A European Love Story

Part of growing up and becoming an adult is experiencing new things for the first time.  For most people, they do most of their experimenting in High School and College.  For me, I did most of my experimenting never.  I am not the kind of person who creates circles at parties where crowds of people gather around to hear crazy stories.  But now that I am out of College I am having to experience new things all the time related to the business world.  This past week I have had to pack up a suitcase, say goodbye to my wife, and go on one of my first business trips.  Traveling for work has the potential of being fun, but like I already mentioned, I am not one to go out and find the fun.  I am traveling this week with one other person who also left his soon to be fiance at home for the week.  So it is just us, two dudes.  I had only met him once before we were paired up to work on the same team and go out of town together. After our first day of work, we went back to the hotel, checked into our rooms, got all situated, and then met back down in the lobby to go to dinner.  We headed over to a semi-fancy restaurant (I say fancy simply because I would never use my own money to eat at a place like this) to get some food.  As we walked in and the hostess asked me, "How many?" and I responded it would just be the two of us, it dawned on me for the first time, does this girl think us two guys are on a date with each other?  This was a first for me, I had never been at a nice restaurant alone with another guy.  This was my first real man date.  I have spent many nights eating at Taco Bell or McDonalds with another man, but never at a place like this alone with another guy.

I am in no way a homophobe, but I still found myself wondering if the people sitting around us were questioning if the two of us were on a date together.  I mean, if the roles were reversed and I saw two young men sitting together, I think I would assume they were on a date.  

For the first 10 minutes or so I felt a little bit awkward, but it wasn't long before I learned something important about the man sitting across the table from me.  I don't know how it was brought up or who mentioned it first, but we soon realized that we both shared a love and a passion for something I have not shared with too many other men... a love for Soccer, specifically, European Soccer.  We instantly had a connection as we talked about our favorite squads from La Liga and the Premier League.  We told our own personal stories of how we became fans of teams neither of us had ever seen in person.  Being from the United States and not having a personal connection to any city or team in Europe, we each at some point had to pick a favorite team.  My story goes back to when I was a teenager and started learning about the English Premier League (EPL).  I knew about the major teams, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea but I knew very little about the other teams comprising the EPL.  Since I grew up in Arizona and was always a fan of the Arizona sports teams, which are smaller market teams, I always had a hatred for the big market teams, the Lakers, Yankees, Cowboys, etc.  I decided that I would choose one of the lesser known EPL teams.  I had many to choose from but I knew very little about the team's history or their players.  I decided that I would make my decision the only possible way I could; I had to decide which team's jersey I liked the most and which jersey I would be most likely to wear.  I chose a team with a light blue jersey and a crest that included an angry bird and a old fashioned wooden ship.  This team was of course, Manchester City.  I also liked that they were the cross town rivals and little brothers of the biggest name in English football, Manchester United.  It was settled, I was gonna cheer for the underdog.  But for a few years, it was just that, Manchester City was my favorite team in word, but I knew nothing about them and besides checking up on them occasionally online, I was not fulfilling my duty as a fan.  After all, EPL games were not on TV and for the most part, soccer only existed in the United States every 4 years during the World Cup.  

Like many kids, I grew up playing soccer and always enjoyed it, but at some point my interests changed from soccer to the more popular sports, basketball, football, and well, even golf.  But following high school, the next few years would prove to be critical as I fell in love with soccer.  In 2006 was a World Cup which meant a month straight of exciting international soccer.  Then in 2007 I moved down to Argentina for two years.  I have mentioned this many times before in this blog, but Argentina is a very soccer obsessed country.  I never met a single person who liked any other sport more than they liked soccer.  I was introduced for the first time to some of the great players from Argentina including Javier Pastore, Sergio Aguero, Javier Macherano, Pablo Zabaletta, Carlos Tevez, and of course, Lionel Messi.  Lionel Messi was by far the most famous and the most popular.  He was still young and was yet to prove to be as amazing as he has turned out to be, but everyone in Argentina was already touting him as the next Maradona, the God of Argentine soccer.  

