It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Football and soccer are back with new seasons ladies and gentlemen. And, we're back too. I don’t know about you but I fully welcome the distraction of sports amongst the current apocalyptic hellscape of forest fires, Covid, and dumpster fires in the White House that we are all forced to live in.
Some thoughts I have about the seasons ahead:
First and foremost, Liverpool will be looking to defend their Premier League title and do better this go around in the Champions League. City has done very little to strengthen in the areas where they are lacking, namely defense. Fortunately for the world, they missed out on signing Messi because he’s as inept at navigating the Spanish legal system as he is good at nutmegging defenders. The biggest challenge this season I think will be Chelsea. They are certainly looking to challenge after picking up striker Timo Werner, midfielder Kai Havertz, and defender Ben Chilwell. They still have defensive issues to sort out but Frank Lampard has certainly exceeded my expectations for a guy whose management experience amounted to a season with Derby County. It’ll be interesting to see how Premier League legends of old, Leeds United, do in their first season back in 17 years. They were unfortunate to miss promotion last season but they’ve been consistently pretty good in the Championship the last two years. The league as a whole has done a pretty good job isolating Covid cases and hopefully we won’t see any interruptions. Maybe, just maybe, if the soccer gods smile upon us we’ll see fans in stands again instead of listening to prerecorded fan noises.
In La Liga, it'll be interesting to see how Barcelona respond after the drama stemming from the utter shellacking they got from Bayern in the Champions League. They've picked up Ronald Koeman to manage taking a page from Chelsea, Real Madrid, and Manchester United's book of hiring former players to make success happen out of nothing. It looks like there are some major changes ahead and King Messi doesn't seem entirely on board. Either way, it should make for some good memes. If Barcelona can't make something happen then Real Madrid will likely once again fly under the radar to win another league title despite the fact that they are a shade of their former selves.
In the world of the NFL, we’ve already seen the Chiefs and Texans play. Full disclosure, I don’t know the last time I’ve watched a full football season so I am 100% talking out of my ass here. But the Texans did exceed my expectations. I expected the Chiefs to win by a lot more considering their champion status and that the Texans are not good. I know, this is riveting analysis. One thing I did see that bothered me, and it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out throughout the season, that fans booed a moment of silence in reflection of how black people are treated by our society. It kind of thought that black people deserving equal rights wasn’t a controversial issue, but apparently we need to rehash this because a lot of white people have wrapped up their entire identities around the loser currently squatting in the White House. But, hey, that’s modernity. It will also be interesting to see He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and Rob “I’m retired” Gronkowski play in Jacksonville. I think I’m going to largely hold my tongue until the season plays out more but suffice it to say that I hope their careers end up on proverbial respirators.
That’s all from me for now. Look for more analysis after the games this weekend and I’m sure Zach will have more insightful things to say about the NFL, Championship soccer, and why anyone should care about West Bromwich Albion.