Fairweather fan?

So, my post yesterday has generated a pretty animated response in my estimated readership of one. My wife has told me in no uncertain terms that she is disappointed in the defeatism of the post, and especially the bit about looking forward to the gridiron season. She even went so far as to imply the "FF phrase."

I must insist that a downcast blog post written in the lingering hangover of a weekend of two big losses (one big because of the occasion, the other because of the score line) does not a fairweather fan reveal. I followed the Jaguars when they were 4-12, and when the roster was gutted due to the salary cap sins of the father being visited upon the metaphorical son. When I became a fan of the Atlanta Braves in the 80s, they were mired in years of playing some of the worst baseball the National League has ever seen. In my brief tenure as a soccer fan, I have withstood two straight fizzled promoion campaigns and two straight first-round exits from the MLS playoffs. For god's sake, I even endured the Zook years!

So, for the record, I can't see ever giving up on my Hoops, my Bluebirds, or any other team I follow, and certainly never for a reason as silly as losing games. If I get smacked around by the football gods on some weekends, I might let off a little psychological steam, but these teams are stuck with my grumpy ass for the long haul.

Portsmouth 1 - 0 Cardiff; FC Dallas 1 - 5 LA Galaxy

Not a good soccer weekend for me. At least Cardiff kept it respectable and had some chances, but the magnitude of the loss is still quite the bummer. The Hoops, on the other hand, have me doubting the legitimacy of MLS as a competitive entity. Seriously... 5-1? I can't be the only FC Dallas fan who found himself wondering if the fix was in. The silver lining, if there is one, is to here the (remaining) crowd booing every touch of the World's Biggest Soccer Star™ after he displayed some not-so-classy behavior in the wake of a tough tackle (but one that deserved a yellow at most, if you ask me).

So, when does (American) football season start?

Anyway:

Cardiff 3 - 0 Barnsley

No revenge for Barnsley.

In a meaningless but fun end to the league season, Cardiff climbed a little higher up into mid-table mediocrity. Frankly, I'm ready for the next game.

Anyway...

Cardiff 1 - 0 Barnsley (FA Cup)

Okay, I can calm down now. Wait, no I can't.

Cardiff are in the FA Cup final! HO-LEE SHIT!

The best part of this may be that the winning goal was scored, brilliantly, I might add, by Joe Ledley, a product of the club's academy and a Cardiff native and Cardiff City fan. Something like this is why you root for a team outside the big four. This is the apotheosis of the romance of an open cup competition. This is awesome, in the root-word sense of the word. I am in awe of the Bluebirds right now.

Of course, nothing but respect to Barnsley, who put their all into this cup run, and without whose giant-killing exploits Cardiff (and Portsmouth, for that matter), might not even have the chance to win this thing. It was a hard-fought, basically clean match, and even I felt for Bansley striker Kayode Odejayi. I really think that, while running full tilt, he saw the desperate Cardiff defender out of the corner of his eye and thought that the near post was the only chance to score. Poor guy looked gutted, but here's hoping he gets over it.

Adding to the good news (but let's not get ahead of ourselves), it looks Cardiff will have a real shot at a UEFA Cup slot if they beat Pompey, though some people, of course, weren't likin' it.

Anyway...

BLOOOBIRDS!

More later, for now, I am just happy. Bluebirds in the FA Cup final!
YIPPY-KYE-YAY, MOTHERFUCKERS!

Cardiff in the UEFA Cup? Perish the thought!

Cardiff City, of course, is headed to new Wembley for a semi-final in the craziest FA Cup this side of 1980. They'll be playing Barnsley, the giant-killers (great example in that link of an American journalist having to write for an unfamiliar audience, by the way). Fortunately, Cardiff are not giants, so the Bluebirds have a reasonable chance of advancing to the final, a game in which a win earns the victors a trip to Europe's second-most-important pan-national club tournament.

That is, of course, unless that winning team is Cardiff.

As background, I should mention that from a soccer standpoint, Wales is as independent of England as is Brazil, with it's own National Team, (such as it is), own governing body (such as it is -- which isn't much), and even its own top-level league (such as it is -- which isn't much -- at all -- no, seriously -- it's crap -- no offense -- and don't even get me started on the FAW Premier Cup). Cardiff, along with a few other clubs, play in the English system because, historically, the FA of Wales was even more crap than it is now. However, the Bluebirds still played in the Welsh Cup, run by the FAW along the same lines as England's FA Cup. Cardiff often won this cup, and with it the right to play in European competitions that eventually merged into and/or evolved into and/or were replaced by the UEFA Cup. Cardiff was in many ways very lucky to be able to do this, but the spots were Wales's to give, and they gave them to any team based in Wales that won the Welsh Cup.