I loved to watch Messi.  I did not know as much about soccer as all the people surrounding me, but I knew enough to tell that Messi was special.  But there was one other player that caught my eye, Carlos Tevez.  I can't explain what it was that made me like him so much, maybe it was his neck that looked like it had been sliced open and sewn back together, but mostly, it was his play on the pitch that I loved.  After two years in Argentina, I left having learned and gained so many things, amongst those was a renewed love for soccer.  

About this same time over in England, Manchester City decided that they were sick of being at the bottom of the EPL table, and under new ownership, they began to buy new marquee players. In 2009 they acquired Carlos Tevez from their cross-town rivals, Manchester United.  I was already a Man City "fan", but now, I had reason other than their jersey to actually follow them.  And in the years that followed, City would pick up some of my other favorite Argentine players including defender Pablo Zabaletta and Diego Maradona's son-in-law, Kun Aguero.  Needless to say, I am now, more than ever, an obsessed Manchester City fan.  I wake up early on the weekends in order to watch games that are being played in time zones hours ahead of California.  I dream of the day when I will be able to attend a City game at the Etihad stadium and proudly wear my Manchester City colors.

In my lifetime, my favorite teams have won a combined two championships (1997 Arizona Wildcats basketball and 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks), and none of my teams have won since I became a teenager.  So when Manchester City won the EPL last season in a dramatic fashion that I can only imagine will some day be immortalized in a movie, it brought a joy to me that I had not experienced in over a decade.

In a much more condensed version, I told my coworker how I came to love Man City.  He then shared with me how he became a fan of Newcastle after he watched the movie Goal.  Our connection that we formed through our love for English soccer made us instant friends.  For the rest of the night and the next night at dinner as well, we talked all about soccer.  I don't often get to talk about soccer with my friends, simply because so few of them know much about it.  But soccer is on the rise in the United States, or so I hear.  Every year there seems to be an article online about how soccer continues to grow in popularity here in the US.  Studies have shown that amongst the young people in America, soccer is the second most popular sport behind football.  But for whatever reason, this love for soccer seems to dwindle as the youth grow older.  Sadly, I believe we are still years away from soccer being on the same level as the other American sports.  I personally cannot watch the MLS without noticing a clear drop off in quality from the EPL and other European leagues.  This past week for the MLS Cup, I decided that I would do my best to watch the game. I even played a few FIFA games that morning as different MLS teams.  But neither FIFA nor the actual game could in the end make me a believer in the MLS.  The game was more entertaining than I had anticipated and the quality of play was not as poor as other games I had watched before, but it was still leaps and bounds behind what I am accustomed to watching.  It was like watching a High School football team play right after watching the Green Bay Packers.
I am rooting for soccer in America.  I have not yet given up hope.  But for the time being, I will have to watch soccer across the pond, in a land I have only dreamed of seeing.  But I will never forget my first man date when our chemistry was at an all time high as we discussed our common love.
This weekend is another edition of the Manchester Derby, Man U vs Man City.  United is only 3 points up on City and even though the EPL is still not even half way through the season, this game could prove to be extremely important.  Last season both teams finished tied for first place in the league with the exact same record.  But it was Manchester City's goal difference that gave them the advantage over United to win the championship.  City beat United 6-1, which meant a +5 goal difference for City and a -5 goal difference for United.  At end of the season, City had a better goal difference of 9 goals.  Had City not beat United by 5 goals, they would have lost the league and United would have triumphed on goal difference. Like the Clippers in basketball who have finally become an actual rival to the Lakers and are no longer just a little team that happens to share the same city, Man City has turned this cross town competition into a real rivalry.  The city of Manchester has belonged to United for the past 50 years, but now Man City is hoping to prove that their championship last season was not just a one year fluke.