Here's Your Beloved French

You Frenchie lovers.

By 'Best,' They Mean 'Worst'

I was doing a search for the book The Damned Utd on the Barnes & Noble website, and was offered Michelle Malkin's Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronnies as my best match. I'm no logarithmic scholar, so I can't even begin to guess how in the hell this is possible. It almost seems as if a certain book company is trying to shove a certain political agenda down my throat.

[Update] But hey, check out match #8, Lizzy Reis gets a mention!

(More) Proof That God Hates Me

Yesterday, my beloved Liverpool Reds (see previous two posts) took on the hated Chelsea Blues in a second-leg match in the Champion's League. Due to a scoring system that seems overly-difficult to explain to the uninitiated, but is really quite simple, Liverpool had to win by three goals to advance in the playoffs, or by two goals if they scored three or more. See, simple.

Anyway, I have been swamped at work (thus the light posting), so there was no way I was going to be able to take a couple hours off to watch the match. Plus, Liverpool has little chance of success, so why bother, right? So I am working way and it gets to be a about 12:15, so the match was half-hour in, so I thought I'd check it on the interwebs. I dial up the soccernet and low-and-behold, the Reds had put two in and were one goal away from doing the next-to. Still, work to be done and all that (Law-Boy has been fudging his job up and creating work for me and everyone else), so I decide that I can squeeze in the second half while I eat.

While I was at Taylors waiting for my chicken Autzen sandwich with a salad-blue-cheese, Chelsea scores. No big deal, if the 'pool scores once more to make it 3-1, then we have extra time. While eating my sandwich, Chelsea scores again. Liverpool is basically dead here. They would need to score twice more and they have not looked like scoring in the second half. So I missed Liverpool scoring twice to keep the dream alive, but I got to see Chelsea score twice to kil the dream back off.

Meanwhile a gentleman of the alcoholic persuasion has entered the bar and taken a seat next to me. He smells. And not good. Fine. He slurs his way through asking the bartender for a cab, which the bartender starts to call for, until he becomes pissy that the bartender is rushing it, as he would like to have a beer first. And maybe a glass of Tanquery. And another beer. I'm still sitting there out of the petty hope that if Liverpool can score, at least the Chelsea fans in the bar will have to sweat out the last ten minutes of the match.

Chelsea scores.

With the score 2-3 with 15 minutes left, I suddenly realize that I should be at work. Liverpool would need to score three times to advance. So, I missed Liverpool's goals, but got to listen to the Chelsea fans (who really are garbage) go on three times. Joy.

Back a my desk, I am working away until about 10 minutes later when I get a twit from Wobs saying "See you in the semis" (he roots for Barca, they advanced easily) and I am wonder why he would see me in the semis. My interest in the semis would be greatly lessened by Liverpool's non-participation. On a lark, I check the score. Liverpool has managed to score twice in the ten minutes I was not watching and have taken a 4-3 lead, needing one goal to advance with about 5 minutes to play.

I call Wobs -- holy F.

While I am watching the ESPN gamecast, which consists of a text scroll of some commentator and little dots flashing on the screen when a shot is taken, it seems Liverpool is pouring it on. I am telling Wobs the same story I am telling you now and

Lampard scores for Chelsea in the 89th. 4-4. It is over.

So, I missed all four Liverpool goals, but caught all four Chelsea goals.

At this point, I feel I should apologize to all Liverpool fans around the world. If we have a chance of overtaking United for the Prem title, I promise not to watch.

Hillsborough

On April 15, 1989, ninety-six people lost their lives watching a football match at the Hillsborough football ground in Sheffield, England. All killed were fans of Liverpool and they were crushed to death by fencing, their fellow fans, bureaucratic indifference, and stupidity.

A very good article on soccernet tells the story of that day better than I can.

Come On, You Reds!

Liverpool 4 Arsenal 2

What a match!

Arsenal scored with about 6 minutes remaining to tie the game 2-2 and take the aggregate lead, meaning they were advancing to the Champions League semi-finals.

Liverpool scored one minute later on a penalty kick to take the lead back and added an extra-time goal for good measure.

Heart racing. This is why I love sport.

Yeah, By Which I Mean Fuck You Pig.

An exchange between the announcers during the Women's World Cup:

Female Announcer: Oh, that was a hard tackle. When I see something like that I shudder thinking of that brutal game in '99. I've said my jaw still hurts from one of those hits.

Male Announcer: Do you remember that game in '99? There must have been 23 fouls in that game.

Female Announcer: Yeah.

Male Announcer: I bet you still feel some of those hits.

Female Announcer: Yeah.

Winter (and Spring) of My Discontent

I just finished "coaching" a great group of 10 year-old girls to a 1-15 record in indoor soccer. It is a testament only to the ability of kids to put all troubles into the immediate past that any of them want to continue playing soccer, but they do.

So I am about to embark on being their spring soccer coach. I think that this group of girls is probably better suited to outdoor play (we are dreadfully slow), but I find out tonight that the fine folks at Kidsports have decided to "promote" the Pterodactyls into the "middle" group of U12 Girls. This means that my fifth grade girls will be taking on almost exclusively 6th grade teams. There will be teams that are dropping down from the upper level, because it spring and "no one" takes it seriously. Kidsports apparently thinks that spring soccer is just a time to screw around, as everyone knows only fall soccer matters.

Except of course, the girls. To put not too fine of a point on it, these girls, "my girls" are about to go out and get ritually slaughtered every weekend. The teams we play will be so much better than some of our girls as to almost make it criminal. The really heart-crushing thing about it for me is that while I will know we are out of our league and will lose every game, struggle to not get humiliated, hear the other teams openly making fun of us, they will not know it. They will go out before every game thinking, hoping they will win this one. And they will be crushed when they lose. Blessedly, they will get over it quickly, but they don't deserve the pain and disappointment they will undoubtedly feel after every game.

Except thinking on it, the really heart-crushing thing is that some of the girls are catching on and they are becoming cynical about it. They will tell the other girls and I will watch these girls, "my girls," lose some of their innocence. They will lose hope. They will lose belief. They will lose confidence. It will happen this spring. On my watch.