Why I Love Sports

Sports have a strange pull on a large number of people, including myself. Fundamentally, many of these sports boil boil down to hitting balls with sticks or kicking balls into nets, yet these simple summations fail to grasp what it is that makes them so intriguing. Here is my attempt to line out why I believe it is that sports have such a firm place in my heart. I have come up with 5 main reasons that are listed below.

1. Familial

The love of sports and specific sports teams is often passed down from one generation to the next and this is certainly part of my story. My parents and extended family love watching and playing sports, so it is natural that I would catch some of the sports bug. We have had season tickets to the Chiefs my whole life and have gone to a few Royals games each year. It was part of my childhood and going back to those places always reminds me of those good memories.

2. Universal Connection

Sports are played everywhere in the world. Which sport is played might be different, but the pursuit of athletic achievement and competition is ubiquitous. This means that I can go anywhere in the world and have an instant connection to the people there. Soccer is the sport that best displays this attribute. It is the world sport and no matter where I am in the world, I can start a conversation about the stars of the sport and be able to meet new people. Few, if any, other institutions are that widespread. This is an incredibly powerful idea. I love that I have an easy-to-open door for billions of people around the world. Often finding that first thing to talk about is the hardest. Sports makes it easier.

3. Emotional

This seems to be the one that befuddles non-sports fans the most. How can it be that us watching these goofy games can cause such an emotional outpouring? Why do we get so caught up in it? If you want a good example of exactly this sort of strange behavior, you can read about my growing love for Borussia Dortmund. To be honest, I think most sports fans are just as lost for a good explanation. We can offer partial explanations, but they never seem to get to the core of what is happening. Sports unfold as a real-life drama. In the same way that we get wrapped up in the emotional lives of fictional characters in our TV shows, movies, and books, sports fans get wrapped up in the emotional lives of the players on the field. But, even that seems incomplete, because (for team sports, at least) people don't just get wrapped up in the players. They get wrapped up in the teams. We are rooting for laundry! To a point, it does not matter who is wearing that gorgeous powder blue Royals jersey, but rather only that whoever has that jersey on is lifting that World Series trophy at the end of the year.

Sports offer a real-life, totally unpredictable drama that is played out in front of millions of people at once, all of whom have some sort of stake in it. That is something unique to sports and something that seems to tug at many people's heartstrings.

4. Analytic

Beyond simply tapping into an emotional part of myself, sports also allow me to tap into my analytic side. I love being able to analyze and dissect the sport. I have become really interested in sports analytics, as statistical methods are being used to better understand how best to play sports. I can also dive into the deep history of these sports and see how sports have connected to our history and the culture of our past. I can think on how changes in some sport over the last century might change how it is played. In this way, sports alight my curiosity. They spark my desire to learn.

5. Civic Pride

Sports teams come to represent more than just the team itself. Sports teams come to represent their home city or home country. Growing up in Kansas City, part of what made me feel a part of this city and proud of this city was the Chiefs, Royals, and (more recently) Sporting Kansas City. These teams represented our town to the rest of the country. Perhaps, more importantly, it allowed me to feel an instant bond to my home city. No matter where I go, I know I can wear Kansas City sports gear and still represent where I grew up. That feeling is perhaps even tighter with Kansas State University. As a smaller community, Kansas State is so tightly connected to Manhattan, Kansas that there are nearly one in the same. The sports teams I love reflect upon my love for these places that I have lived.

Daily Reading: Exodus 34

Exodus 34:26 - The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring to the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

God does not want to be the extra thing we do when we have extra time. He is not the cherry on top of our sundae of life. God desires, demands, and deserves the first of our firstfruits. He desperately desires us to enter into a loving relationship with Him. As the moral lawgiver, He demands that we order our lives rightly, which means that God is first. Finally, as the only perfect and holy one, he deserves to be placed first in all things in our life. Understanding any one of these reasons to place God first opens our heart to seeing more of Him, but we must pursue all three reasons to get the full picture of who God is, who we are, and how God sees us.

Also of note: at the end of the chapter, Moses comes down the mountain from seeing God and HIS FACE IS GLOWING. Like, actually, full on, glowing! To the point that the Israelites were afraid of what they were seeing. That is an experience of God that I want!

I should also point out that I am reading through the 'New Testament+' plan from OWNit365 right now. For five days of the week, you read one chapter from the New Testament, and on one day of the week you read a chapter from the Old Testament that relates to the New Testament readings of that week. Then, there is one day off to help you catch up, if you fall behind. It is a really great plan and the OWNit365 website has a ton of great resources to help you study. There are great videos for each book of the Bible that give you a good intro into the themes of the book and a lot of other stuff. Check it out!

Daily Reading: 2 Corinthians 5

2 Corinthians 5:14-17 - For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

The 17th verse of chapter 5 (in bold above) is a common memory verse, and for good reason. It lays out in a very plain way what happens at the moment of salvation. At salvation, all the old things about us are put into that past and God renews us. We become a new creation. We are born again as a new person than the one we were before.

The verse gains even more power when we examine it in the context of Paul's epistle. When we see "therefore," we need to see what it is there for. In this case, Paul is pointing (again!) to the resurrection of Jesus. In the preceding verses, Paul is discussing how Christ's death made it so that we all can die to ourselves in order that we might live for Christ. The resurrection is the foundation for the idea that we become a new creation at salvation. Just as Christ died, but was then raised anew, we also can die to ourselves and be raised as a new creation.

All of this centers around the moment in history when Jesus came out from the grave.

Daily Reading: 2 Corinthians 3

2 Corinthians 3:14-16 - But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

I just finished N.T. Wright's fantastic "Scripture and the Authority of God." In it, he presents a "five-act" way of interpreting the Biblical writings. The five acts are: creation, fall, Israel, Jesus, and the church. In the same way that a play follows various acts, so to does God's history and narrative. The Bible is the telling of that narrative with the Old Testament telling the first three acts, the Gospels telling the fourth, and the rest of the New Testament telling the fifth, which we are currently living in. In this way, Wright tells us that "the fifth act goes on, but its first scene is non-negotiable, and remains the standard by which the various improvisations of subsequent scenes are to be judged."

In relation specifically to what Paul is saying, Wright says that "we who call ourselves Christians must be totally committed to telling the story of Jesus both as the climax of Israel's story and as the foundation of our own." This fact is what Paul is trying to draw the Corinthians' attention to. When we fail to put the Old Testament in context as the first three acts of a five act play, we miss so much of its meaning. By seeing the Old Testament as somehow separate from the New Testament we err, but in two divergent ways.

The Pharisees and other religious leaders of Jesus' time saw the Old Testament is the entire story. They thought that the narrative was only the first three acts. Because of this, they missed out on the blessings of the final two acts and failed to fully understand what the first three acts meant. In contrast, far too many Christians today see the Old Testament as a separate play from the New Testament. The Old Testament in this case becomes pointless. It has some interesting history, but that has no impact upon our lives today. On this view, Jesus was not the start of a new act on the overall narrative, He was the start of a completely new narrative.

Both of these views fail to grasp the entire picture that God is painting and the story that He makes us a part of.

Finally, here is one part of Wright's book that I found especially insightful. I wanted to give the book a standing ovation when I read it. The book is chock of fantastic insights such as this. In fact, I loved it so much, here's a link to buy it on Amazon.

It is vital that we understand scripture, and our relation to it, in terms of some kind of overarching narrative which makes sense of the texts. We cannot reduce scripture to a set of "timeless truths" on the one hand, or to mere fuel for devotion on the other, without being deeply disloyal, at a structural level, to scripture itself.

Daily Reading: 2 Corinthians 1, The Practice of the Presence of God

2 Corinthians 1:8-11 - "For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us, you also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many."

Just as he did in 1 Corinthians, Paul points to God's ability to raise the dead to create a foundation for our faith. In Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth, he is using Jesus' resurrection as a starting point for all other insights into human life. In his second letter, resurrection is used as a comfort to help us through our trials. Even when faced with death, Paul and his fellow travelers trusted in God, because God has the power to raise the dead. Death has no power! So, why fear it? Paul was able to face any trial, not because he is incredibly courageous or fearless, but because He trusted in God.


