Watch soccer in other languages!

To truly enjoy soccer, watch a few games in Portuguese. This video says it all:



And it's doubly sweet because Man United looks horrible. Vasco is my Brazilian pen pal's favorite team.

Fan chants

One of the awesome things that a fan base can do is have team chants.  These can be found in many forms: team songs (Blue Moon for Manchester City), a key players names (ASH-ley, ASH-ley, ASH-ley for Ashley Cole), etc.  One area that football truly excels at is the jeer.

Understand that this isn't my first taste of jeering. Some students at Notre Dame were basically professional jeer-ers and managed to catch a bit of flack for it from our opponents. Admittedly, giving out the starting forward's cell phone number to 1,000 students is kind of a dick move, and yes it is pretty horrible to print out a couple thousand copies of a yearbook photo of the opposing point guard's little sister, but all is fair in love and basketball. Even Dick Vitale approved.

Notre Dame basketball fans, however, have nothing on soccer fans. Instead of simply heckling the other team, there are whole songs that revel in the failure of one's opposition. In celebration, they aren't limited to a few songs or expressions, and they do a fine job in making fun of themselves. Plus during international play, us Yanks can't help but point out a few historical highlights.

Website: Fan Chants

Blue Moon:

Three Months Later...

The horror still hasn't faded from our minds:

Though when West Ham supporters start using vuvuzelas as a weapon, I will probably think better of them.

Source

Beginnings

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. A mere seven weeks into the 2010-2011 Barclays Premier League season and the footballing world has turned on its head. Liverpool and Everton, eternal residents of topflight football, are lingering in and about the drop zone. Premier League debutantes Blackpool and the biennial newcomers of West Brom are in the top half of the table, giving supporters and casual observers alike reason to believe. Manchester United — the insatiable kings of world football, the game and the global marketing phenomenon — are off to their worst start in nine years. Moreover, last year's wonder boy can do nothing right, on or off the pitch. And finally, the Big Four is looking more and more like the Big Two. That is to say, the two teams operating on financial losses to the tune of nine figures also happen to be the two teams that appear most likely to walk away with the Premier League title.

No, Toto. Kansas, this is not.

But wait. Sunday's feature match in West London offered up some familiar headlines — and emotions. For yet another season, Arsenal came up empty-handed against their cross-city rivals, despite having the larger share of possession and a great number of chances once more. (An important point of reference here is: I'm a Gooner.) So for me and my fellow Gooners, this season is starting to feel a lot like the last season, and the one before that, and the one before that. And yes, Mr. Wenger, you are insane, as am I. For every season, I start out filled with hope and confidence, allured by 6-0 wins at home to Blackpool and Braga.

"This is the season all will be made right. The year when, finally, the moral rectitude of the Arsenal product will prevail and silence the naysayers."

Then there is Didier Drogba, and cosmos are realigned, however cruel or unjust.

But something is different this season. Where I might have seen Arsenal's title hopes seriously damaged by the Ivorian Machine alone from the couch of my (then) studio apartment in seasons past, this Sunday I watched Arsenal's title hopes seriously damaged by the Ivorian Machine in a pub, with friends, each of whom having a vested interest in the outcome. In that I may take a little pride.

Last season, I realized that Fantasy 'football' was an incredible aide for familiarizing oneself with an otherwise foreign and less accessible sport. This summer, with the 2010-2011 EPL season quickly approaching and the post-World Cup hangover threatening to set in, I needed something to sustain the football fever that produced the largest match-viewing gatherings I had been apart of thus far.

Our EPL fantasy league was born. (The details of this league can be read elsewhere in this blog.)

Of course, reservations are to be had. Maybe, as another blogger on here has alluded to, fantasy fans are a bit 'different' from the rest of us. But as Alex's ridiculous free-kick smashed the back of the Arsenal net in 85 minute, crushing my hope, and sending the arms of my smiling week-seven opponent skyward, knowing instantly that this wonder strike had secured her a victory, I knew that something good had come of this. "She got it. They got it." This game I had fallen in love with on my own, in my studio apartment, was now theirs.

Too bad they're all indirectly rooting for Chelsea.

Kompany basically saying, "Who the f**k are Man United?"

Manchester City defender Vincent Kompany isn't alone in feeling that City's success doesn't simply rest on doing better than Manchester United.

"Who the #$%& are Man United" fan chant

Weekend Update

This was a good sports weekend: wins for Notre Dame, Manchester City, the Detroit Tigers (well, kinda) and me.  Not only did I beat the incredibly knowledgeable commissioner of my EPL fantasy league, but I score highest overall. That means that I won the following plaque:

Winner!

This is a dangerous award to receive as it is rumored to be cursed. Originally meant as a honor for the top scorer of the week, whomever has the picture has lost their next head-to-head match. As creator of the "Huge Balls" award, fate will probably treat me just as cruelly.

On a happier note: following the 2-1 City victory over Newcastle, my roommate now owes me a beer at the Beer Trappe on top of a six-pack from a previous bet. Woot!

Good year for football

This is a good year to watch more soccer. If you cheered for the teams I like, you'd be forced to agree:

Baseball
The Detroit Tigers finished their season on Sunday with a .500 record (81-81), though they tried their best to make 2010 another losing season. After they traded Curtis Granderson to the dreaded Yankees, I knew we couldn't expect much this season, but fighting to stay at the middle of the AL Central was just depressing.

We miss you. 

(American) Football
The Detroit Lions don't look to do much better than their baseball brothers. So far they have surprised everyone with one win and were denied another win (against the lousy looking Bears, no less).

The Fighting Irish of the University of Notre Dame du lac have a new coach with an inexperienced quarterback. Sure they beat BC, but it was an ugly win. I won't rest easy until we beat Navy (41 times) again.

Out of season: 
Basketball
I really don't like the NBA, so my basketball season doesn't really begin until the University of Kentucky Wildcats play Notre Dame on December 8. Though I'll be cheering for the Irish, one can't help supporting Kentucky after living in Lexington for a few years.


Hockey
I'm pretty excited about this year's Detroit Red Wings team. Preseason play is just getting started. Sadly, it's nearly impossible to watch many hockey games unless you live in your team's town, and I'm not moving to Detroit any time soon.