You can change your house, you can change your wife, but you can never change your team! So many times where I see Liverpool doing well and think "goddammit, why them? They've had their fun!" That's the way it is though, you're stuck with who you support.

I actually had a friend who went from supporting Blackburn then around 2009 he now supported Arsenal. Why? "Oh, I just like the way they play" Unforgivable. The guy doesn't live anywhere near London and has never been to see them play either!

I'm up for the world cup fantasy league. However, I do just fucking awful every time I do play. _tunic_? Soup Nazi? You in?

i lost track of “my team” for a couple of untelevised decades, then i realized in retrospect there was a lot of dysfunction in the fan club, and was repelled by the whole thing, and some of the ideologies that supported it. happens when you also change your country and your culture ha ha ha. yeah. so. hm. detachment.

there is absolutely no football team anywhere near me. as i said before, can’t switch to baseball— that’s just too much. as a prodigal son, my fandom is, ultimately, with the sport itself and not a group identity.

and so i’ve learned detachment from deep tribalism. there was some dark shit attached to it and i escaped it just on time. now i prefer to sit with the old people in the fancy seats where nobody is throwing beer cans full of piss or getting into fights or setting fires—in this case, that’s just my living room in front of the tv.



—

and yeah to the league, and tunic will kick our asses again, right? or maybe we can invite other people from elsewhere or get invited to other leagues if someone has one. just a thought. it was so much fun last time as i recall.

I know someone who did the same thing, going from West Ham to Chelsea after Abramovich bought them. It felt like he was leaving his wife and the mother of his kids for a bimbo with a boob job.

what about leaving hyacinth bucket for polly sherman though? i would...

But why would you be with Hyacinth Bucket in the 1st place?

precisely!

Cos she's absolute beast in bed. Guarantee. The only reason her husband sticks with her is cos of that.

she probably spanks him hard for being a naughty boy

anyway, re: the club of my childhood: i realized, older, and away from it, that there was a lot of racist and classist bullshit in its fandom.

and i just don’t have to engage that shit because i happened to pick one club over the other when i was 10 (my family mostly split between 2 clubs).

so... no marriage for me! affairs only from this point forward.

In real life Patricia Routledge is a lesbian so you might be right but it's certainly not any husband that's sticking around for a good spanking.

I spent a long time, most of the 90s, anyway, where I really wasn't that interested in football anymore, but I always checked the results for how West Ham were doing. And even now I still only very rarely go and watch them, so I'm hardly a die-hard compared with some. But in a strange way, since leaving London my attachment to them has grown almost to the levels they were when I was a kid, probably out of a need to keep some kind of connection with my roots. It's like the ex-pat syndrome.

wait... i said hyancinth, not the actress who plays her.

look at this poor guy:



total masochist


oh! right... i get that through food and music, ha ha

I'm sure, but then you probably have a better set of choices than Pie and Mash and Iron Maiden. Well Pie and Mash, anyway.

yes and yes, ha ha ha

I'm obviously being disingenuous - about the music, anyway. Obviously, you can't reduce music from London to Iron Maiden. And as disgusting as Pie and Mash may look, it's actually bloody lovely.

yeah i like eel

Official PFA Team of the Season:

GK: DeGea (Man. U.)
RB: Walker (Man. C.)
CB: Vertonghen (Spurs)
CB: Otamendi (Man. C.)
LB: Alonso (Chelsea)
CM: David Silva (Man. C.)
CM: DeBruyne (Man. C.)
CM: Eriksen (Spurs)
LW: Aguero (Man. C.)
RW: Salah (Liverpool)
ST: Kane (Spurs)

---

And Wenger's going!
https://www.theguardian.com/football...-of-the-season

Oh come ON. Also, I predict he will fuck up at a key moment during the World Cup. You read it here first.

¡no seas celoso man!

I don't know about the WC but I think he's been excellent in the Prem and crucial to MC's success this season. Who would you have chosen instead?

Probably the other guy! (Vincent Kompany :)).

No way! I'd accept maybe someone from Burnley (Tarkowski?) but has Kompany even played more than 50% of the season?

he would have chosen any non-argentinian lololol

hoffenheim punking rb leipzig hard this morning. 3-0 at halftime!

was gonna watch bayern but they had all their subs on the pitch.

—

and: man u vs spurs tomorrow on fa cup game. thoughts?

Man U are pretty much guaranteed 2nd in the Prem so can relax a bit in the league and go full on with the FA Cup. Spurs, while currently 4th, still need to secure that CL place, but pressure is growing on Pochettino to actually win a trophy. Could be a really good game if Mourinho doesn't park his proverbial.

watched a few minutes and looks intense! the crowd going crazy.

but it turns out there’s a dortmund/leverkusen game starting in a few more minutes and they’re next to each other on the table and playing for real stakes (4th place = automatic CL spot).

it’s a sea of yellow in the stands and they’re singing something that sounds like a beer drinking song ha ha ha.

well here we go...

I actually don't know why I read the bbc text feed for games. People are such idiots. Joe Hart supposedly makes one great save and people were writing in (AGAIN) saying "Hope Southgate is watching cos he should be on the plane to Russia!". Fuck me, people don't half have short memories.

schalke-cologne starts in 20’ and it should be quite a little massacre. poor cologne is dead last and too low to climb out of relegation zone. schalke is a solid 2nd and looking to consolidate their position. i’m almost afraid to look, but i kinda have to.

holy shit ended a nervy 2-2, schalke got ahead early 2-0, and cologne did everything to come back and almost flip the tortilla but unfortunately no. keeper’s crying right now. they’re not mathematically dead at this point but thin thin margins.

I watched Man C v Swansea. After weeks of the media deciding Salah's the new Messi, DeBruyne scores a worldy and, according to the BBC, he suddenly deserves tonight's PFA. Both have had great seasons and I'd be happy if either of them get it but to suddenly change position after one great goal is a joke.

Either way, I'll be very surprised if Salah doesn't end up winning it.

--

Sooo, no surprises; Salah got it.

i’m writing this post to remind myself (lol) that liverpool-roma is tomorrow and real-bayern on wednesday

TERROR

Can't wait for both games. I hope Liverpool get through and would normally want Real to as well (against Bayern) but, as we've talked about already, a Klopp v Heynckes rematch has an obvious intrigue about it.

Aww yeah tonight tonight.

I actually forgot about it the other day and the Mrs said to me "wanna hang out on Tuesday?" "Yeah sure." Flashforward to yesterday "Shit!" Now I watch all the champions league games with a friend of mine and I didn't want miss it or let him down. So I says to the Mrs "ok, so there's a game on I absolutely refuse to miss. You can come round and watch it but a)you can't gab about anything non-football related and b)you can't ask any silly football related questions". She's accepted but I'm can't see it sticking. In fact I give her ten minutes before she gets her phone out.

To highlight how little she knows about football she once said "I know Everton are playing tonight" "they are" "they're playing against Anfield" Jesus wept.

insert 4 teary-laugh emojis here

what a great game so far

liverpool deserves the lead

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aaaand fantastic 2nd goal.

salah! now i understand what all the noise is about

Liverpool are absolutely storming this. Could easily be 5 up by now. Mane should've had 3 on his own but what more to say about Mo Salah?

dont forget karius. could have been 2-1 right now also w/ that cannon shot

Yeah, Roma looked the better side in the 1st 15mins but Liverpool just grew and grew.

....aaaand we have ourselves a little massacre in the works

Roma's defence look absolutely terrified of Salah

I hope you're all watching rather than having to listen to Robbie Savage's commentary. He needs to be sent to Russia Today or something, its embarressing.