Friday
2:24 pm: As the last hours of the workweek slowly trickle away I peruse the web for the menu of games for the coming Martin Luther King Day weekend. I check out Foxsportsworld.com and Soccertv.com to confirm their listings and it looks like we have some fair offerings. Saturday morning starts off with a bang at 4:30 with Manchester United versus Liverpool. I'm more excited for it than the Lakers-Warriors corporate box seats I have for Saturday night (especially since Kobe got injured yesterday). It may be dark out but I'll be up for that one. If I wake up at 5:00 am for work every single day, I think I can manage awaking a half hour earlier for a classic match-up. I trick myself every weekday by telling myself that I am only getting up so early to train myself for the 4:30 am game on Saturday. So far it has worked. After the dawn fireworks there is a good old-fashioned London Derby between Spurs and Chelsea on Pay-per-view at 7, followed by Arsenal-Bolton at 9am. If my eyes haven't fallen out from watching soccer for 6 consecutive hours, after an hour to refresh, Aston Villa takes on Norwich City at high noon. Sunday brings a relative day of rest with just Everton-Middlesbrough beamed across the Atlantic. All told, I'll have a chance to see the top five teams in action this weekend. Not bad.
6:00 pm: Work is over and I've raced home to make it back in time for Fox Football Friday'a show that has been growing on me. The hosts are becoming increasingly smooth as they adjust to being on television. Who can blame Nick and Steve for a choppy first couple of episodes? I am sure they were just as shocked as anyone that they were hosting a show on American TV discussing English football. They can do no wrong for me now and the occasional local access channel mistakes they commit are excused--they are talking "football" for sixty minutes and that is good enough for me. I would probably watch a talk show about the EPL even if it were being hosted by Star Jones and Graham Norton.
7:00 pm: Time for the Michelle Lissel Show--otherwise known as the Fox Sports World Report. I tune in a couple of times a week getting all of the up-to-date news in the soccer world and the latest hairstyle of my future wife. She looks particularly perky tonight--probably because she's as fired up for the ManU-L'pool fixture tomorrow as I am.
8:35 pm: Time to check if there are any tempting bets I can lay out to make the games doubly interesting. You have to love the internet--with the exception of drinking it is so easy to practice at your vices online. At my gambling website I stake five on a Liverpool win and another fiver on Tottenham. No method to my selections, just the teams I'd like to see get a win. Fernando Morientes, just transferred in from Real Madrid, will have his first start with Liverpool at Anfield, and I'd like to watch captain Steven Gerrard and the bunch grab a feel good win over Sir Alex's Red Devils. It will be a mini-tragedy if he switches leagues over the summer because Liverpool fails to qualify for the Champions League. I like watching Chelsea, especially as they have gelled offensively since the introduction of Arjen Robben to the lineup, but rooting for Chelsea these days is like cheering on the New York Yankees. They reek of money, or, in the case of the team owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, the foul stench of rubles--hundreds of billions of them amassed since the privatization of the former Soviet economy. If I was a billionaire I would swim around in my money all day like Scrooge McDuck, so Roman must be commended for doing something productive and putting together a phenomenal money-laundering organization. OOPS, I mean phenomenal soccer team.
Saturday
4:30 am: My TV has an on-timer so I wake up to the sight of regal Anfield and the sonic sounds of a Kop football chant.
4:35 am: Roy Carroll somehow gets the start ahead of American Tim Howard. After his fumbling of a midfield shot from Tottenham's Mendes last week, I'm not sure what he will have to do to lose his place. Perhaps drop kick the ball into his own net.
4:42 am: The game starts off with a quintessentially English pace. Action flows from end to end and both sides look capable of scoring.
4:50 am: Wes Brown gives Fernando Morientes a hearty welcome to the rigors of the Premiere League during a Liverpool corner. Hopefully the sentence "I think I need a chiropractor" is easily found in his English phrasebook.
4:55 am: Watching so much soccer in the dark hours of Saturday mornings has made me proficient at determining the formations teams are using, but it has also addicted me to coffee. I can smell the freshly brewed pot drift in from the kitchen but the pace of this game just won't slow. It may be halftime before there is the slightest break in the action and a chance to grab a mug.
