capture their sixth crown in seven years. QPR, led by City's former manager and featuring five former MCFC players in the starting XI, needed at least a draw to guarantee safety from relegation. The plot was juicy from the start. Nobody could predict how much it would thicken.
The first half played out as most gross mismatches do. City possessed the ball about 80% of the time, laying siege to an able QPR defense that finally broke after half an hour on Manchester City right back Pablo Zabaleta's first goal of the season. QPR had no shots on goal in the first half, rarely keeping possession long enough to get even halfway up the field. Things looked hopeless.
But Manchester City, the team assembled for a measly $1.5 billion, notoriously struggles to smoothly close out games. Right after halftime, City defender Joleon Lescott headed a ball right into the path of the equally scary-looking QPR striker Djibril Cisse, who promptly hammered the chance home.
The score now 1-1, City needed another goal to capture the win and the title. It looked like that would be no problem after QPR captain/infamous numskull Joey Barton got sent off for landing an elbow under Carlos Tevez's chin and a knee to Sergio Aguero's groin, but QPR held strong.
Down a man, QPR elected to stay back and defend, only breaking past the halfway line three times in the second half. They scored twice - first on Cisse's strike, then on a header minutes after Barton's red card. With QPR motivated by revenge and looking stronger than any other point in the season, one wondered whether City's title drought would continue.
The team in light blue poured cross after cross into the box, time and again headed out by valiant QPR defenders playing the game of their lives. With 92 minutes gone, three minutes of additional time to go, City still needed two goals for the win and the title.
Of course, they got them.
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Think you could give this soccer thing a chance?
Feel the roar of the crowd. Listen to the commentators' breathless calls. Look at all those people going absolutely insane.
Think you could give this soccer thing a chance?
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