"Neither skill nor knowledge is needed to go to God, he added. All that is necessary is a heart dedicated entirely and solely to Him out of love for Him above all others."
"Our sanctification does not depend as much on changing our activities as it does on doing them for God rather than for ourselves."

I am reading through Brother Lawrence's "The Practice of the Presence of God" for the first time. I wish I had done so sooner, as I am already finding some impactful and challenging thoughts. The two quoted above are the starkest examples.

They both encapsulate an idea that is far too common. That is, that we need to learn how to do certain things or change certain things about our life before we are able to approach God. Too often we are scared to pray, scared to read the Bible, scared to worship, because we fear that we do not have the prerequisites for engaging in those activities. Brother Lawrence is dispelling that myth. God wants to meet us where we are and help us grow. He wants a sincere heart that is dedicated solely to Him. If we offer that, the rest of the work is done by God.

The second quote hits what is the main theme of the book: doing all--and he means all!--things for God. Brother Lawrence's theology of presence is encouraging. It comes from a heart that all things can be done for God. That is what we all ought to be aiming for.

Interpersonal Utility Comparisons and Utilitarian Ethics

There has been a minor brouhaha amongst economic bloggers over the last couple weeks around the issue of interpersonal utility comparisons. I do not want to get stuck in the weeds of the whole discussion, but if you are interested I think Robert Murphy had the best summation of the important issues in the discussion. I want to touch on one part of Scott Sumner's post on EconLog from June 13, 2015. He titles it "Interpersonal utility comparisons are unavoidable."

Here is the portion of his writing that I want to address:

If one is going to argue to for or against any public policy on pragmatic utilitarian grounds, then one has to make interpersonal utility comparisons. Of course you can also make non-utilitarian arguments, as when people oppose government intervention on "natural rights" grounds. But it is not easy to convince the broader public without some sort of utilitarian argument.

Here, Sumner is using a sort of modus ponens argument. He states that if one is going to argue for or against any public policy on pragmatic utilitarian grounds, then one has to make interpersonal utility comparisons. He then goes on to show why these pragmatic utilitarian grounds are the best way to approach public policy and, thus, by affirmed the antecedent, he can assert the consequent.

The conditional statement that he is asserting seems sensible, though there are reservations that one might have about it. Let us assume it is true. Instead of using modus ponens, let us use modus tollens. By negating the consequent, we can negate the antecedent. We have plenty of reasons to believe that interpersonal utility comparisons are not possible, namely by pointing out that utility is ordinal, not cardinal. Murphy gives a fuller account of these reasons in the link above.

Given these reasons, we can deny the consequent of Sumner's conditional and, thus, have a reason to deny that one ought to use pragmatic utilitarian grounds to argue for or against any public policy.

Daily Reading: Proverbs 18

Proverbs 18:2 - "A fool has no delight in understanding, But in expressing his own heart."

The Proverbs have a knack for picking me out as a fool, which is not exactly the most enjoyable experience. It is an incredibly important one, though. This verse challenges me to examine how I communicate in two areas.

1) Relationships - Whether it is with my girlfriend, my brother, my parents, my friends or any other person that I come in contact with, it is important that I delight first in understanding them and their heart before expressing my own. Mutual understanding is the goal. It is important to get my thoughts and desires out into the open, but not at the cost of not being able to understand the person across from me. Not at the cost of being a fool.

2) Academics - I am about to enter into the PhD program in Philosophy at St Louis University this fall. One problem that is really easy to fall into, especially as a new entrant into the academic world, is to think that you have all the answers. This makes it incredibly easy to enter classrooms or philosophical discussions with an attitude towards expressing one's own thoughts rather than trying to gain understanding. The goal becomes not to learn more, but to impress your colleagues. The verse helps humble me to know that the best course of action is to seek understanding first and not to become a fool.

On a side note, I highly recommend reading through the Proverbs on a regular basis. There are 31 chapters, so read the chapter for that day of the month. For instance, I read Proverbs 18 today, because it is June 18th. It is super easy to keep track of. You never fall behind. Just read the chapter for that day. None of the chapters are that long, but they are packed full of practical advice for life. It is a great way to start the day.

Daily Reading: 1 Corinthians 15-16

1 Corinthians 15:12-19, 32

Paul is pointing out to us in a powerful way that our entire faith and our entire life is built upon one historical event, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If He rose, we have eternal life. If He did not rise, then we are "of all men the most pitiable." We are living a life of lies and deceit. 

The most important question for humanity: did Jesus Christ rise from the dead?

The most important question for each human: do you believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead? 

All other questions hinge on the answers to these two. 

Who is the Most Important Wildcat? An Introduction to the Importance Index

When assessing the individuals on a team, we often discuss who the best player is on that team. Another, perhaps related question, is who the most important player is on that team. I was pondering over that second question when I thought of one way to solve this. Here is what I came up with:

The team you are wanting to assess just finished a game against some opponent. You have no information about the game other than who the two teams are. You are asked to guess who won the game, but before you do, you are allowed to look at one player's stat line. Which player do you pick? The player you would pick would seem to be the most important player, as their stats most relevantly show whether or not the team won.

That is a relatively imprecise notion of importance, so I wanted to try my hand at creating a rudimentary metric for defining importance. The discussion that I had begun with had been about basketball, so I started with looking at it for that sport. Here is my first crack at it.

Importance Index: the correlation coefficient between the point differential in a game and the number of points scored by an individual in that game. 

Before assessing the merits of it, let's look at the stat in action. We will look at the men's basketball team for my beloved Kansas State Wildcats. Before running the numbers, my first thought was that I would pick either Shane Southwell's or Thomas Gipson's stat line in order to predict the result. Let us see what the numbers said. 

M. Foster	T. Gipson	S. Southwell	N. Williams	DJ Johnson
-0.033305617	-0.002559529	0.491312263	-0.044369949	0.243060373
O. Lawrence	W. Spradling	W. Iwundu	N. Johnson	J. Thomas
0.101570967	-0.130066323	0.074126345	0.084532404	-0.763105637

Ok. So, that's a lot of numbers after the decimal. I like them, but I know they are obnoxious. Here are the list of the top three most important players according to this Importance Index:

1. Shane Southwell (0.491)
2. DJ Johnson (0.243)
3. Omari Lawrence (0.102)

My intuition about Southwell seems to be correct, but not so much with the one about Gipson. Jevon Thomas' numbers are skewed badly, because he has only played in 6 games so far and his highest score game (9 points) was at Allen Fieldhouse, where the Cats lost by 26. I was surprised a bit by the fact that Foster's and Gipson's numbers came up negative. It might just be noise or it might be that their importance to Wildcat victories are shown more by their other numbers, namely Gipson's rebounds. (I ran the index with just that; it came out to 0.299.)

It's a relatively simple statistic, which has its benefits and drawbacks. I think it captures the intuition behind that idea of picking one player's stat line in order to predict how a team did. What you are looking for is whose stat line best correlates with a team winning. This could easily be done with rebounds, assists, steals, or any other statistic under the sky. My thought is that there needs to be some way to add together all of a player's contribution without simply adding points, rebounds, and assists. These might want to be weighted to some extent. I'm still working through this, but I think there is something here. I'd be interested in any input. 

This whole discussion began when talking to my future co-host of the Sneaky Fast Sports Show, Amar. Look out for us being on Wildcat 91.9 through the spring semester. This theme will certainly come up on the show. 

Falling for Die Schwarzgelb

"SANTANA! ... SANTANA! ... SANTANA!"

Tears were streaming down my red face as I screamed the last name of my new hero at the top of my lungs. I collapsed onto my coach, a heaving pile of emotion pondering over a single question: how in the world did I end up here?

