I'm a Manchester City fan, so on the evening before a huge match-up vs Arsenal, away, I thought it would be fitting to start a football blog. I'm mainly doing this to post my "typical city" rants but I also wanted to make a forum where my friends and I can discuss footy with the possibility of random viewers commenting on our thoughts. ( I think we may even get Beckham on a short-term loan deal for a few comments).
Now on to City's plight. We are a mere 3 points off the top of the table, albeit United also have a game in hand, but I find myself feeling as City can't make up any ground. I should be elated that Dzeko is going to signed, I am too, but it just feels like City just doesn't have the chemistry to make a successful run. We don't seem to have that same unity that United have this year. No matter who steps in the United line-up you feel like they are going to win. On the other hand City have Miner and Adam Johnson to replace Silva and Balotelli and I feel like the plague has descended upon our team.
A big game tomorrow could go along way t boost confidence, but it is going to take more than a couple big wins to see us at the top of the league. City needs United to lose. So I an concluding my first post/rant with a plea to the rest of the EPL, "Please beat United." I'm looking at you Spurs.
Ed. Note: I'll try to include facts and sources in future articles.
My experience with the sport being as limited as it is it still seems to me that United is more a function of momentum than chemistry. Their brand is built on the fact that they win and win often (however true that might or might not be). Not by virtue of a billionaire owner willing to dump money into the club at a whim or even by some plucky sense of ambition. Of all the teams I've become familiar with these past few months, United remains the one and only stalwart. The Sphinx amongst the shifting desert. Maybe a lot of it is Ferguson and his obviously consistent good eye for talent and tactic. But it seems to me something prolifically and in a way prophetically more than that. A conversation I had with my uncle recently I think illustrates this point best. After explaining to him my nascent interest in soccer he volunteers two facts: One, he doesn't know much about soccer. And two, his team is Manchester United. A man who himself professes a lack of knowledge about the sport in the same breath professes allegiance to a single team. And he didn't just pluck that name out of the aether. United's reputation as a winning side is quite literally world renown and by DEFAULT admired. That's a pretty impressive bit of marketing and I don't even think it's entirely intentional. It is just the tradition of a side who has never (in recent memory) gone through a manager crisis, a side who can lose multiple star players and still squeak out wins, and most of all a side who is THOUGHT to be a winning one. It sounds naive to say even to my ears but I think there's some truth behind the idea that believing enough in something makes it real. Which isn't to discount the abilities of Man U, or forgive the failures of opposing sides. I just mean that maybe that unity you envy in United might not be able to be bought by City. Or taught in Arsenal's academy. Or forced in defense of Chelsea's championship. Or coerced however entertainingly out of a team like Spurs. One of the first things I heard about league soccer that really stuck with me is that a true championship side doesn't win flashily or even decisively. No, a true champion grinds out results. And I think that lurching behemoth that is United's tradition will grind them out for a long time yet.
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