Soccer – boring as hell or M.U.P.I.T.S? (Part 2!)

What’s your favourite or highest ranked sporting rivalry?

The interest and banter regarding soccer’s place in the sporting stratosphere – undeniable bore or the greatest show on earth, has stimulated some great, good-hearted banter among the faithful. Tuesday’s Part 1 got the ball rolling, but 3 crucial aspects just couldn’t fit in an already over-sized post –

• The teams,
• The rivalries, and
• The players

Man U and Liverpool ... not getting along.

The epic rivalries

You can be forgiven for thinking that the sport you follow has to have the greatest rivalry, but I would suggest that that is because you know the back-story, and the history, controversies, monu-mental games, personal hatreds, coaching and management back-biting, and you know and probably ‘hate’ most of their fans.

And if it’s important to you, who are we to say that it’s not a significant rivalry??

The Lakers-Celtics rivalry. I wonder how that got heated up? (There's not a team I hate more...)

You could name Lakers – Celtics, Carlton – Collingwood (or Port – Adelaide), Yankees – Red Sox, Patriots – Giants, Duke – everyone in American college basketball, and that’s not even including the inter-country rifts such as Indian – Pakistan in cricket, Australia – New Zealand in rugby, Canada – USA in the ice hockey, which is almost unparalleled in terms of the genuine fear the Canucks have of losing to the US! The list could go on, but it won’t because I’m afraid I’m going to get onto Google and never be heard from again as I become fascinatedly lost in the plethora of genuine sporting conflicts across the globe.

Soccer, on the other hand, presents long-standing, bitter resentment built up over decades, even centuries. We could give you AC Milan – Inter Milan, Manchester United – Liverpool, even Barcelona – Real Madrid…

Celtic - Rangers. Eesh.

The big one

But above them all is the unique, vicious Celtic – Rangers rivalry, where the bile sectarianism that underpins it is vile.

Soccer – boring as hell or M.U.P.I.T.S? (Part 1!)

Well, after a turn to Serious Town last week with two posts – 5 regrets of the dying and Fear – I don’t want this to end, a change of pace was definitely in need. And I’m not just talking about you the reader; I needed to chill out, too!

So, without further ado – Soccer – boring as hell or M.U.P.I.T.S (Most Underrated Pastime In The Southern hemisphere)?!

You see, I’ve wanted to address the allure of soccer for some time, but, just like a space shuttle launch, the timing needed to be juuuust right. A mere 37 days remain before I re-enter the sporting world and a huyuge question remains –

• Will I go back to soccer?

If you’ve stuck with the journey for a while, you will have read laments on missing football grand finals, incredible NBA Finals series, Super Bowls with my team, amazing cricket feats, even WrestleManias.

Yet early on, it was an innocuous soccer match in August that first made me question my ability to see the journey through to the end. Missing the thrills of an unprecedented 8-2 victory by United over Arsenal was rough, but obviously, not the end of it.

But since then, nothing.

As I noted in ‘U-ni-ted!’ – the second piece e-ver in this forum, being a soccer fan can be a pretty isolating existence in Australia. The game times – stupid o’clock in the middle of the night, the lack of friends who are into the sport and the absence of saturated media coverage meant that going without was pretty easy.

There’s only one mate who would send me news, so for all intents and purposes, I was in blissful ignorance.

It wasn’t until my wife’s alarm went off recently and a news report was noting Man U’s ascendancy to the top of the table that I had a clue that we were doing that well!

So … why would you go back?

12 things to do on a public holiday, and not at all busy!

‘So, how’s that 3^rd gear going for you?!’

It’s nice to be heckled by your wife when you’re trying to be helpful around the house on a public holiday…

In Mrs YWS’ defence, I had just noted that I had a ‘To do list’ that had hit double figures.

She was referring to my 2012 goal of trying to find the 3^rd gear more often. I seemed to either be stuck in 5^th gear, going at an unrealistic pace, or crashing in 1^st gear, or with the handbrake on, honestly, ‘recovering’ from another hectic day or week.

So, I had decided to break out of this pattern, aim for a more sustainable pace of life this year.

Back down to earth

Well, it took me about 6 hours of being back to work to realise that this was not going to work during business hours. Teaching is a profession that lends itself to a ‘5^th or 1^st gear’ philosophy.

Therefore, I had to look at the remaining hours I had left and be constructive with those; change my posture. No longer would I look to the recliner as my haven from the frenetic culture of which I am a part.

To a degree, it is a great place to find rest and recreation. But, spend too many hours there and you get up feeling more … I believe the technical term is ‘blah’.