-----

I have always been a bit of a sports nut. As a kid, I had entire depth charts of NFL teams memorized. Were you curious who the backup fullback was for the Jacksonville Jaguars was? Of course not! But, I could tell you. American Football is my first and greatest love. The magic of the gridiron pulled me towards the sports world in general. No matter how much the Chiefs and Royals tried to warn me away, I fell in love with KC sports.

Soccer was nowhere to be found in my sporting world until the 2010 World Cup. I had glanced at a couple of the games from the 2006 World Cup, but I honestly can't recall anything from those games. 2010 was my first real venture into the sport. It was that emotional injury time winner from Donovan against Algeria that left a seed of the beautiful game in my heart.

-----

It took about 5 months for that seed to really begin to blossom. College football was winding down and I needed something to fill my Saturdays. I thought to myself, "I loved that crazy World Cup. Why don't I watch some more of this soccer stuff?" And, boy, did I watch.

It came as a bit of a blur at first. I can be an incredibly obsessive person when it comes to my hobbies. I wasn't going to be content with just catching the weekly EPL match and knowing about the Big 4 in England. I needed to know if Rotherham United was going to be promoted this year into League One. I needed to know who the next Croatian superstar was to come out of Dinamo Zagreb. Most importantly, I needed to know everything that I needed to know about my home league, MLS, but it was out of season, so I had to look elsewhere.

After soaking up all the EPL that I could muster, I knew I needed to venture into some other leagues around the world. Enter the Bundesliga. It seemed the logical choice. The German national team was one of my favorite to watch at the World Cup and Muller and Klose were the only names I knew before venturing into the world of soccer on my own. Heck, my family even has German heritage. Why not try and tap into that a bit? It helped that ESPN3 were streaming a couple matches every week. Without that, I might not have gotten to where I am now.


The first two things I learned about the Bundesliga were this:
1. Muller and Klose played for Bayern Munich.
2. Don't become a fan of Bayern Munich. In fact, you should probably hate them.

I nodded approvingly and accepted that Bayern were not to become my team. After watching a couple of their matches and reading plenty about them, I was glad I didn't. The whole ethos of the team just was not appealing.

-----

One of my first memories of watching the Bundesliga involves a lot of confused questions. Who puts a goat on their team logo? Are Cologne and Köln supposed to be the same place? Why do we have different names for the city? Why is that coach running around like a madman in his tracksuit? Why do I love watching this team so much?

The commentator said that there had been a feisty international match prior to this club match. Turkey had played Germany and Lukas Podolski, who played for this goat team, had gotten into a bit of a scrap with Nuri Şahin, who played for this yellow and black team. Şahin's team just seemed to ooze controlled chaos and passion, and all of it seemed to unconsciously tug at my heart.

When this Podolski fellow scored late in the game to tie it up, I felt a bit crushed. Again: more questions. Why did I care? It's a soccer game on the other side of the world. I've never cared about soccer here, much less in Eur---then, suddenly, Şahin scored a winner.

He sprinted away with joy, aiming at a single person. As he hit the midfield line he slid on his knees in front of Podolski, wagging a single finger. Suddenly, the goalkeeper was up there with him, screaming and yelling in defense of his teammate.

And, I found myself doing the same.

-----

I soon discovered that this was Borussia Dortmund. BVB. Ballspielverien Borussia. Champions League winners in 1997. Die Schwarzgelb. I soaked up all the information that I could about the team. The history is rich; the players are legendary; the club is important. More than all of that, the fans are incredible.

I tuned in the next week to see the massive Yellow Wall in action. As Antônio da Silva scored a free kick equalizer in stoppage time right in front of the heaving mass of humanity, everything went crazy. I couldn't believe the insanity that was going on around the field. The seed that Şahin had planted with his goal against Cologne was being watered by da Silva and the glorious Südtribüne.

The sprinkling became a downpour as I began to connect with more Dortmund fans around the world, mainly through Twitter. The love and passion that they showed for this club was intoxicating and it pulled me in. As I got pulled closer, they welcomed me with open arms. No snobby complaints about Americans who knew nothing about the game; no disdain about a new fan finding his first love. It was welcoming and passionate. There was no way out for me.  

When I started watching the Bundesliga, I figured I would probably pick a team for me to support. I'm typically a very logical analyzer when it comes to all sorts of problems. I had planned to read all I could, discover the pros and cons of each team and pick the one that would fit the best for me. It had to be a team that I could reliably trust wouldn't collapse in the near future; they needed to have some sort of a youth system; etc. I had a whole list of criteria to measure these clubs by in order to make my decision.

Borussia Dortmund threw all of that out the window. The club punched a whole through the spreadsheet and grabbed straight for my heart and refused to let go. Suddenly, sports, especially, soccer, became a romantic endeavor. A game full of passion and desire. Full on energy and love. And a massive family that called the Westfalenstadion home.

-----

The first game that I remember watching as a self-identified Dortmund fan was the derby against Schalke. I have grown up around some intense rivalries here. The Chiefs-Raiders in the NFL can be pretty rough and tumble. Missouri and Kansas played out some of the most passionate games I've ever seen on the football field and the basketball court. This was on a different level. The build-up was incredible and the songs that rang out all game long were ear-crushingly loud. The game ended up being less Dortmund v Schalke and more Dortmund v Neuer. Neuer played like a man possessed and managed to draw against a team with 10 more players. The sting I felt was the same sting that I feel when the Chiefs would suffer a big loss. I knew they had me. It's one thing to rejoice when they rejoice; it's another to mourn when they mourn.

There was not to be much mourning, though. My nerves built up like mad before the match in Munich. When Şahin scored the 2-1 and Hummels the 3-1, I was in ecstacy. What a team this was. Even the Mullers and Kloses that I had heard all about in the summer couldn't stop them!

-----

Over the next couple years, Borrusia Dortmund did every thing they could to turn me into an emotional wreck on a weekly basis. And, I loved it. Şahin and Dedê left and I felt sick. Dortmund crushed Hamburg to open the following season and I cheered as loud as I could while in my cubicle at work. Then they lost to Hoffenheim and I got all sickly again. Then, in October, the team decided that they didn't feel like losing anymore. Every game was a roller coaster ride. The Champions League was crushing, but fun.

Finally, in my dorm room in Prague, I made an absolute fool of myself as I watched die Schwarzgelb smack Bayern around and take the DFB-Pokal by winning 5-2.

-----

I did get to visit the Westfalenstadion last summer. I wasn't able to go to a match, but just being there was tremondous. The museum was full of amazing snipets of the huge history of Borussia Dortmund. I also managed to spend a boatload of money on a Leitner jersey (HE BETTER COME GOOD), a scarf, and some other nik-nacks.

-----

As the 2012-13 season rolled around, discussion began that Dortmund were going to focus on the Champions League, the biggest club competition in the world. As the draw came out, I was filled with a mix of dread and excitement. I was dreading the thought of bowing out in Europe again, but the prospect of putting ourselves up against the best in the world was thrilling.

The group stages ended up being all thrilling. The boys played out of their skin on those midweek nights and made the champions of Spain, England, and Holland look like lesser teams.

The Champions League knockout rounds brought a new sort of nervousness that I didn't think possible. As I sat in front of my television for the second leg of the tie against Malaga, I pondered the worst and hoped for the best. If we went out here, the whole season would be tinged with disappointment. Malaga's early goal was crushing, but Lewandowski's equalizer was a sublime work of art that lead to me sprinting around my house with glee.

As the game went later, and we needed a goal, I felt myself getting more and more emotional. If we didn't score soon, we would be in trouble. Worse, if they managed to snag a go--Then. Eliseu scored. Late. Like, really late. Like, "we need a miralce or this whole Champions League thing is done" late.

I had been used to losing and had felt some pain and anguish because of it, but this was the first time that I began to cry over a sports game. I slumped into my couch and began sobbing. I tried to dry my tears with my scarf, but they kept on coming. I tried to tell myself that there was still plenty of time, but I didn't really believe it. As I looked on the faces of the players, I noticed something. They did believe it.

