Let the Hatefest Begin!

If I have learned any lesson from my 28 years of rooting for the Boston Red Sox, it's this: loving Your Team can be wonderful, occasionally magical, even. But nothing in sport is as rewarding, fulfilling, and eternal as the hatred that a fan can develop against a good arch rival. Now that the Yankees have shown themselves to be human (mostly), my hate hasn't really waned, but it's mellowed, matured like wine, so that it is less brash and more complex. The sad thing is, since my Sox won it all, I don't care for them nearly as much. I still love them, and always will, but I will never let myself be hurt like that again. Not by them at least.

A good rivalry is like a good steak; it needs time to marinate and flame to seal in the juices. YanksSox was a good steak, the only thing in American professional sports in recent years that felt authhentic to me. Sure, it was hyped, but it was impossible to overstate what it meant to fans. Coming off of that high, I naturally gravitated to international football, especially the English variety. The rivalries are so real, so local. They're passed from father to son like a bad gene, along with a massive dose of wit.

I decided to immediately attach myself to a fan base. It sounds like carpetbagging, but it really isn't any different than when I attached to the Sox as a child; I'm certainly no more mature about these things. The power of the internets allowed me to do years worth of research on the EPL and the FA in a mater of weeks. And I had help from this guy, (yeah, I'm not an InSider™ either) who happened to have amazingly similar criteria to me. Anyhow, the winner was...Tottenham Hotspur FC, for reasons I will not go into now. Needles to say, my first order of business was to commence hating on the Scum, otherwise known as the Gooners, AKA The Arsenal. Fucking scum. This has come easily for me, accustomed as I am to manic hatred.

This brings me at long last to the MLS, whom it seems actively dissuades such rivalry by making it's teams as innocuous as possible and letting everyone into the playoffs. It'll be tough, but I'm up for it—I'm a massive Galaxy fan now. As soon as I get a chance I'm going to do some research and figure out what other teams are in MLS and decide who deserves my malice the most (I suppose it should be Chivas, right?), but at the moment, the Colorado Rockies Avalanche Rapids are at the top of my shit list. It turns out that, at this moment, there are DIRTY GOONER SCUM living in Colorado calling themselves a soccer team. That's right. The Raps have signed a deal with Arsenal FC. As far as I understand it, Colorado has to send Arsene Wenger one pacey boy virgin each new moon, and in return the Raps get to use West Ham's colours.

Seems fair.

So it's on then, you Rocky Mountain Hammers Gooners. I look forward to lobbing flairs and cupsful of pee into the away stands (wait, do we have away stands?) when you are in town, and crowning you Scum with a pint glass down the pub on a saturday. God I hate you dirty fucking scum bastards!

Davey, if you are reading this, I think that I speak for all of the Galaxy fans here when I say that you must understand that all we care about is beating the Scum. If you only show up for one match this year, please let it be a Colorado match. We live to beat these bastards, as did our fathers before us. Please, Mr. Beckham™, bring us triumph over our sworn enemies at long last.

We're not worthy

In the unlikely event that you are reading this and did not link to my site from here, let me say a few words about Laurie and The Offside Galaxy page. It's at the top of my links list because it is the formost Beckham era (or any era?) LAG page in the blogosphere, the original and the most frequently updated. Laurie won't be filtered out by your NetNanny, because she's physically capable of displaying her wit without being a pottymouth. The Offside is the NYT, or better yet, the NY Post of soccer blogs, and Laurie is the World's Leader™ in both nuts-and-bolts football coverage (profiling all of our recent SuperDraft picks!) and WAG-realted reporting.

I mostly just rant.

What the hell are we waiting for?

As a long-time supporter of the LA Galaxy, I feel that I have the right to express major concern that has been keeping me up nights as of late. You guys, speaking to Galaxy management here, inked the deal for Beckham way back during the transfer window, and the news was that he would start playing in MLS during August, sort of making the first half of the season as irrelevant as it has ever been (the relevancy of the MLS schedule will be discussed at length in later posts, to be sure) for the casual soccer fan and the star-fucking public at large.

The thing is, no one in the know actually believed that you guys wouldn't workout a deal to get him here sooner, like, say, opening day, for instance. I know it's early, but where's this deal? And if there is to be no deal, why? When an English team makes a deal for a Madrid player, that English team pays a significant but not unreasonable transfer fee, and the player hops on a plane and plays for his new team. Shouldn't it work that way when an MLS team does likewise?

So far you guys have issued no coherent reason for this delay that I have heard, but then I talk a lot more than I listen and may have missed your coherent reason. As far as I know, the whole thing is up to those jackasses who run Real Madrid, Ramon Calderon and Fabio Capello. OK, so they don't want Goldie to leave them until 4 months after the season ends??? Really? 'Cause that doesn't make a lick of sense, unless of course they are just being vindictive, which is entirely possible if not likely. So if that's the case, why not call the jilted little pricks on it? Loudly and in public. Force their hand. Make a reasonable offer for securing our man's services shortly after the Spanish and European seasons end, and let the rest of the footballing world watch Madrid either show their asses or deliver the goods.

