My football story

It occurred to me that I haven't yet explained my journey in the football world up to this point. One could wager that it's the typical story of an "American" fan of proper football, at least until I started working in the game.

At the beginning, I was actually a die-hard baseball guy. That was my sport from like 3 or 4 years old. I grew up kinda in the south, and it was the TBS Braves era with the 13 division titles in a row or whatever it was. Now, I'll be honest, I don't remember them playing any World Series games. My parents aren't sports people. In fact, they don't really have any hobbies, though that's another issue. I started in t-ball and it just escalated from there. My last official game was right before I enrolled at UVA, and I'd played on at least one team every year from the start. I'm not quite sure what happened, but towards the end my passion for baseball started to erode. It might be partly due to injuries; before I started lifting (at 18) I used to always get injured, and that started at 14 or 15. Yeah, now that I think about it, I have flat feet, which resulted in ankle injuries even as a kid, but 14 was the first proper injury I had, which was to my lower back. I went to physical therapy for the first time, and that was to be a recurring event, even into college. Another factor would have been my love for soccer, or football, whatever you want to call it. The seasons, at least where I live, coincide for baseball and football (in the spring), and by 12 I more or less had to choose one, as you're only available for so many hours as a kid in this society. I mean, you're in school a good 8 hours a day, plus you sleep 8 hours, and you fit in meals and other stuff, so there's hardly room for playing on two or three teams at once. I was better at baseball, so I went with that.

Things went pretty well, generally, until high school. Basically, the varsity baseball team had four different head coaches in my four years. It didn't affect me my freshman year, because I wasn't an MLB level talent, so I played JV. That was decent, nothing special, and I was realistically ready for varsity in both baseball and basketball by my sophomore year. I'm not sure what it was, but I noticed a shift in the attitude towards young players pretty much as I was graduating high school. By that, I mean starting my junior or senior year, coaches would put freshman on varsity, and I'm not just talking "star players". Like, there were a number of guys who weren't that good on my baseball team junior year. Also, it was much worse for basketball, as that's a sport completely dependent on size, rather than skill. By this I mean numerous guys were playing varsity without that skill level, and I won't name names, because it's irrelevant now. The point is, I (and many of my peers) was fed up by junior year of the shambolic basketball program, so I decided not to play anymore. I don't regret that at all, looking back. With baseball, the team was bad my freshman year, horrible my sophomore year, where I played about half the season with JV and then moved up to varsity, and improved drastically my final two years. The best season by far, in terms of results, was my senior season. We lost four times (yes, four) to the team that won the state tournament, by a total of something like 10 runs. Personally, though, I was injured with a broken foot for most of the season, due to crap doctors not diagnosing the fact that I had a stress fracture while I was running indoor track (after playing fall soccer), so that was bittersweet. My "career" as it were, ended on a high note, winning the Babe Ruth senior league state championship. I don't know how much of an accomplishment that is, lol, but it happened, and I played a significant part in wining it. One moment in particular I remember fondly was more or less saving the game in the semi-final of that tournament. I was playing center. I want to say the bases were loaded in the last, or penultimate inning, with two outs, and there was a ball hit into the gap. I saw the ball well off the bat, turned and ran a pretty good distance, and made an over the shoulder catch to maintain the narrow lead my team had. I personally wasn't that hyped, but I remember people shouting and getting lots of love from my teammates, so that's cool.

It was different not playing a sport at UVA, like I had in the past. At the end of middle school, going in to high school, I started following Chelsea. No doubt, this was due to my first real experience watching club football was the 2008 Champions League final. My friend was going for United, so it only made sense that I'd go for Chelsea. The weird thing with that was I only really watched the latter stages of the Champions League on TV, until I got to college. I'm pretty sure that was combination of me being more into baseball and other American sports, plus the lack of TV coverage here. For whatever reason, I became attached to Liverpool watching the second half of the 2012/13 season, which was Jamie Carragher's last season, when Rodgers was there. The Premier League was available on NBCSN, and one of my hall mates was a huge Chelsea fan, so that's how I renewed my interest. Long story short, the next season for Liverpool was epic, despite them not winning the title, and it was fun to be a fan. That continued until my final semester of college, really. I had a girlfriend and decided to coach as a volunteer at my old high school, and that's when things changed.

The best way to describe this is to say that for me, for whatever reason, once I became involved with the game, it quickly changed my ability/desire to be a fan. When I first got into coaching, I convinced myself I'd be the American Jose Mourinho (my favorite coach of all time), as he didn't play at a high level. This was despite knowing deep down that it's not in my nature to be that type of person. I'm not egotistical, and I'm certainly not gonna be screaming at people on the training pitch or in a game. That's why I'm shifted to the scouting and analysis sector, which has always been more my style. Anyways, in terms of fandom, I just found that it wasn't fun to invest my time in energy in one team. The funny thing is this started when Klopp arrived, and I knew he'd bring success. For me, someone else's success doesn't bring me happiness, in the sporting sense. Like, if I know you, or if we have a connection (like being from the states), I'll have an inherent interest in your success. But for an English team that prides itself for being Scouse (not English), with a German manager, mostly foreign players, and American owners, none of whom I connect with at all, there's no connection for me to feel some type of way.

So yeah, that's how it happened. I root for certain teams, players, and managers, but I cannot bring myself to follow just one club. That could change, if I were to move somewhere and there's a team I can identify with. By this I mean one not banging on about "history", and more importantly, fan-owned. My personal opinion as well is that following one team only (this often happens with US sports) is you become ignorant to the actual sport. If you're a Yankees fan who you only watch them, you have no idea what's happening with 29 other teams. It's even worse with football, where the "English bubble" means most football fans literally know about one team, plus a few super clubs. That's not even mentioning leagues in other continents. The word cringe comes to mind, especially during transfer windows. I get that lots of people just want to watch their team, but the ignorance knows no bounds. Seen someone, English of course, tweet that he had never heard of Camavinga. Also seen people say Rodrigo is a terrible signing for Leeds because he's 29 and doesn't score enough goals. Oh, and the funniest one, to me at least, is "top reds" defending FSG, the Liverpool owners. To be fair, they've been successful in the past two seasons, but good lord that fan base is deluded. I've seen completely valid concerns that the club won't be able to keep up the "over-performing" level Klopp has had them at unless they strengthen. That's 100% valid, and it's not like Thiago and Werner would have been crazy expensive. Those fans are told to "go support City", as if that's an insult. I remember that same thing happening years ago when Rodgers had clearly lost control of the situation, and people wanted him out. It was "get behind the manger, go support City", as if it's ludicrous to want your team, which is the biggest/second biggest in the country, to win things. I have no interest in being involved with the day-to-day circus that most clubs are, whether the win trophies or not.