As Reus slammed in the first goal of extra time, I thought only one thing: "Don't mess with me right now. Don't tease me like this." I screamed and begged for a winner. I wanted nothing more in the world. As the ball came into the box, and bounced around on the line, I felt like everything just stopped. Then, Santana was running away with the biggest grin on his face. The ball was in the net! The Südtribüne, oh! the Südtribüne, was going absolutely bonkers and I just couldn't handle it. My body couldn't take it. I collapsed onto my knees and just began sobbing, this time, tears of joy. I stood up as I heard Norbert Dickel, oh! Nobby, you beautiful man, you, accounce the goal. As he reached then end he yelled, "FELIPE!" and I answered, "SANTANA!"

"FELIPE!"

"SANTANA!"

"FELIPE!"

"SANTANA!!!"

The screaming was muffled my the mucus and tears that were filling my face, but I couldn't care in the slightest. I was just reveling in the most amazing sporting moment I had ever witnessed and I didn't want to do anything else. It took about 15 minutes for me to finally begin to settle down even a little bit. I spent the next hours just blaring Borussia Dortmund songs from my room and smiling like a mad fool. Like Jurgen Klopp.

-----

I had started writing this under the inane presumption that I could keep this short and sweet. There was no way I could. There is just too much that I could write about this club, its fans, its players, its coach, its staff, its everything. Ultimately, though, I want to say thank you. Firstly, to Zorc, Watzke, Klopp and all the people who helped make these last couple years so magical and will continue to do so. But, ultimately, I want to thank all the amazing fans of Borussia Dortmund. Those who I've only seen on television have given me a glimpse into the passion and drive for their club that is simply unparalled. Those who I have had the extreme fortune to meet and talk to, I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart, especially those of you from Dortmund. You have every right to keep this beautiful club for yourself and to push the rest of us away. You have everything you could want in a football club without us, yet you still welcome us in with open and loving arms. It's incredible and I love and thank all of you for doing that. All I can do is try to do the same for you. Come watch some Sporting Kansas City with me!

Looking back, I never thought a soccer game would bring me to tears. Even more, I never thought that writing a blog post about soccer would do the same. But, that's Borussia Dortmund. And, I wouldn't have it any other way.

The 2012 Home Run Derby

"Please tell me he didn't just say that."

I knew he had, but I really didn't want the moment to be ruined by such crassness. Mark Trumbo had just obliterated some poor sap of a baseball. The white speck flew farther and farther into left field, until it came to a sudden halt as it collided with the towering "Royals Hall of Fame" sign.

"Now, THAT is a Trum-bomb!" screamed the on-field hype-man/MC/sponser-dropper.

I scanned over the whole of the Kauffman Stadium diamond below me. I knew he was down there. He had to be. He was there earlier. Surely, he can't run! I muttered under my breath and between the spittle, "Say Trum-bomb one more time! Just one more time. Say it. Say it! SAY IT!" like it was the nickname I had been called through all of my formative years and now that I've finally hit my growth spurt, I think I can fight the whole world; I've just needed an excuse.¹

With cheese pouring from his ears, Mr. Hype-man provided the excuse after a lull of smashes. "Come on, KC! He's needs some motivation for some more Trum-bombs!" Before his teeth could even close to make that terrible "s" sound, my mind cut to me leaping with a terrible roar, causing all the onlookers encircling our duel to gasp simultaneously. Each punch was dedicated to some terrible pain he had inflicted upon me this evening. "This is for trying to get me to yell 2 hours before the derby! And, this is for saying 'State Farm' every 5 seconds!" And, then completing it with a "trum-bomb" of my own straight to the nose, followed by nervously explaining that this was his fault; he knew what would happen if he used THAT word.

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The carnival style mad-man who refused to allow a moment's silence during the whole Home Run Derby was sadly fitting. He seemed to personify the whole joke that is the All-Star weekend. Except, he was in on the joke.

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Before the derby started, the official guy-who-yells-really-loud-between-the-innings-at-games-to-keep-everyone-entertained tried to do a simple interview with Robinson Cano. What I got from the interview was, "BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Kauffman was already filling up and it seemed that the whole crowd was booing as loud as ever at the man. And, whenever the booing died down, the guy-who-yells, etc. would say something like, "booing is a sign of appreciation" or "we love having you here," which would instantly ratchet the boos back up.

For those who don't know, Robinson Cano had promised that he would pick one of the hometown Royals to be in the Home Run Derby. Fans were incredibly excited, and with Billy Butler selected to the All-Star Game, Royals fans waited anxiously to see the man banging dingers at the derby. But, he wasn't picked. Cano offered no explanation other than ceaselessly repeating that the decision was really hard. After a large amount of vitriol began heading Cano's way, there were rumors he would drop out to let Butler take his spot. When asked about it, he said he wouldn't do that, because he wanted to win. All this rubbed the local fans the wrong way.

The big New Yorker had come in promising big things, but had instead slapped us across the face and pretended he didn't care in the slightest.

When the batting order went up on the 105 foot tall Crown-topped screen, Cano's name was listed last. The anticipation built for what I knew would be a memorable moment.

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When I say it is the most fun I have ever had at Kauffman Stadium, I'm not kidding. My fondest memory of Kauffman prior was a walk-off home run from Ken Harvey in the 11th inning.³ Yes. I said Ken Harvey. During that exhiliratingly cruel 2003 season, the Royals were, well, royalty within the city. It finally seemed fun to be a Royals fan, rather than just an investment in the hope of future fun. But, when Cano came up to bat, the Royals community stood together again and created an even more beautiful moment.  

Every sharply fouled ball was met with a roar of ironic cheers. It felt almost like an English Premier League match. We were the Manchester United supporters behind the goal and Cano played the role of Fernando Torres missing the gaping goal. Justice had been meted out. The big New Yorker had strode in KC and collapsed under the midwest lights. Decades of angst and flyover-country jabs suddenly seemed worth all the trouble.

As Cano, sulked from home plate with zero home runs to a standing ovation, for a few brief--but oh-so-wondrous--moments the crowd noise drowned out what that hidden hype man was trying to scream.


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1 The high schools depicted on the silver screen have always seemed like some strange foreign world compared to any of my high school experiences, but the fact that some version of this line comes up so often puzzles me more than any of the other oddities that Hollywood high schools seem to have come up with. Perhaps, my upper middle class² high school missed out on all the fun.^↩

2 Upper-middle class. Not upper class. Not middle class. I'm neither obnoxiously posh nor distigustingly average. I'm the perfect happy medium. Or, so we're told.^↩
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3 That was Harvey's 2nd hit of the game. Other multi-hit Royals that day: Michael Tucker, Raul Ibanez and Angel Berroa. The homer took us to a 12-3 record and filled a whole city with the sort of hope that we all knew would crush our souls in just a couple short months, but we hadn't tasted it for so long, so on we screamed, "nosotros creemos!" We believe.^↩
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Adapting to the Old World

Time is obnoxious. When we need a lot of it, it suddenly makes itself scarce. When we need it to go by quickly, it crawls slowly along, as if wading through a pool of molasses that is slowly being filled with Quik-rete. The worst part of it is that it does both of these things simultaneously. Hours drag on while years fly by. A single day can seem like an epic struggle that spanned the eons. Yet, when you lay down that evening, you can remember graduating high school as if it was yesterday. Time crawls and sprints simultaneously.

It's as maddening as it is intriguing. As terrible as it is wonderful.

The National Museum and some statue at Václavské Náměsti

Which is why it feels so strange, yet so normal that I have already been in Prague for over two weeks. 

What a wonderful couple weeks it has been! For the first few days that I was here, I slowly figured my way around the gorgeous city of Prague. With the 3 month public transportation pass, I've been able to take the myriad of subway, tram, and bus lines around the city. Using public transportation to get around to, well, everywhere is one of the bigger changes. The city here is beautiful, as you all have probably heard. Look at the pictures; you'll get the idea. That's not the exciting stuff to write about.