4:57 am: GOAALLLL. My patience in grabbing my caffeine fix was well justified as Rooney slots in a ball that beats the hapless Dudek near-post from about 30 yards out and it is 1-0 United. Now this game should really open up.
5:02 am: Ronaldo gets fouled and I leap out of bed to pour a cup of coffee. Unfortunately the coffee looks the shade of iced tea and I have to set it up again. Apparently I piled the coffee grinds into too high of a stack in the filter and the water just kind of missed the bulk of the grinds. The result was a sort of coffee-flavored water. This is hardly what I need at 5 in the morning from an automatic coffee machine. Thankfully this game has been all the lift that I need for the moment. Roy Keane drills a shot from 20 yards out but it strikes the crossbar and bounces out. His next goal will be his fiftieth as a Red Devil but it may never happen: I've seen him strike wood at least 4 times in Manchester United's last 4 games.
5:09 am: Carroll juggles a ball lobbed into the penalty box. Tim Howard salivates on the bench.
5:19 am: Morientes gets a couple of chances just before halftime. He didn't get either on goal but he looks a threat to score on his debut. Of course, one's first 45 minutes in the EPL probably feels like 90 minutes in La Liga.
5:21 am: It's half time and time to check on my second batch of coffee. This game is brought to us by Guinness, the announcer informs us. It is still dark out, but a pint sounds mighty good right about now--and a lot easier to make than coffee.
5:37 am: The game starts up with all the pace of the first half. There hasn't been a letup yet.
5:39 am: Gabriel Henze gets in a vital tackle on Morientes in the box. Heinze, unlike his countryman Veron, looks like he'll be around Old Trafford for a long time.
5:44 am: Milan Baros' face is left bloodied by a Mikael Silvestre challenge. Now this really looks like a ManU-Liverpool game. He goes into the bowels of the stadium for a stitch-up.
5:51 am: Gerrard lays a tackle on Roy Keane. Pot meets Kettle. The announcer informs us Milan Baros has five stitches in his head. That is solid reporting. If this were an American football game, we would have gone down to a female sideline reporter for that piece of information. Wouldn't that be a good moonlighting gig for Michelle Lissel? FSW's ratings would skyrocket.
5:53 am: Gerrard and Keane clash again, with Keane taking the brunt of it. Go easy on the old man, Stevie.
5:55 am: Wes Brown tackles John Arne Risse and he rolls about on the ground like he is putting out a fire. My unofficial count is 5 rolls. It is Wes Brown's second yellow and Manchester will be shorthanded for the next 25 minutes. Really stupid tackle from Wes, the ball was already gone and Risse was no threat.
5:57am: John O'Shea comes on for Ronaldo and it looks like United will be playing defense until the final whistle. This will be a real test for United to keep their streak of 6 clean sheets going.
6:02 am: Rooney picks up a yellow for being Wayne Rooney.
6:04 am: The camera catches Wayne Rooney showing off his salty vocabulary to the referee.
6:06 am: Morientes comes off for Sinama Pongolle. Fernando looks about like you would expect someone to look after an EPL initiation: pained and battered. 76 minutes isn't bad though, especially after riding the pine for the bulk of his time in Madrid for the last several years.
6:12 am: Ten minutes to go. Liverpool have had 69% possession in the second half, but the Kop faithful must be wondering where the goals are.
6:13am: The Referee is wearing yellow today and he seems to have that mindset as well. He books Quinton Fortune just for being substituted into the game.
6:17 am: Now the ref books Liverpool's Nunez for being inserted into their lineup. Is this some kind of new rule I don't know about? Book a player within two minutes of him being put on the pitch? 2 minutes and stoppage time left and tackles are flying in from everywhere. The ref flashes another card, this time for Roy Keane, probably because the ref realized it would look strange if he gave out so many cards but none for United's enforcer.
6:21 am: There will be 4 minutes of added time and Gerrard has a free kick at the corner of the box. He slots it to Jamie Carragher and he nearly hammers it home but Carroll flails it away. It almost worked but it certainly is a strange strategy to draw up a shot for a player who has not scored in six years as the announcer informs us.
