If you live in NYC, it's time to hop on the bandwagon. Our team is in the finals. The Mets made it to the World Series in 2015. Giants won in 2012, 2008. Yankees won in 2009. Jets last won in 1968. A New York team is in the finals! Being a Mets and Jets fan has been woe.
I'm listening to Blue Balls NYCFC, a podcast about NYCFC soccer team. The team has a baby blue color. I used to watch Dudes In Blue, but they got older and one guy had children, and they retired. Podcasts and Reddit are the best sources for information about the team. I thought hockey was the red headed stepchild, soccer is below hockey, they're the 4th sport in America. Football, baseball, basketball, hockey are ahead of soccer in America. The immigrants to America often appreciate soccer. My upstairs neighbor is from Poland, plays soccer in the park, and likes the Premier League, how hard they always play. I asked him if he was going to watch the game today? He hadn't planned to but maybe I talked him into it. He had gone to some games the first year they began.
My son got into soccer, and so I started watching soccer. As an American, I never really watched soccer. I played some when I was in elementary school. I always thought the soccer players were cool in high school. I guess I caught a few World Cup games along the way. When MLS started in 1996, I didn't really notice. So I started watching Barcelona. I read a bunch of books. How Soccer Explains The World is a good one, and Fear and Loathing in La Liga is another classic. Fever Pitch is the memoir of a someone obsessed. Watching Barcelona is choosing to see the best. Messi is a god. It was so weird for him to go to PSG.
I like to write about sports. Soccer doesn't get much writeup in the NY Times. NYCFC won the Eastern Conference finals and there's no article in the Times. There was a pathetic response about how they only have 20 staff writers. Yea, OK, you couldn't peel one off baseball, not playing right now, Football, admittedly the most popular sport in America, basketball and hockey? Tennis? Golf? NYCFC is going to the MLS Cup and there's an article today about French soccer. They make me go to that horrible rag the New York Post: The rabbid attack dog of wrong right wing thinking. Newsday and Daily News you need a subscription. Athletic you need a subscription. The Outfield is about NYCFC, because we play in Yankee stadium. Like my taste in jazz and other things, I enjoy the amazing sport in an under appreciating America.
So the first years, NYCFC bought some high priced superstars: David Villa, Frank Lampard, and Andrea Pirlo. Lampard was injured, and Pirlo hid behind the wall and post, so they were a bust, but David Villa played pretty well. I wanted to get away from a superstar model, I wanted to move towards young players instead of fading stars. I can't help but think of the New York Knicks first twenty years of the century. They had all manor of major superstars who were fading and didn't have it any more.
Until this year, NYCFC only had one playoff win in their 5 years of existence. Last year was a painful loss to Orlando. The year before was crushed by a loss to Toronto in Citi Field. This breakthrough into the MLS Cup this year is amazing. I can't fall asleep after a win. How do I keep equanimity when you care so much about the team?
I was on retreat, and someone suggested that watching sports, following sports, is a distraction. I think now that it is. Honestly my question about equanimity is a way of injecting the Dharma into my experience as a fan.
Our win in Philadelphia wasn't without it's controversy. Covid protocols took 11 players, 6 starters. The Philly coach Jim Curtin thought it was wrong to keep players home with a sniffle. Looks pretty bad to me, I mean is he a pro-spreading science denying asshole? He also brought up the oil money.
So NYCFC is owned by Manchester City in the PL, City Football Group. The "oil money" is from UAE. Of course "oil money" wouldn't be so much if America wasn't so dependent on the individual fossil fuel vehicle. It's the same kind of sentiment that doesn't all Carter's insights. It's the same kind of idea that the news can only report when prices go up, but when they go down, that's not reported. For the the oil money ownership misses the mark. They got some good players.
There was a lot of complaining about getting reinforcements for the team. Three players arrived this seasons from South America: Santiago Rodriguez, Tallus Magno and Thiago Andrade. We'd lost our GM, and Alexander Ring to Austin FC. These three guys have added quite a lot of highlights to this season.
Dome Torrent quit because he thought the GM was going to bring in his friend to coach, but the GM left. So the assistant to Pep Guardiola who had a brilliant mind, turned out to be a thin skinned quitter. He went down to Brazil and couldn't last a season with the team he was coaching.
Ronny Deila is Norwegian. He's not a verbose communicator, he didn't have any great resume. He coached Celtic for 2 years. Unfortunately the howling for him to be fired happened whenever the team dipped. I kind of associate the eject button as a Yankee fan mentality. The Yankees lose a few games and someone comes onto WFAN and demands a trade for Mike Trout, arguably the best player. Fanaticism is a kind of infantilism. I want, I want, I want. For me the journey of equanimity is that I can use my mind and maturity to appreciate a team. You can't always win. Yankees fan channel to departed George Steinbrenner, who expected to always win. You can't always win, and it's not the fan who holds the team accountable. Go or don't go, pay attention or don't. And I guess it's OK to be a baby who always quits when they don't have immediate success. Whatever. I find the immaturity of some commenters as silly.
Deila has been the manager who took the team to the finals, so all that fire Deila can be put to rest. Pep says he wants to come to NYC after 2023.
Tre Filmore used the word "counterfactual". I love him. He scouted Santiago Rodriguez and was very excited when we got him. Santiago Rodriguez is a great soccer player. Fillmore says Rodriguez is a laundered tallent, but forget that.
Proud Boys also go to the soccer games. They try to ban them, but it's hard to see ideas in people's heads, and you have to actually do something that makes you banned from the game. Fascism is an ongoing fight in America, no doubt. I just don't think the fact that that problem has been engaged with defines the team.
Beckhard points out with all the teams CFG own, we do have an extensive scouting network.
Anyway, all the salt is coming out because NYCFC are in the MLS Cup on Saturday at 3pm! It's going to be a challenge to my equanimity. An enjoyable diversion. I also connect with my son, an important factor.
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