Classes have been excellent so far. Economic Integration of Central Europe to the EU only has 6 of us in it, but seems really interesting. Basic Czech should help me get around town better. Economic Transition is a perfect class to take here in a former Soviet republic. And, Development Economics is taught my an American and looks to be my favorite of all the classes after one week.

But, that's still not the exciting stuff.

The exciting part is studying myself as I spend more and more time away from all of my usual habits and people. One of the first things I've found is that being an American abroad is very boring. Everyone has met an American. Americans are everywhere. We're usual. To compound the problem, many people have already visited America. I can't even tell them about the exciting stuff, because they've all seen it already! Even worse: I don't even have my own language that I can use to make fun of everyone else with my compatriots. 

I've also discovered that I don't remember any notable "first times." I can't really recall my first day in high school. Or my first day alone at K-State. Or my first time driving or riding a bike. Or my first time doing basically anything that I figure most people would note. That's a good thing, though. It comes to the fact that I seem to adapt really quickly to new situations. Which seems odd, considering how easily I tend to get stuck in a rut. I've found that I freak out more if someone is sitting in the seat that I've been used to sitting in than when I'm flown halfway around the world and told to survive without knowing the native language, anyone there or how best to get around. It's hard for my wagon to make small turns, because I'm so far down in the rut, but pull me out and plant me onto a completely different road and I cut deep new ruts without batting an eye.

I also have an adventurous streak in me that I typically try to beat the life out of back home, but here in Europe has been able to gasp for air between blows long enough to get me to try walking into random restaurants, try wandering into new areas, and--it's greatest achievement so far--get me to travel to Vienna almost completely on a whim.

My view of the match against Dukla Prague

That was to go see my second European football match. The first was here in Prague as Dukla Prague hosted my local club, so the speak, FK Viktoria Žižkov. The match went about as I expected. Dukla Prague went up 3-0 after 15 minutes and comfortably held on for the remaining 75 minutes to see off the miserable bottom-feeders. What I wasn't expecting was for nearly 50 Schalke fans to be attending the game after seeing their beloved club draw Czech club, FC Viktoria Plzeň, the Thursday prior. That wouldn't be worth noting without the minor detail that I was wearing my beloved Borussia Dortmund stocking cap.

I knew the rivalry between Dortmund and Schalke was a heated one. I could deal with that. I've lived in the midst of a KU/MU rivalry that has seen some emotional moments, but there's something about soccer that takes rivalries to the next level. At halftime, a calm Schalke fan came up to me while pointing at my hat, simply saying, "no, no, no" in an almost worried tone, as if he just felt bad for me that I would choose to support such a club. After a short talk, he informed me of the large number of Schalke fans present. 

For the rest of the match, I noticed unkind glances from individuals all around me who were wearing Schalke blue. A few even started the throw words--German words--at me. I could only catch the parts where they would say "BVB," short for Ballspielverein Borussia Dortmund. The rest was unintelligible to me, but the tone was obvious. It wasn't happy. Much more hateful. For the first time, I had become a bit rattled by the fact that I didn't speak the native tongue of those around me and the native tongue wasn't Czech! All in all, though, it wasn't all the miserable. If anything, it just made me that much more excited for BVB's next victory over the miserable blue beasts. 

Back to Vienna: I had managed to get in contact with someone who lives in Vienna who was planning on going to the match and could use someone to tag along. Perfect! I booked the train ticket. Hopped on a train at 10:45 AM in Prague and showed up in Vienna a few hours later. After meeting at the train station, we grabbed some food and headed to the stadium for the 300th Vienna derby between Rapid Wien and Austria Wien. To put that in perspective, only one other football fixture has been played more in Europe: Rangers vs Celtic in Scotland. This is a rough-and-tumble, intense rivalry. It was technically a home game for Rapid Wien, who my guide supported, but the match was played at a neutral field after Rapid Wien stormed the pitch at the last game. In protest of being forced away from their home, the Rapid fans generally stayed quiet and didn't provide quite the atmosphere they usually would. The Austria fans tried to fill the void, but it wasn't quite as intense as it could have been. The match reflected the flatness of the crowd, as it slowly petered out to a 0-0 draw. Not a great match, but it was my first big European match and I loved it!

The Austria Vienna ultras supporting their club

I headed back to the train station after the match and arrived back in Prague around 3:00 AM. 

The most surprising thing I've discovered about myself here is that I seem to actually be Asian. I didn't even know! My roommate is from South Korea. And near my room lives 2 Thai girls, another South Korean, a couple people from Taiwan and a few from Hong Kong. A few nights ago, a few of them made some fantastic Asian food that I ate with actual chopsticks. It was so exciting! Although I spent most of my time slowly destroying pieces of seaweed while trying to make simple rolls with them, I did manage to get most of it to my mouth without too much hassle. I even tried some of the spicy stuff. I'm really going crazy!

In future weeks, I hope to be able to attend more football matches. On the top of my list is my treks to my two Meccas: Craven Cottage in West London to see Fulham and Westfalenstadion in Dortmund to see Borussia Dortmund. Outside of that, I have plans to visit Krakow, Dresden, and Vienna through organized trips with the buddy system here. 

The best plan of all, though, is taking place the weekend of April 1st. I will be traveling to Bologna, Italy to meet up with my good friend and fellow Wildcat, Eduardo Alvarado. The highlight of the trip will be traveling to see local basketball club, CS Bologna, take on Angelico Biella. One of the key players for the away side is one JACOB PULLEN. I case you forgot how to read there (which, if so, that can't be healthy; you ought to get that checked out; randomly forgetting how to read means something neurologically is off; I would imagine those flashes are long, though, and you've probably missed all this anyways; shame), I'll repeat that. JACOB PULLEN.

We're planning on going to see him play, to use such an underwhelming word to describe the fluid motion Mr. Pullen is engaging in, and are probably going to walk up to him with our Kansas State wear proudly shown. He'll be taken aback by his hometown fans and want to grab dinner with us. We'll dine at a nice Italian restaurant with JACOB PULLEN and then just hang out with him. We've got it all planned out. 

Traveling to the Old World

The farthest I have ever been from home on my own was the summer of 2010. I attended Mises University in Auburn, Alabama (682 miles from my hometown) for a week. Presently, I sit high above the Atlantic Ocean hurtling at 660 miles per hour in a small tube on my way to Prague (4931 miles from my hometown) to spend 21 weeks studying at the University of Economics. This is new ground for me; according to the numbers, this is exactly 28.23 times more anxiety-inducing for everyone involved. 

Of course that's utter nonsense, as emotions can't be quantified (note 1),but it gives a little bit of perspective on the how outside of my normal happenings this is. 

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The voice told me that Dallas-Fort Worth airport is the 3rd busiest airport in the world. It seemed an incredible statement as I looked around the somewhat barren terminal, but having been to the most busiest (Atlanta) and being disappointed by the lack of some inkling of violent chaos caused by so many people trying to get to so many places from one launching point, I figured it could be true. The voice did have one way to back its claim; get on the tram. I stepped on at Terminal C and was whizzed around the airport at incredible speeds that helped put it all into perspective. This is a massive place with a lot of people. I finally got to Terminal D, found my gate, and snuck in a meal at Popeyes, which I had been craving for something on a week now. A good omen.

Of course, with the international flight, we are offered dinner. As the flight attendant walked towards me with the massive rolling "tank o' frozen meals," I decided I would kindly reject the meal, as I was completely full. 

30 minutes later: I had completed my duty as an American and eaten everything that was placed on my tray. Well, I didn't finish one thing: the salad. Seemed more patriotic. The meal was surprisingly delicious, as well. I got the vegetable pasta in the hope that Julia Louis-Dreyfuss would appear next to me. It didn't work. As soon as the tray was put before me, I knew I had made the right decision. Next to some crackers sat a small wedge of gourmet cheese. I remembered eating these on plane trips of old to Toronto and Orlando. It was a tiny sliver of my childhood hope all wrapped in tin foil and ready to caress my mouth. 