6:25 am: Game over. What a game. Only one goal but it was a good one and the game had everything else you could ask for: tackles, pace, cards everywhere, a petulant Wayne Rooney. I'm five dollars down, but it was well worth it. I have thirty minutes until Chelsea-Tottenham kicks off. I am going to the English pub down the road for this one to save myself the PPV fee and hang out in the company of my fellow obsessives.
9:06 am: Just back from the Brittania Arms, my local English pub here in Callifornia's Silicon Valley. Chelsea beat London rivals Tottenham 2-0 on a phantom first-half penalty and a stoppage-time Frank Lampard strike. The real competition was between a group of fans supporting Chelsea and a Manchester United fan who was watching the Liverpool game on tape on an adjacent TV. When Graham Poll blew for the penalty the Red Devil fan let it be know a bit too ludly that it was a "soft penalty." The Chelsea fans let it be known that he should stick to watching his "own f*&$ing game." Then the ManU fan, inspired by a couple of morning Red Stripes, told the Chelsea fans that it looked like Roman Abramovich was buying not just players now, but referees too. At this point the three Chelsea supporters reminded their friend from Manchester of the Mendes goal that was not called a goal last week, at which point the Red Devil fan told them to "f@#k off." Yes, it was high drama at the English pub at 7:45 in the morning. I thought I was going to witness my first battle between rival hooligans without even having to leave the warm and dry confines of California but, alas, the dispute did not come to blows and both parties left the pub with a victory in hand.
Back to the game: it was hard fought, but Chelsea always looked the better side. Arjen Robben really drives Chelsea's attack. I must give credit to Tottenham for going all out for a goal with twenty minutes left. Martin Jol brought in a defender and moved their best one, big Ledley King, up to form a trio of strikers. The boldness of the move deserved a point, but Tottenham ended up with none.
9:17 am: Bolton vs. Arsenal has kicked off, and, to be honest, I'm not sure if I can stay awake for this one. I've already been up for about five hours and I've nearly been caught up in the middle of a barfight, and it is not even half past nine. I've set the tape to record the game, just in case. I need some Gatorade and the half-time hairdryer treatment from Sir Alex to pep me up. "You call yourself a f&%*ing football fan? You are nothing. Go take a nap and watch your NFL you sissy girl. You don't deserve to be on my team."
9:21 am: Manuel Almunia almost commits a howler within five minutes as he flubs an easy El Hadji Diouf cross. Jens Lehman is seething on the bench.
9:40 am: Almunia really does look terrible, he came off his line again and was nowhere near getting the ball. A Bolton player simply missed a goalie-less goal.
9:55 am: I am on 4 and a half hours of sleep and I can't last much longer--5 minutes until halftime. This game is very sloppy and should hinge on errors rather than skill. My prediction before my ZZZZZs? 3-1 Arsenal.
9:57 am: Bolton just scored after Diouf lofted a cross, Almunia left his line but couldn't reach up to it and Euro 2004 winner Stelios Giannakopoulos was left with an easy header for a goal. This should be Almunia's last start for some time. It is always more difficult to sleep after a goal, but halftime should lull my eyes shut.
10:02 am: Almunia messed up again just before half and it should be 2-0 Bolton. Bolton missed a wide open goal again. I would be greatly surprised if Lehman is not in the net when the second half starts. Halftime.
12:37 pm: Just waking up from my nap, Aston Villa and Norwich is on the screen and the score is a predictable 2-0 Aston Villa. Before I can hit the mute button the announcer blurts out the final score of the Arsenal game: 1-0 Bolton. I feel hungover and my arm feels like it has been twisted behind my back as I slept with dreams of goals. These are the fruits of watching about five hours of soccer in a row starting at 4:30 in the morning. I'd do it all over again, but I need a change of pace for the rest of the weekend. I've got 4 NFL playoff games to watch, the Lakers-Warriors game to attend and a mild headache to cure. Thankfully I've got the end of the Arsenal game on tape so I can finish it off at will and Everton-Middlesbrough will have to be recorded as well--not that it won't be replayed several times on FSW over the next week, and I can always catch Michelle Lissel going over the highlights.
