The European Leagues are now wrapping up their domestic seasons. This means that only one more big game remains and that is the oft-written about UEFA Champions League Final that I've been mentioning in this Newsletter. The final takes place next weekend, Saturday, June 1, 2019 when English Premier League teams Liverpool FC and Tottenham Hotspur compete for the championship in Madrid, Spain. The reason I love this championship so much is that it's what got me truly into the sport. Way back in 2008 I was a fresh-faced college student visiting London to study a whole bunch of history, writing skills, and literary classics. It was a time when I was maybe a little more concerned with being a lush and a degenerate, but we all have our moments. The summer of 2008 gave me a real taste of how passionate people feel for the sport of soccer. This week, you get to learn…
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DC has entered its monsoon season with the shifting atmospheric pressure and that means I'll conjure up an old cliché to sell the impact this last week in soccer. Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool FC proved how strong the English Premier League is on the world stage. Both teams came into their second-leg UEFA Champions League semi-final matches facing deficits against two strong teams. Spanish La Liga club Barcelona were the giants of the remaining four teams. With a soccer legend like Lionel Messi and a quality squad behind him, it was tough foreseeing Liverpool making a comeback. Yet, they did it in Liverpool's home fortress of Anfield. Just a ways away over in the Netherlands, a wounded and short-handed Tottenham Hotspur were facing off against Ajax, the giant killers of the Champions League. Who did they slay on their quest for Champions League glory? Real Madrid, who are heated rivals with Barcelona and Juventus, who conquered Italy and had their sights set on the rest of Europe. But Ajax found a way to beat them all. Surely, a beleaguered Tottenham was going to a piece of cake. Yet, even Ajax wasn't ready for the fight that exists within a downed--but not out--English club.
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There was a time when soccer was poised to become the next great American sport. The North American Soccer League was that platform for teams and players to enter the pantheon of athletic greatness. But something happened. Maybe a fervor of anti-communist rhetoric had kept the sport born of the working class from taking a foothold. Perhaps a cabal of capitalist pig millionaires had conspired to quash incoming competition. Maybe America just had too many sports for people to care about. When the NASL died shortly after its founding, America was devoid of professional soccer on a major level. That was until 1993 when the US Soccer Federation won a bid for the 1994 FIFA World Cup and established Major League Soccer. The league kicked off last week, so now is a good time to...
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