I had never been so disappointed in my life. I'm pretty sure they had sprayed cheese whiz out of a bottle into tin foil, before covering it in toilet water and spreading a nice layer of "Santa-Claus-isn't-real" childhood killing pus on top just so they could sit back and watch me cry while I ate. This was "Larry Johnson's second season as a Chief" level of disappointment mixed with a "watching the Republican debates" level of anger. A bad omen.

I did eat all the cheese, though. I'm not a Communist.

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For days leading up to me leaving, I had been panicking about the possibility of me panicking while traveling to Europe. All this panicking was not healthy, but the panicking about future panicking turned out to be warranted as I was panicking about making my flight to Prague. The flight from Dallas to London had been delayed, causing us not to land until around 10:20 AM local time. Boarding time for my flight to Prague: 10:15 AM. The captain had told those who are not getting on connecting flights to let those with connecting flights out first. So, of course, everywhere ignored that and stood up. There were 80 people between me and my flight that I had to catch -5 minutes ago. 

Thankfully, the people at American Airlines knew about the mix-up and had a new ticket for me sitting outside the gate for a slightly later flight. Panic level: much lower.

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Panic mode: reengaged! My Czech buddy, Lucie Kalousková, was to be meeting me in Prague at 2:00 PM, but I was now going to be arriving 5:35 PM. Gah! To the pay phone! I punch the behemoth of a number and try to hold onto the phone with my now gushing palms. It didn't help that instead of a nice, classic ring, I got a dull, low-pitched "boop." Each one sounded more like the footstep of a T-Rex coming to destroy Heathrow than a desperate phone call. 

The phone was no use. To the internet! I ripped my laptop from my backpack and wearily connected to Boingo, which doesn't sound anything like a Wifi hotspot finger, but sure enough, I finally was connected. Shot a message to Lucie and felt my pulse slow to a more healthy rate as I slumped down on the bench amongst the huddled masses waiting for their plane out of this dismal place.

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After taking every piece of public transportation conceivable with the fantastic help of Lucie and Matěj, I had arrived at Jarov III F, my dormitory. It is nothing too fancy, but it has all the things that I need. The following day Lucie and I went around to complete all the various tasks that needed doing: exchanged American dollars for Czech crowns, checked in with the immigration office, got my university ID card, set up Wifi at the dorms, got a tram and subway pass for 3 months. I'm getting all settled into the town and have gotten more accustomed to getting around it. Next week is orientation week and the following week is when classes start. For now, I'm just spending time seeing Prague. Between the dorms and school is the home stadium for FK Viktoria Žižkov. They are currently sitting well at the bottom of the Czech Gambrinus Liga. As far as I can tell, Dukla Prague come into town, so to speak, this weekend. Hopefully, I'll be back with pictures and tales for hopefully an exciting, but, more likely, a quite dire soccer match.

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1) I always found it odd when I was asked to rank a pain on a scale of 1-10. Who made this scale? What is a 1? Is 1 no pain? Or is 5 no pain and 1 pleasure? How many people have actually felt a 10 pain? Or a 1 pleasure? More importantly, has the asker felt this range of pains? What if I've just lived in a bubble for all my life and that feeling after eating Taco Bell is a 8.7 on my scale, but barely registers on yours? You're going to be rushing me to the hospital with a bad case of Grade D meat.

2011-2012 Premier League Season Preview

The streets of English cities are being set ablaze in anticipation of the upcoming Premier League season. A mass panic hit the masses and they realized that their 36" televisions were simply too small to hold in the glory that is the Greatest League in the World™. They needed that 42" and it just so happened that the store around the corner had plenty in supply.

At least, this story makes just as much sense as the other ones I've heard to describe the motives of the mobs.

But this is no sociological study, this is a look-ahead to the much-loved/hated English/Barclay's Premier League. So, let's get to it!

At the top of the table, competition for the top spot and the Champions League qualifications is going to be rough. Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur look to be the ones duking it out to be able to finish in the top 4, but then, if they miss that to adeptly dodge that dreaded 5th place spot and qualification to the annoingly much-maligned Europa League.

Right now, Manchester United looks set to defend their league title and to put even more space between them and Liverpool. At the refreshingly exciting Community Shield, in which United created one of their trademark comebacks, it seemed that United was stepping right back into stride. They have been wise with their purchases, bringing in Ashley Young, Phil Jones and David de Gea, and have kept all the pieces of their title-winning team. Their noisy neighbors, Manchester City, looked decidely disjointed during the Manchester Derby. It's sounds clichéd, but there is an important nugget of truth in the fact that United play as a team, whereas City seem to be a collection of individuals thrown out onto the field. Beyond that, the harder part for City is going to be dealing with their foray into the world of Champions League football. United, Arsenal and Chelsea have played this balancing act between domestic and European play for years; City have not. For City to pose a legitimate challenge, Mancini will need to keep this Frankenstein squad happy and playing together. The addition of Sergio Aguero will be a big boost to the team's hopes, as the young Argentine looks like he could be even better than Tevez.

Arsenal will be putting their best foot forward to tackle the might of United, but the hardest part is that even with the season a matter of hours away, no one knows whose foot that will be. The transfer sagas surrounding Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri have become as laughable as they are tiresome. At this point it seems that it might be coming to an end with Wenger finally capitulating to their departure. The loss will be a tough one for the Gunners. Juan Mata looks to be coming in to try and fill that gap, but Arsenal's play is based on the whole team playing as one. When I run this way, you run that way. It takes time to build that sort of connection. Nasri and Fabregas had put that time in; the newcomers will not have. After an embarrasing couple of days at the Emirates Cup, it seems that Arsenal might be just starting with their end-of-the-season collapse rather than building up the hopes of all their fans. How benevolent.

Amongst the overwhelming sea of player transfers, the biggest move of the season might be the acquisition of Andre Villas-Boas from Porto by Chelsea. Roman Abramovich seems to believe that this is the man that will take their storied team to the Champions League glory that they rightly deserve simply because they are Chelsea. That is: he'll believe up until Chelsea don't win the Champions League. Next! The Blues might find that the Essien's absence due to injury could hurt them, but new singings Romelu Lukaku and Oriel Romeu look highly promising. Combined with the return of Daniel Sturridge from a loan spell at Bolton, Villas-Boas will not be lacking in attacking options. They should still finish firmly in the top 4, but United will be just out of their reach. Don't count them out, though. Even after a poor run of form in mid-season, they managed to make up a 18-point gap pull within a single win over United of taking the title.

Read the rest of the article on The Pursuit of Victory here.

Fulham FC: We're All Going On a European Tour

While a "season preview" might be a misnomer given that the season has already started for Fulham FC, I've yet to find a word that means "a look forward at the future of something that has already started but has really just begun so that the look forward is still relatively profitable." Or at least as profitable as any of these look-aheads are.

The Premier League season begins this Saturday, barring the riots spilling over onto the grounds at Craven Cottage as the angry masses yank the biggest statue they can find from the ground (please don't be Johnny Haynes!) and chuck it into the nearby Thames. Actually, that might be worth postponing the first game. No matter, though; let's focus on the important stuff, which is obviously not the overwrought violence, but football!

Fulham are venturing back into Europe looking for a little more of the magic from two years back, when the Whites ran all the way to the final, taking scalps from the likes of Juventus, Shakhtar Donetsk and Hamburg. This European adventure is a tad bit longer, beginning in the First Qualifying Round with all the minnows. Before we look forward to what Fulham can accomplish this year, we need to look back at what has been a surprisingly tumultous summer at the Cottage that has settled down into calmer waters.

It began with the sudden departure of Mark Hughes. The man, who did a proper job with the club during his year-long tenure, declared that he was off to bigger and better things. He was bigger and more ambitious that this small team (who had managed a European final and has finished consistently well in the top league in the world) and was off to bigger and better things. If you thought it was perplexing when that big, ambitious dream lay at Villa Park, imagine how strange it is to find that his final ambitions lie simply on his own couch. How daring! How bold!

