The Vagaries of True Fandom

I am not ashamed to admit that I am a rabid soccer fan.  Indeed, I am proud to state that my DirecTV bill is often times more expensive than all my other utility bills combined because life is bereft without Fox Soccer Channel, Setanta, GolTV, UEFATV, and ESPN Deportes (who cares about A/C when you can just watch Champions League in your underwear?).  I have been known to stalk Marta and Shannon Boxx in search of autographs and drive for 6-8 hours in order to support the Women’s Professional Soccer League. 

Some may view this as psychosis, but I find it no more psychotic than people who pay mad money for NFL Sunday Ticket and show up to Green Bay Packers games semi-nude in the Winter (it should be cruel and unusual punishment to expose nipples to those kind of temperatures).  At least I’m supporting a sport that (a) is actually a WORLD sport in that it is actually played in virtually every county in the world (as opposed to American football, where the Super Bowl champion claims to be the World Champion every year despite the fact that much of the planetary population couldn’t care less); (b) values true physical fitness (as opposed to a sport where you play for, say, a minute and a half and then get a huff-and-puff break and man boobies are acceptable); (c) is almost impossible to play well on any sort of body-enhancing drug (Barry Bonds and his ever-expanding neck wouldn’t last ten minutes on the footy field); and (d) where the resident players may not be the brightest bears in the bunch, but are generally not knife-wielding street thugs (hello, Ray Lewis). 

Besides, I think it shows an incredible amount of restraint on my part that I haven’t yet purchased either FCBTV or ArsenalTV (which tend to air those few pesky Carling Cup and Deutscher Pokal games that all the money in the world can’t buy on broadcast TV).  On the other hand, Sassyfras and I make sure that we purchase each year’s edition of FIFA Soccer for the PS3 on the day of its release, so we probably aren’t saving too much money by foregoing online soccer porn for PS3 interactive soccer porn.  (But, at least the PS3′s dual shock controller vibrates.  Neither FCBTV nor ArsenalTV can deliver that kind of action.)

And so it has been that I have found myself in the past few weeks, slack-jawed in front of my television, cursing a variety of deities, players, and passerby, for the horrendously poor performance of my beloved soccer team, FC Bayern Munich (aka FC Hollywood).  My team - a once mighty force that comfortably acquired championship hardware with nary an exertion of the pinky toe on their left foot – is but 8th in their league and probably won’t even make it to the next round of Champions League, having pretty much raised their hindquarters in the air and begged the lads of Bordeauxto stick it to them over the past four weeks (for those of you who spent the last few sentences believing that I am speaking some sort of strange, foreign language, NY Giants and AZ Cardinals fans will currently appreciate how I feel).  We have a new coach who is about as effective as the rhythm method and looks sort of like someone who is accused of doing inappropriate things with young boys.  We have a $35 million euro striker who has splinters up his nuggets from riding the pine and a $60 million euro midfielder who seems to be made of highly breakable glass.  In sum, Saturday has become a holy day of grimacing and hand-wringing for me and drinking before 8 am is not out of the question (as German Bundesliga games tend to air at about 6:30 a.m. local time). 

Indeed, it has been so bad lately that not even my virtual PS3 Bayern team can escape the clutches of the Bayern implosion – yesterday, I was virtually fired as the virtual manager of the virtual Bayern team on FIFA10 (for losing fewer games than the current manager of Bayern Munich, I might add) and had to sink my head in shame, put my virtual tail between my virtual legs and accept a managerial job at lowly Exeter City, the only virtual team that would take me!  (This, I suppose, is my just desserts for thinking myself a far more capable PS3 soccer maven than I evidently am…the “Professional” level on FIFA10 is evidently far beyond my thumb-clicking skillz).

And yet, you could not pull me away from my weekly Bayern game with a crowbar and dental floss (unless your name was Sassyfras and Arsenal had a match at the same time – thank goodness for that beautiful invention, the DVR).  Despair as I might (and pull my hair out as I may – I have plenty left), they are still my team and I were I not to stick with them through the rough patches, I would not be much of a fan, now would I?.  I’ve even decided to spend a virtual year as the virtual manager of Exeter City on FIFA10 in hopes that Bayern will see the beauty of my virtual management style and will, once again, come calling.  Until then, FC Hollywood, until then. . .