I've heard it said that the the Galaxy don't want to step on Real's toes, but seriously, are we ever going to have an opportunity to do business with these people again? Thinking of picking up Canavarro to shore up that back line, are we? Maybe they'll swap him for Landon and his coveted designated player spot! And seriously, are the C&C Bullshit Factory going to be running Madrid for much longer? It's looking doubtful. So ruffle their feathers, and when they leave in disgrace, you'll come up smelling like roses.

Look, Alexi. I dig you, and I always have. You're not afraid to be outrageous. I thought that you were awesome in '94 with you're anti-jock vibe and indie-riffic ginger mop. You were the lo-fi sports star that the era badly needed, and now you are the mouth that MLS needs whether it knows it or not. Didn't you say that MLS was better than the Premiership during the all-star game last year? That's HOT. Keep talkin', Red, daddy like. But if you don't make a stink about this, I'm gonna assume that you folks are getting cheap right when a little more cheddar could make all the difference. Start a war of words, talk some rediculous shit. Just keep the press, and the public, talking about you.

I got my ear to the street, and I'm telling you that people are intrigued. GET BECKS HERE. Don't get soft on me now. If you make a mess out of this, at least make a big mess.

Because seriously, I am like the biggest Galaxy fan ever!

It's not that I need justification

Yeah, sooooooo, um, a post.

I know, it's been a week and a half. Not the way to build loyalty. Know that it's not for the lack of will, per se, so much as a lack of concentrated time. Or ability to focus. There really are so many angles here, so many possibilities, inevitabilities, that in my few spare minutes my mind reels and races but refuses to settle on a single, suitable topic for a post. I know how Maradona feels on Saturday nights, or Fowler on Saturday mornings. Mmmm, I probably don't feel that good.

End digression. The point here is that I am now a supporter of the Los Angeles Galaxy, and a fan of MLS, and I have accepted all rights, responsibilities, limitations, liabilities and privileges thereof. Said attachment occurred the morning I heard the news that David Beckham, former England captain, ManYoo hero and Real Madrid scapegoat, inspiration for Intimately Beckham (for Men,) Mr. Goldenballs himself, had signed a massive (though less than you might think) five year contract with my beloved Galaxy.

On the surface, this is a case of shameless bandwagon jumping, and you might think me a fool. Of course, you'd be right--but for the wrong reason. I was a fool when I became a Red Sox fan at the age of 10, despite my father's warnings. That sort of love, intense and lacking any sort of self-defense mechanism, is for children and the terminally immature, and I no longer romanticize or practice it. I have chosen to become a Galaxy supporter, after years of flirting with the idea, weighing to pros and cons, and considering other options. In fact, my first instinct upon hearing the news was to immediately declare for CD Chivas USA, and start a blog about what a washed up, over-paid twat Becks is.

Luckily for us, I thought the better of that. I realized that I had to support some MLS team now, because suddenly it was interesting. And if this guy made it interesting, why the hell not support his team? Besides, I like him. As far as I've watched him, which is admittedly little, he's been compelling. He's a true pro, he busts his ass, and his shortcomings have generally been overstated by football afficiannados. Most importantly, his right boot is brilliant, and brings great theatre to any close match that he is in.

So it's love. I love the Galaxy. I'm in love with the idea of having a local soccer team that I love. I'd been wanting to fall for this team and this league for some time, because it just made sense, and the excitement I felt when I heard "Bex to Galaxy!" provided the emotional catalyst I needed to form the attachment. So now I fuckin' bleed green & gold (or whatever the hell colors they end up with,) and I'm proud to have hopped aboard when I did. You have the right to consider me a lesser fan or an out-and-out jackass for my methods, but they make sense. Would you marry someone who didn't both a) give you goose bumps and b) seem like a good fit on a practical, realistic level. And if you did, hey, how's that working out for you?

Isn't the soccer team you support just as important?

I'm looking forward to learning all about my new obsession. A few things I know:
– I like Frankie Yallop
– Alexi Lalas is either a genius or bat-shit crazy
– We should play Becks on the right

And Landon--I'll be watching you very closely. I am dropping all pre-concieved notions I have of you and judging you by what my eyes tell me. 'Cause you're part of the family!

And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?

I really am a fucking wanker.

Thought I'd let you in on that right off the bat, rather than let you wonder for the next few sentences. I'm going to blog about the Galaxy, though I know sadly little about the team, have been to one game (in, like, 1998, at the Rose Bowl, on a free ticket) and have watched no more than 20 of their games on TV, and likely fewer. These are career numbers, mind you, not just the '06 season. And I've only been following the beautiful game (Premiership, mostly) with a close eye for about a year.

So why on earth am I doing this? Why am I suddenly a Galaxy supporter?


YOU'RE FUCKING WELL RIGHT THAT'S WHY!!!!!!!!!!

Of course it's not quite that simple. A good obsession never is.