It was no problem for Al-Fayed, who simply went out and found the man who he originally wanted instead of Hughes, the affable Martin Jol. Jol came in seeming to be everything that we wanted out of Hughes. He was excited to be here. He was dedicated to the club and didn't just want to use us as a stepping stone to greater things (or to watch those greater things on TV). Looking back, Hughes' departure might be one of the best moves Fulham has made. That's not to say that Hughes did a poor job; he did great job of keeping Fulham completely out of the relegation scrap by the last month of the season even after being plagued with injuries, namely to Bobby Zamora. Jol was the man that was the first choice after Hodgson left and it only seems fitting that he get his chance.

Jol has stated that his policy in the transfer market has been to look for good youth talents. Looking at it now, it is hard to judge how his signings will turn out. Only time can tell on that. Hungarian goalkeeper, Csaba Somogyi, impressed Jol when he went on trial at Ajax. He has only signed a one year deal and looks to serve as an emergency netminder with Mark Schwarzer starting and Neil Etheridge deputizing. Czech midfielder, Marcel Gecov, impressed enough at the European U21 Championships to get named to the team of the tournament to get a signing at Fulham. Jol's other youth signing, thus far, is 2009 U-17 World Cup champion, Pajtim Kasami, a midfielder, who was signed from Palermo. Promising 19-year old defender, Dan Burn from Darlington, along with Everton youth product, Tom Donegan, who defeated the Whites in the Academy League Final, were brought in before Jol and both look like potential first-teamers who could make a good impact. 


Read the rest of the article on The Pursuit of Victory here.

Don't Write Off Dortmund Just Yet

I was told that summertime was going to be a barren wasteland in terms of soccer at the end of the last European season, my first while following the sport. It was a lie. The summer was packed with MLS, Copa America, U20 European Championships, the Women's World Cup, the U20 and U17 World Cups, Scandanavian domestic leagues, South American domestic leagues and a myriad of friendlies. The soccer season never really ends. The focus is now turning back to Europe, as the biggest leagues in the world restart their season. Friday marks the kickoff of the German Bundesliga as defending champions, Borussia Dortmund, face off against Hamburg SV. 

Borussia Dortmund are an interesting team, to say the least. After a surprising domination of the league last year, many are questioning whether or not they have the ability to defend their title. Most commentators are saying that BVB are capable enough to finish in the top 4, but would struggle to defend the title that nearly everyone is handing over to Bayern Munich. I think people are generally underestimating this Dortmund team, much like last year, and--don't take this the wrong way--are overstating the impact of Nuri Şahin's loss. 

The main reason that people see Dortmund falling down the table is the loss of the amazing Turkish midfielder to Real Madrid. Şahin is an absolutely fantastic player. He sprayed the ball around expertly to his forward midfielders and was a goal threat on late runs. It appears that Dortmund will not be able to replace him. And, I believe that appearance is true. But, Dortmund doesn't need to replace Şahin to be just as good or even to get better. Dortmund simply needs to adapt to their new players and work with who they have. Ilkay Gundogan doesn't need to play exactly like Şahin, he needs to play like Gundogan. The production that Şahin brought does not need to be replaced one-for-one, but rather needs to found throughout the squad. If Dortmund have anything, they have the ability to improve on last season, because they are such a youthful squad. 


Read the rest of the article on The Pursuit of Victory here.

The US Open Cup and Soccer in the USA

The US Open Cup may not receive the coverage the MLS enjoys but its place in the USA's sporting history is bigger than many may realize 

Pleasant surprises: those wonderful little moments of unexpected glee. We all love them and we all experience them. They make life enjoyable and can give us that extra lift to get through the day. And I had one of the best of all time.

My hometown team, Sporting Kansas City, was having to qualify to enter the 2011 version of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup and the first qualifier was that night. We were fighting for the last two MLS spots to this national cup competition and our first match was against the Houston Dynamo. I went to wikipedia, my source for most of my sports scores, and searched "US Open Cup". Every page for a competition has this nifty link at the bottom of the info box on the right side that takes you directly to all the information about the current edition and the US Open Cup page was no different. 

Before I reached that expertly placed link, I was pleasantly surprised. 

Wait. That's probably understating it, though. 

No. That's definitely understating it. 

It was much more of an stupendous shock. The sort of moment that takes your breath away and makes your heart stop for half a second. Above the link to the 2011 US Open Cup was one simple piece of information about this cup. It stated simply: "Founded: 1914." I was dumbfounded! I was still in the middle of learning a lot about soccer in America and it was only a few weeks before this that I began to hear tales of the mythical North American Soccer League that brought professional soccer to the States way back in the 1970's. I was stunned when I heard that the Portland Timbers were not merely an expansion side and that the Cascadia Cup was not a new competition. Not at all! The Timbers and Sounders have been duking it out for decades. American soccer had history! We've played for over 40 years! 

But, nearly 100 years? Since 1914? Surely not!

It was all true, though. The United States has a rich footballing history and the US Open Cup is the best example of that fact. 

To understand the US Open Cup, you actually have to go even farther back into history to 1884. In this year, the first organizing soccer organization, the American Football Association (AFA), was born. It only covered regions around New Jersey and New York, but was still ground-breaking. Most importantly for this story, the AFA organized America's first non-league cup, the American Cup. The first American soccer dynasty of sorts came about as Clark ONT, a team from northern New Jersey sponsored by the local Clark Thread Company, swept the first three American Cups. Teams from New Jersey and Massachusetts dominated the competition until 1897 when the Philadelphia Mainz defeated the previous year's champions, Paterson True Blues. 

Read the rest of the article on In Bed With Maradona here.

All the World's a Stage. Especially the Pitch.

The whole night reeked of archetype. And, unfortunately for Sporting KC, the archetype places David as the firm victor over Goliath. 

The crowd was excited for this match-up. We were in the quarterfinals of the US Open Cup, 3 victories away from our first piece of silverware in 7 years and a birth to the growing CONCACAF Champions League. Plus, we were matched up with the only remaining non-MLS team. We could prance into the semi-finals! 

Just like the Crew did into the quarters.

The Kickers are no joke. They play solid, disciplined defense, which is absolutely vital, if you hope to upset more talented teams. Richmond's defensive 4-4-1-1 spoiled wave after wave of attack and even sprouted a few dangerous counters. Sporting put plenty of shots on goal, but Richmond never allowed more than a half-chance at goal. It certainly helped them that Sporting, especially Teal Bunbury, seemed to lack that killer instinct. Players seemed to be trying to score the perfect goal at times rather than simply trying to score. When the referee blew for halftime with the match still scoreless, things looked troubling both on the pitch and on the horizon.

A storm brewed in the distance. Thunder. Lightning. Huge downpours. A chance of hail and maybe even a tornado. It was going to be destructive. It was going to ruin our Open Cup dreams. It was more than just a little rain. It was a tragedy on its way to Livestrong Sporting Park. 

After 20 more minutes of scoreless play, the storm stopped the game. Lightning was in the area. The game was delayed for an hour and a half. For 90 minutes, fans worried about the worst possibility. Sporting rued missed chances. And, the Kickers went down to the brook and found 5 smooth stones to slay the giant. The symbolism was not favoring us and we could all sense it. That ugly sense of foreboding that seemed inescapable was attacking our spirits and it wasn't a welcome feeling.


Read the rest of the article on The Pursuit of Victory here.

The (Seemingly) Forgotten Cup

In the process of learning some of the history of the Beautiful Game, I was reading up on the Cup Winners' Cup. It was a fascinating competition put on by UEFA from 1960-1999. The winners of the domestic cups in each country were allowed to compete in a straight knockout tournament. In effect, it was an extension of the domestic cup tournaments taken to the international level. 

But it extended not just the format, but also all the exuberance and anxiety that comes with a knockout tournament. It was all or nothing. No wishy-washy round robin format. You won or went home. It didn't matter if you were Barcelona and they were Slovan Bratinslava (1); you still had to go out and win the game. The Cup Winners' Cup filled us with thrilling tales of underdog victories over European giants. One of the most notable was MTK Budapest's overtaking of Celtic in the semi-finals of the 1963-64 version of the tournament. Celtic took a comfortable 3-0 lead into the second leg, but Hungarian giants, but relative minnows in Europe, stormed back to win 4-0 in Budapest to go to the final against Sporting Clube de Portugal, who they pushed to a replay that they lost 1-0. 

