TWAG (This Week at Ginger's): Episode 2 - That Explains the Six Cups of Coffee

It was -5 when I woke up on Sunday morning. The first breath I took when I stepped outside hurt my lungs.

But I have no Setanta and:

A) I wanted to see the remnants of United v. Citeh (if only for the retro kits)
2) I had a commitment from the two ladies you see in the picture above to actually make it to Ginger's to watch the late match of Liverpool v. Chelsea.

And I'm not sure which was more surprising. The Citeh win or the fact that the two girls made it, and even brought a third with them (Note: The pic is not from Ginger's on Sunday but from lunch the day before). The latter because, again, it was below zero (Fahrenheit, kids, we're not cheating with Celsius here) and neither of them know shit about soccer.

The blonde on the right, her name is LeighAnne. Here's an actual conversation we had.

Me: "That's Steven Gerrard. He's one of England's better players."
LeighAnne: "I thought that was Liverpool in red."
Me: "It is. He's English though, so he also plays for the English national team."
LeighAnne: "Isn't that where Beckham played before he came here."
Me: "Well, yes, sometiems. But he also played in Spain at Real Madrid."
LeighAnne: "But he's not Spanish."
Me: "It doesn't matter. You can play your club soccer anywhere. There are Spaniards playing in England and Brazilians playing in Italy."
LeighAnne: "So then they don't play for Brazil?"
Me: "No, they play for Brazil, they just play their club soccer in Europe."
LeighAnne: "How do they play for two teams at the same time?"

What that transcription doesn't give you is the visual of me starting to pound my head against the table.

I tried to explain that, the same way LeBron James plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers and Kobe Bryant plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, when it comes time for the Olympics, they both play for the USA. Somehow she missed the analogy.

She's not stupid. She just clearly doesn't understand soccer, or at least soccer leagues—the game it self it pretty easy: kick the ball into their net, you can't use your hands—but she got irritated that I would call them "clubs" and not "teams" not understanding that all clubs field teams, but not all teams are club teams.

Anyway, a friend of mine had a saying, a variant of Murphy's Law I guess that went: "It's always a good movie, until mom and dad come downstairs and people start fucking."

Sure enough. I drag cute girls to a bar at gawdearly on a shit cold Sunday and what do they get? Liverpool and Chelsea. Between them, the sides combined to score zero goals, created maybe π scoring chances, and put at least 9,458 people into boredom-induced comas.

If not for the girls, I wouldn't have stayed and I like soccer (Soc-cer?).

So instead, to entertain themselves, the girls degenerated into "He's cute" (Ballack) and "I kind of like him. He's rugged in a Matt Damon sort of way" (Riise). Fortunately, for her she only saw Riise from profile during a throw in. From head on, Riise looks like he got struck with an ugly free-kick one too many times. And as for Ballack, meh. The low point of the day was when LeighAnne gushed over how cute Frank Lampard was.

Great, there's zero fucking action on the pitch and my friend is going to become a Chelsea fan because the biggest douche in the EPL is dreamy. This couldn't backfire any worse. Someone alert Rafa, not only did Spain's midweek friendly cost him Torres, but the lack of a good-looking Torres cost Liverpool a potential fan.

So thanks guys, I'm trying to be an ambassador for the game, and a poon ambassador at that, and two of the Big 4 decide to engage in a 90-minute sleepwalk with a couple of stepovers. So yep, soccer is boring. That's exactly what they are going to tell all of their friends at work today when they have the "So what'd you do over the weekend" gossip chat.

And what counter do I have? "Well, you should have seen the Tottenham - Birmingham City match in Novemeber. That was cracking good excitement from mid-table teams. Well, just below mid-table to be accurate."

I should know better: Next time you hoodwink girls (or anybody for that matter) into watching soocer, bring them to an Arsenal match. That's not blatant homerism as, 9 times out of 10, at least an Arsenall match will be pretty to watch, but I'm pretty sure I'll be dragging my ass and my ass alone to the United v. Arsenal FA Cup tie this Sunday.

At least I have the prospect of saddling up to Ronaldo McBoSoxHat. Yipee.