Tag Archives: Football

Barbarians at the Gate

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In the fifth century, the whole of Europe was swallowed up by the various tribes who lived outside of the Roman Empire – Visigoths, Huns, Vandals, Saxons, and Franks. Barbarians. They had not been “Christianized” but they were militarized and they took a crumbling Roman Empire and turned it inside out.

1,619 years later, they would return in the form of Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur fans! They were to invade the Holy city of Madrid for the weekend. They would come by plane, car, vans, busses and trains. They drunk alcohol like nobody had ever seen. They sang songs and they dressed in their respective war colors of red and white, they were fearless and frightening!

Madrid was unable to defend itself against the hordes. Their goal – the Champion’s League trophy. Their destination – the Metropolitano Stadium near the airport in Madrid. The day was hot, the enemy barely knew what hit them. Liverpool won the battle; the Spurs were sent reeling and the Madrieleos regained their city after total occupation and devastation. It was victory for all except the Spurs fans.

Liverpool fans are called scousers. The word “scouse” is a shortened form of “lobscouse”. It refers to a stew commonly eaten by sailors. In the 19th century, poorer people in Liverpool and its surrounding area ate scouse as it was a cheap dish, and familiar to the families of seafarers. Outsiders tended to call these people “scousers”. Now they are the modern-day barbarians who support Liverpool Football club. Known for their famous anthem, they barely know that their national anthem is “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from the show Carousel by Rogers and Hammerstein.

The other barbarian fans rooted for the Tottenham Hotspurs. Hotspur is a reference to the First Earl of Northumberland who attempted to overthrow King Henry IV at the end of the fourteenth century! His name was Henry Percy but he was referred to as Haatspore by the Scots for the speed of his attack. He was fast and sped into battle sometimes recklessly, to the amazement of all around him. He would get his horse to move faster by using his spurs. However, he met his match and was slain by the army of King Henry IV. Today, Tottenham Hotspur carries with it this piece of very cool history referenced by Shakespeare in Henry IV Part 1. As Hotspur was slain, so were the modern-day Spurs.

2018 FIFA World Cup

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There is something so amazing about the World Cup. It must be that it comes in the dog days of summer when baseball has barely gotten hold of my mind and basketball and hockey are a distant memory. It also is part of my professional life because of GoPlay. We have more than 1,000 young soccer players traveling overseas to play with some of the great international youth teams. We also are privileged to be part of the Celtic FC international football academy program.

And incidentally, I am crazy about soccer!

I love Messi and Ronaldo and just recently came back from the Champion’s League Final in Kiev, Ukraine. I am a lifelong supporter of Manchester United. For these three weeks in the summer every four years, I hold my breath and watch in awe.

Peter (second from left) in a Manchester United book

This year the World Cup is in Russia and takes place in cities I have never been to in the outer reaches of the huge country. It’s played under the watchful eye of Putin and the new regime of FIFA. A supposedly corrupt-free environment. Ojala!

What I like about it the most is that here we are watching the highest level of football played by 32 countries that range from Iran and Egypt to Morocco and Senegal and the mighty Spain, Germany, and Brazil. Oh yeah, and England too…It is a rainbow of humanity, of artists, playing a game that is so difficult to play in the sweltering heat of a Russian summer. They grace us with a sporting ballet, a drama, that even Puccini could not muster and heartbreak, success, and failure for players and fans in stadiums and televisions all over the world. It is our bread and circus.

Soccer has improved. The skill level is amazing and in eight years, the USA, Canada, and Mexico will host an expanded 48 team roster. I believe that the USA will be a force to be reckoned with. There are 25 million kids playing soccer in the USA and a whole lot of Cristiano Ronaldo’s are about to be revealed to the world.

My First Jaunt in Cardiff

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It’s a strange place to go for a football game.  When I think of Wales, I always think of rugby, but this was the Champion’s League Final; the most important soccer game of the year. For some ungodly reason, the match was held in the Welsh capital of Cardiff. Presumably because someone paid a lot of money to someone else for the privilege.

Confession #1 is that I had never been to Cardiff before and was ready and waiting to discover a part of the British Isles that I was unfamiliar with. Confession #2, Wales had never really been on my wish list. Still, only a two-hour intercity train from London’s Paddington Station and voila…you’re in Wales or Cymru. What I know about Wales is that its famous for its castles, its rugged interior, and the mountain range known as Snowdonia. Add to that a strong Celtic tradition, a bizarre language, and a history of coal and it’s all a bit of a hodgepodge!

