My Continuing Admiration for Soccer

After the 2010 World Cup finished up I told myself I would watch more soccer. Honestly, I started to care about things more often especially when it came to U.S. Men's Soccer but really didn't hop on board with any bandwagons of clubs. The reason why is I never made the commitment to get up early on Saturdays and Sundays to watch English Premier League, La Liga or Serie A matches. Truthfully, I didn't want to pick a team because I like Player A & B and they happen to play for Club X.  If I were to do it, it would be watching games on a consistent basis.

Fast forward to four years to 2014. Personally, I watched more World Cup soccer and grew fond of the sport including more of an understanding of what is going on in the game. Sure, I might not know everything nor do I pretend to be an expert of the sport yet at the same time, I do feel I have grown smarter as a soccer fan at least in International play. Further, it is understood that club play is a little different than what I saw out there this summer.  But my growth as a fan has grown to another level where my hope is to make more of an effort to become a fan of the sport consistently.

It is not tough to do for the most part on Saturdays and Sundays as most of the games get done before College Football and NFL get started. There is some overlap with College Football on Saturday with the 11 am start games for both soccer and football. Usually, 11 am games for college football are not the best of the bunch plus that's the beauty of having a computer to stream one or the other.  What's interesting is I could apply the same logic to College Football to the EPL or any of the other soccer leagues. I really don't have a college football team minus rooting for Wisconsin without any rose-colored glasses yet I still love watching sport every Saturday. Could I do the same thing for EPL?  

There are two major factors in my growth as a soccer fan. One of them being I have more Saturdays off. My current job does not allow that luxury so who knows this might be a pipe dream for awhile. But that's the beauty of a DVR I guess if we are being a group of forward thinkers. The other one is Time Warner's refusal to add NBC Sports Live Extra. This is a major problem during the playoff hockey season when I pretend to  know a great deal about hockey as well. This issue looks right now it is not being solved, but you can still watch EPL games using NBCSN if there are overflow not on their channels. The dream really is to write a diary of watching soccer each day with time, how I feel, mood, everything really to get you inside my head as I watch these games. This could be great blogging, but what the hell do I know.

Now, the other option would be to watch more Major League Soccer. It is in full swing right now, but no disrespect to the sport, I want to watch the premium product. I don't think I am giving myself a fair shake if I begin with the MLS as my go-to league to watch when there are much better versions of the product elsewhere. That might already make a little snobby, but MLS is not what we are getting from some of the greatest clubs in the world.  It is not like I will not check out the MLS now and again, but it is likely I will not get sucked in.

Hopefully, this is the start of a beautiful relationship.

Charlie.

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