Ipswich vs. St Etienne

Another Wednesday entry as I’ll most likely be in Fo’Lee, NJ on Friday.  Enjoy!

Way back when – 1981 – I was attending a Catholic school in Paris, France, called Marymount.   The NFL was all but unknown and the Internet as well.   Errr, the school did replay the 1982 Super Bowl, 49ers vs. Bengals (with Joe Montana).  Anyhow.  The student body got into a huge uproar about a soccer game (???) between Ipswich (who?) and St. Etienne (who? Part 2).   I figured out that Ipswich was from the England and St. Etienne was from the France.   Did I care?  No.  But I felt like I was the only one who didn’t.

Eons later, with this Internet thing – and having finally gotten “into” soccer, since 2000 – I finally delved into this and determined what the hell was going on.

This was the UEFA Cup Quarter Final – not even a FINAL! – between Ipswich Town FC and St. Etienne (ASSE).   UEFA isn’t even Champions League, which takes the best European teams and plays them against each other (in 1981 Liverpool beat Real Madrid).  UEFA is for the teams not quite good enough to make it into Champions League – think of it as Champions League Jr.   Nowadays Ipswich is in second tier English soccer, demoted thereto in 2002 from Premier League (first division).  St. Etienne is in French First Division but hasn’t won that division since…1981.  Back then they had Michel Platini and were actually competitive.  Not so much nowadays.

Ipswich won that match-up (two games, home and away) and went on to beat FC Koln (German team – currently in last place in Bundesliga 1, in danger of being demoted down to Bunda-2) in the semi-final, then beat AZ (some Dutch team, currently in fourth place in Dutch First Division) in the final.  For all the hoopla about the Ipswich vs. St. Etienne match-up, no one said any word about FC Koln or AZ, which leads me to suspect that 99% of the people going on about it were probably – out of loyalty to the host country – supporters of St. Etienne.  Actually I have two St. Etienne jerseys, and no Ipswich jerseys.  So count me in favor of the French team, although (as noted) I was militantly indifferent to the two at the time. 

If I had to pick a favorite for French First Division I’d probably pick Paris St-Germain, especially now that they have star Brazilian player Neymar.  Arsenal are my favorite English team (the cannon is so damn cool), Bayern Munich for Germany (visited their Olympic stadium in January 1990), and Flamengo for Brazil.  These are mild preferences though, ones the true fans would scoff at.  (Groundskeeper Willie:  “You call this a soccer riot??”).  I don’t have any MLS preference, not even for DC United, the local team – though I have seen them play Bayer Leverkusen and FC Dallas. 

Oblivious to soccer when I lived in Europe, I corrected that somewhat on my latest trip to Paris.  Although Paris St-Germain was out of town playing a Dutch team (RSC Anderlecht, who they beat 4-0), I visited their store, and picked up the newest Bayern Munich away jersey at the Adidas store on the Champs Elysees. 

Soccer vs. Football.   I might as well address this topic, which I don’t feel is substantial enough to merit a blog entry on its own.  I grew up in the US in the 1970s and adopted the Minnesota Vikings as my favorite team, mainly due to three Super Bowl appearances and Fran Tarkenton.  Plus I like purple and the helmets.  While the Vikings have been to the NFC Championship game several times since then – the winner advancing to the Super Bowl – they have not won (yet).  This includes heartbreaking losses to the Falcons, Giants (41-0…WTF?) and Saints (Brett Favre as QB for the Vikings).  While I wear many different soccer jerseys, including jerseys of mutual rivals, for the NFL I only wear one team’s:  the Vikings.  I have an older #10 Fran Tarkenton jersey, a slightly newer Brett Favre #4 jersey (the throwbacks version, not the contemporary version), and two fairly new ones, #69 Jared Allen and #28 Adrian Peterson.  All are home jerseys.  With the obvious exception of Tarkenton – I was 9 when he retired – the other three I purchased when the players were still on the team. 

I got into soccer in 2000 after visiting Rio de Janeiro a few times and even seeing Flamengo play Fluminense at Maracana in 2004 (an unusually exciting game, 4-3 for Flamengo after falling to 3-1), immediately before the Patriots-Panthers Janet Jackson Super Bowl.  I got cable expressly to watch soccer.  Then….never watched it.   I catch most of the World Cup games, particularly Brazil and Germany, and the Final.  The US didn’t qualify this time, but neither did Italy.  We’ll see what happens in Russia.  FYI, NONE of Brazil’s 5 World Cup victories were in Brazil:  they lost in the final to Uruguay in 1950, when Maracana had just opened, and in the semi-final to Germany (7-1!!!) in Rio this time around.

I can’t say I diligently watch the NFL, but you can bet I watch the Super Bowl and most playoff games, and any locally televised Vikings game.  Of the rest I watch about half, depending on who’s playing and how busy I am.   I try to watch Monday Night Football with my brother, but our schedules don’t always allow it.   

Oddly, I’ve seen only one NFL game – Redskins against ??? at FedEx – but several soccer games.  I don’t even watch Champions League finals, nor Premier League, Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga, nor the Brasileirão.  Mind you, the Vikings have played local games against the Redskins, but even then I didn’t bother.  RFK Stadium, where the Redskins used to play, isn’t too inconvenient, being right next to the metro.  I’ve been to a few concerts there, including two Dead shows and two Metallica concerts.  Actually, I’ve seen soccer games there (DC United and AC Milan vs. Barcelona).  But my brother has warned me off seeing any games at FedEx, which he says is a huge pain in the ass to get to.  Maybe someday I’ll make a pilgrimage to Minneapolis.  I hear they have big mall there, too. 

Of course, I’ve been to more concerts than all sporting events, of whatever sport, combined.  The larger concerts are held at indoor arenas (where basketball or hockey would be played), the biggest at football stadiums, e.g. RFK.  My brother had the unpleasant experience of bringing his son to a Redskins game at FedEx Field (the boy was born long after the Skins moved there from RFK) and had to put up with foul language and behavior from the notoriously ill-behaved Redskins fans.  By its nature, a sporting event celebrates adversity:  the outcome is a zero-sum game with one team’s victory at the expense of the other team’s defeat.  Naturally this elicits a dynamic of aggression and hostility.  Some of the nastier thrash bands do this as well – Slayer and Metallica come to mind – but for the most part at concerts the entire crowd is essentially cheering for the same team.  Moreover I’m far more of a music fan than a sports fan.  Anyhow.

The sad truth is that I find soccer more fun to PLAY than football (though I haven’t played in ages), but football is more fun to WATCH.   Not even close.

SKOL!!!