The Sandringham Hotel, our base for the weekend, which was a bit of a scramble because of the Champion’s League Final, was a perfectly centrally located hotel, albeit a little basic. It was a short walk from the station to the hotel and delight upon delight we found that the hotel had another side to its personality. This was no ordinary bog standard hotel. It had a ground floor jazz club that stayed open until 3 o’clock in the morning. Things were looking up.

We were right on St. Mary’s Street, the main drag of Cardiff, where I imagine there are more pubs in the one quarter mile than most cities in the world. For a Champion’s League soccer match or a rugby match, you could say that this was pretty optimal. In addition to that, places seemed to stay open late. Still, we had a lot more to see than just pubs. We had to visit the famed castle and the Central Market which was just off St. Mary’s Street – in fact everything seemed just off St. Mary’s Street!

As it turns out, Heineken had taken over the Cardiff Castle so all we got was the view of the outside. The Dutch had invaded Wales! As for the marketplace, it had a glass atrium, an upper level, and a very Victorian feel to it, but most of the shops had decided to close, presumably because there was a spare 60,000 people in town who wanted to buy something. These guys really knew how to make money! No problem, we wandered around, found a tea shop, and had some Welsh rarebit or Welsh rabbit depending on who you asked (it’s basically just cheese on toast with a lot of brown sauce on top of it).

We went to the game which was truly fabulous and the stadium was remarkable. I believe it was almost twice the size of the town! In the end, Real Madrid won the game and we got to eat at the Charleston’s Steakhouse which is the only place in the world I had ever been, apart from McDonalds, where you must pay for your meal before they serve you. Their secret recipe? They stay open until 4 o’clock in the morning and they were doing a lot of business.

So, Cardiff – a lively city? Yes. A great stadium for soccer and rugby games? Absolutely one of the best in the world. A lot of things to do there? Absolutely not. The pubs stayed open late and no wonder since there isn’t much to do here besides drink, eat Welsh rarebit or rabbit, and have a steak at 4:00 AM. It’s a place I can wait to return to.

Irish Bars and American Football

Irish Bars and American Football

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When you travel anywhere in January, especially in Europe, there is a good chance if you are an American and love American football, there is a major game going on.  As it happened, I was in Barcelona when the Patriots were playing Kansas City so of course my first inquiry on my smart phone was to find an Irish bar.

Irish bars are these remarkable institutions found in every city in the world from Shanghai to Istanbul.  The Irish understand the needs of the modern sports fanatic.  Yes, they sell you Guinness and Harp along with local brews and average food, but the thing they do the best is stay open late so that we can all watch an American football game long after the other bars in the neighborhood have closed.  Irish Bars and American Football simply go hand in hand. My favorite bar in Rome is Scholar’s Lounge and it is ironically next to Berlusconi’s house. I guess he doesn’t mind the commotion with all the parties he hosts!

Irish bars are good for soccer in the afternoon, and American football or baseball into the late evening and early morning. Plus they rock.  They understand that one television screen is not enough – they have 10, maybe more – and everybody gathers there.  I often thing that some people never leave the bars.  In Barcelona, I’m not sure when the bar even closed.  It’s a late city and the Irish bars can outlast any city ordinance for closing.  It must be because my grandmother is Irish that I feel right at home drinking Guinness and watching an American football game in a beautiful city.

Irish Bars and American Football

Barbarians at the Gate – Museums and Madness in Berlin

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The thing about football fans is that they travel long distances to see a game that lasts an hour and a half, get to visit incredibly diverse cities all over the world, but really never get to see the cities themselves. At least that was my observation when our Italian friend who doesn’t like football insisted that we spend a cultural day in between the superficiality of a football game to visit Berlin’s three museums.

BeerBerlin

My Italian friend rented a car because he gambled that on a soccer infused weekend no one would rent a car and parking spaces would be abundant. Well, he was right! Although frankly, in the years I’ve known him, there was a not a city he had not conquered by instrument of illegal parking. He is an Italian expert. I think and fear that sometime in the not too distant future somebody will approach him with a $200K fine in unpaid parking tickets. But that’s another story.