Cup competitions are one of my favorite things in the world of football. The FA Cup was absolutely thrilling this year. Leighton Baines' amazing equalizer that pushed Everton's 4th Round replay with Chelsea into penalties was only topped by Reading's victory over that same Everton team in the next round. Leyton Orient's late strike from Jonathan Téhoué to force a replay against Arsenal was stunning. The Manchester derby in the semi-final was a superb match that could be looked back upon as the first signs of a slow changing of the guard in the city. The rest of the cup tournaments had just as much excitement. Cristiano Ronaldo's header in extra-time of the Copa del Rey final was one of the few beautiful moments of the series of Clásicos. The Coppa Italia, Coupe de France, Taça de Portugal, and the rest of the cup competitions contained some of the greatest games of the season.

Which is why I was so stunned when only 4500 people showed up to Livestrong Sporting Park on Tuesday night for the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup match against Chicago Fire PDL. And that was one of the higher attendances amongst the 8 games that night in the United States' cup competition. It confounded me as to why American audiences were not interested in the competition. 


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Read the rest of the article here on The Pursuit of Victory.

The Dastardly Deed of Diving

On Saturday at Rio Tinto Stadium, a tragedy occurred. After 83 minutes of grueling soccer, Real Salt Lake held a slim 1-0 lead over DC United. It was a hard-fought game and DC were hoping to be able to nab a point at one of the toughest places to get points from.

Enter Charlie Davies.

After receiving the ball between the midfield at the 18-yard box, he begins his run down the right side of the box. Defender Chris Wingert steps over to stop the run. He slides in front of Davies, knocking the ball away slightly. It looks to be clean. He didn't touch Davies. He got the ball. Good play. Except for one small thing: Davies dived. He fell straight forward, as if he had been touched, and the ref awarded him a penalty. He grabs the ball, lines up for the penalty, slots it nicely in the bottom-left corner, just underneath the diving Rimando and wheels away to celebrate the point taken from Rio Tinto.

And, in this instance, taken should include all the negative connotation that you can imagine. RSL were robbed of 2 points and Davies had no shame in it.

Diving has been a controversial topic, especially in American circles, and most of the flak seems to revolve around Charlie Davies (or Diveies, if you like), as this is not his first dive in DC United colors. His actions are an absolute disgrace to the beautiful game, to MLS, to DC United and to himself.

All sports are mainly built around showing off physical ability and talent. For a striker, this means showing off your ability to get the ball past defenders and the goalkeeper and into the back of the net. Few things are as beautiful as watching a devastating attacker weave through defenders and slot the ball past the goalkeeper. On the other hand, there is nothing beautiful about pretending to be tackled. But, unfortunately, with the rules as is, there is greater incentive for attackers to fall over at the slightest contact (or even the possibility of contact) rather than try to create a wondrous goal to wow the audience. It is even worse when watching a player like Davies do it, because he has the talent and the ability to create great-looking goals, but instead he opts for diving.

That's part of what is harming a lot of South American players. In Brazil, Argentina and the rest of the continent, diving is part of the game. Players dive at midfield when touched in hopes of getting a free kick from 60 yards away. Once they're in the penalty box, its only a matter of time before players are rolling on the ground. Play-acting to get cards and free kicks is not a beautiful thing to watch. The world didn't fall in love with the Brazilian style of play because they were really good at diving to get penalties. We fell in love with them because of the amazing individual skill: the glorious backheels, gorgeous dribbling and exquisite finishing. And the fact that they did it all with the biggest smiles on their faces, not the fake grimace that fills the faces of delinquent divers.

Today, many Brazilian stars have to take at least a year or so to acclimate to the referring climate when they move to Europe. Even when they move to Spain or Italy, the refs are cracking down more on diving than in their home leagues. Neymar is the next in line to make that transition. After getting a booking in the Copa Libertadores final for diving (continental competition in South American is tougher on diving than the domestic leagues), Neymar was forced to stay on his feet for the rest of the game. Even though he wasn't at the top of his game, he still looked very good and showed off some wonderful skill. When he makes a move to Europe, especially if he moves to England, he is going to have to retrain himself to stay up when people come near and not fall over, lest he be ejected for his play-acting.

The world watched in horror as Barcelona and Real Madrid fought back and forth for the title of who would dive the most in the first leg of their Champions League battle. That spectacle was made even worse by the fact that neither of these teams need to resort to such petty tactics to get good results. After the game everyone agreed: that was not a good match. It was not beautiful. Arguably, the two best teams in the world put on one of the ugliest matches ever. It was a poor advertisement for the beautiful game.

As an American fan, I'm always working hard to get more American fans to support the game. Luckily, I had not convinced any of my friends to watch this game with me, because had they seen it, I would have never gotten them to watch another game. It was everything that was bad about the game crammed into one game. Save for Messi's brilliance at the end, it was nothing but a desolate wasteland.

To me, the only thing more aggravating than watching that wreck of a game or watching Davies dive to steal a point off of RSL is listening to people try to defend these actions. The apologists of diving are just as bad as those who are out on the field diving. If they cared about maintaining the beauty of this game, they would understand that diving has no place in this sport.

Some have pegged diving as the attacker's last refuge of safety against growing defenders who can push them around the pitch. This is disastrously wrong-headed. The attacker has an array of weapons to combat against defenders who might be much bigger. The biggest advantage is their smaller size. They are quicker. They maneuver better and should use this to get around defenders rather than running at them in the hopes of drawing a soft foul. The battle of big versus small, quick vs tough, is a classic match-up in all sports. To claim that the only way that the small, quick players can get by is to dive is to underestimate their ability tremendously. Also, there is no reason to think that all attackers are small and all defenders are big oafs. Bobby Zamora is one of many strikers who beat up and bruise defenders with their big size on their way to goal.

Others have argued that in the battle between defenders and attackers, defenders often use professional fouls to stop the run of play when an attacker has a goal-scoring opportunity. Therefore, attackers ought to be able to use diving. Both are against the rules, but most don't see professional fouls as some attack against the integrity of the game, so neither should they seeing diving in such a negative light.

This blurs the distinction between diving and professional fouls. The main difference is deception, specifically towards the referee. Deception is part of all sports. You want to deceive the opposing team into thinking that you are going one way when you are going the other or that you are going to run one play when you are actually running another. Deception is a key part of soccer, especially from a tactical point of view, but also when dealing with individual skill, but only when that deception goes as far as the opponent. During the course of the game, it is the referee's duty to mete out justice: to keep the game fair for both teams. In order for this to be successful, the referee cannot be deceived. In a court of law, deceiving a judge can see you imprisoned for perjury. On the football pitch, deceiving a referee ought to be met with punishment as well and should not be praised. It stifles the game and creates an unfair match.

Chris Wingert had done nothing wrong when he knocked the ball away from Charlies Davies, but he was punished for it, because Davies deceived the referee. Would the defenders of diving feel the same if instead of giving a PK, Wingert was given a prison sentence because Davies deceived a judge? The principle is the same in both situations. Deceiving that person who is duty-bound to dole out justice is not a moral action. (This rule comes with one exception: if that judge is not doling out justice correctly, then you ought to deceive the judge to make sure that his or her false sense of justice is not taken out on innocent persons. This exception will never appear on the football pitch, though, even if it is quite common in the court of law.)

Diving is wrong, because it attempts to deceive the referee and causes him or her to mete out justice incorrectly due to false information. Professional fouls are perfectly fine, because they in no way attempt to deceive the referee. The player engaging in a professional foul understands what they are doing and what the consequences are and ought to be willing to pay them as they are spelled out. That's why I had no problem with Suarez using his hands to keep the Ghanaian shot out of goal, but am deeply troubled by Davies' dive against RSL.