Berlin_Nefertiti

We had to get to these museums to be educated and to offset the barbarian activity that we were here for and that would happen later that day. And lo and behold, in probably one of the most incredible museum cities in the world, where they have barriers erected with signs that tell you 1 hour to get to the entrance, 2 hours to get to the entrance, there was nobody. Yep. Those footie fans were not coming down for the education.  So I got to have a quiet moment with Nefertiti – wow, she is hot.

And furthermore I have a semi-complaint about the Greeks who constantly call for the return of the Parthenon marbles, aka the Elgin Marbles. What is the problem? I just walked into the Pergamon museum and they didn’t just lift a little piece of the Acropolis and take it back to the British museum, they lifted an entire city and put it in the Pergamon and it’s mind-blowing. How did they do it? This was a bigger heist than the great train robbery! These Germans had their act together. And I don’t hear anything from any country saying give me this stuff back. I mean, really, this is an entire city! So next time I go through a walk in the Acropolis museum, guess what? I’m not going to feel bad. We only took a little little bit. The Acropolis itself is still there, in Athens. If we had been Germans….it would’ve been in Berlin by now.

 

Champions League Village – Can’t Buy Me Love (T-Shirts)

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Dear UEFA,

Now I know that it’s been a tough few weeks for football.  FIFA is embroiled in a scandal fit for cable television – turns out every single World Cup for the last God knows how many years, was bought. No really? It surprised me that the micro bodies that run the regional competitions like UEFA aren’t joining in the corruption. But you have absolutely nothing to do with any of that corruption stuff – so thank goodness I come to you with an idea to make money – lest you too go down the path of no return.

 

Every year I attend the Champions League Final and every year I ask myself how anybody could conceive of something so pitiful as the Champions League Village, a place where devout fans hang out (usually in the boiling sun) looking for something to do or buy and usually coming up empty-handed? I actually did want to buy a souvenir shirt and I was prepared to pay $50 for it. It’s what I call noblesse oblige marketing – holier than thou branding. The players make millions and millions, the people pay silly money to watch this amazing game – and yet they take us for granted. We’re greeted by cops with guns. We’re not allowed to drink alcohol in the stadium. There is no food in the stadium. God forbid your team wins and you stay to watch the ceremony which lasts for an hour and a half.  Then you are definitely in bad shape because by the time you get back into town, you guessed it – the crowds are everywhere and all the restaurants have closed.

 

So here’s my thing. Football is the fastest growing sport – more money moves and changes hands in this sport than in any other sport in the world. The governing body of the world sport, FIFA seems to orient itself around the religion of money and bribes, and yet I can’t buy a bloody hat or t-shirt in your showcase village that only takes place once a year? The Champions League Village is supposed to be a showcase for UEFA – the grand finale of European soccer. The two best clubs (basically in the world) compete at this event. And here I am wandering under the gate into the Champions Village, planning my souvenir shopping list, only to find that the t-shirt shop had sold out of t-shirts by mid-day. No t-shirts. No merchandise. Practically no food at all. If you’re a VIP member of UEFA, I imagine you get your prawn sandwich and your glass of champagne and a free t-shirt.

 

So is it that there’s just not enough money in selling a t-shirt? You only deal in the 100s of millions? Or is it just at the merchandising level, when it comes to this match that only happens once a year, you guys go to sleep? We are desperate to spend money, but you don’t take mastercard..oops, they are a sponsor! And we truly want to buy something with the name of the event and the teams: bags, hats, shirts, wristbands, etc… By my estimate there are about 50,000 fans who probably want to spend around $5M in merchandising and food. Now I know that $5M is not a lot. Especially when FIFA hands out $10M checks willy-nilly to regional confederations. But this is a Premier event and you guys are better than FIFA. In the end it was a smart enterprising guy outside the village that was hawking illegal shirts for 20 Euros that got my money!

 

So hey, Michel Platini, how about a thought for the people who pay your wages, spent a fortune on a ticket, and truly think, even in the most cynical moment, that this is a beautiful game? Throw us a bone! UEFA, get your act together! While you guys are all sipping champagne at your pre-event parties and eating fancy hors d’oeuvres and chatting “real football,” maybe you could give some consideration to the normal guys – aka money-paying fans. Ah, the life of a working class football fanatic.