Eventually, however, the FAW began to notice that the rest of Europe was (a) annoyed that England's smaller neighbors had an anachronistically large influence on the rules of soccer, and (b) noticing how truly crap the FAW was. Therefore, to ensure their survival and that of the national team (both laudable ends, particularly the latter), the FAW tried to appear to be aiming for Scottish levels of non-crap. To that end, they set up the League of Wales (meh -- whatever, but the potentially ultra-prestigious Champions League is based on doing well in League play, and they wanted to enter somebody), but they declared that only teams competing in a Welsh league would be allowed to play in the Welsh Cup, with the prize of a UEFA Cup berth. Of course, for the FAW, the result was excluding their three best clubs and three more that could arguably be the next three best clubs (i.e. Newport County, Colwyn Bay, and Merthyr Tydfil), and the lack of any positive Welsh results in European club tournaments speaks volumes. The FAW are crap.

As has already been mentioned once or twice, the FAW are a bit crap, and the League of Wales is also quite a bit crap (and of course I mean strictly from a competitive standpoint; far be it from me to impugn someone for supporting their local club, but still, it's really crap). Because of this, Cardiff and the rest told the FAW what they could do with their League, knowing full well that the alternative was a competitive ghetto of trans-Glaswegian proportions. In return, they gave up the possibility of any European tournaments, as the English FA was content to allow the clubs to remain in the English pyramid, but loathe to give up any lucrative European spots to "foreign" clubs.

Of course, it has been decades since a Welsh club was in England's top flight, and even longer since any were challenging for European slots through either the league or the FA Cup or League Cup. Therefore, the Exiles major gripe has been with the FAW, and not the English FA. On the Welsh side, the FAW have realized how badly they've dropped the ball, leaking cockamamie schemes to help the Welsh big three back into Europe without having to backpedal and restart the pissing match that got them into this mess in the first place. As to the English side, only Cardiff's recent surprising success in the FA Cup has been able to get people talking, and as the only club to take the FA Cup outside of England, you'd think the FA might have a bit of love for one of its stepchildren (or is that step-dragons?).

Still, the Bluebirds do have at least one potential white knight, and of course, there is a (very) long way to go to keep this from becoming a (very) moot point for at least another year. And ultimately, the Exiles' best chance of European play is to figure out some way to help the FAW, which is crap, after all, figure out a way to extricate its foot from its mouth so it can enter its best clubs into European competition, an area where it is a uniquely deficient governing body.

To close, I will simply say, "GOOO BLOOOOBIRDS!"

Middlesbrough 0 - 2 Cardiff (FA Cup)

Man U beaten by Portsmouth. Liverpool AND Chelsea beaten by Barnsley. Every Premier League club EXCEPT Pompey and Boro beaten by SOMEBODY. Frankly, it feels like Cardiff were just fulfilling their destiny. It's been said elsewhere, but this is the Soccer gods throwing a bone to fans of every single non-Big-Four team out there. Peter Whittingham's and Roger Johnson's goals were like the final killing blows delivered by the ancient Roman conspirators to the reeling (and in the case of Boro, I do mean reeling - they played very poorly) embodiment of oppressive power, finishing the work begun by Portsmouth and Barnsley and Oldham and all the others. So what happens from here? Does Pompey play the part of Marc Antony or Octavian? Will Cardiff, with its upcoming legal case, continue to play the role of Brutus to the bitter end?

I don't know. all I know is I am a very happy Cardiff fan.

Anyway, on a slightly less classical note...

FA Cup Motivations

Oh the majesty, oh the history, oh the glory of the FA Cup. Professional team sports are big business around the world, and as businesses, they naturally fall into the category of "Entertainment," a field that inevitably follows trends and hides its past. For that reason alone, it's wonderful and to me a bit amazing to see some of our favorite "Entertainment companies" (i.e. football clubs) continue to play in a 130-year-old tournament against competition against all-comers. It's good that those aspects of being a sports fan that make sports more than mere entertainment have survived long enough and well enough that we get to see near-amateurs score twice against one of the most-storied clubs in the world.

Clubs and players want to win the FA Cup for the glory, the prestige, the honor of it. They want to win for the players' and managers' egos or to be featured on the largest stage in British football. They want to win to be a part of history. They want to win it to show they can compete with the best in the world. They may even want to win it for the fans. Often, of course, there is the promise of riches to be spent on new stadiums, new cars, or any number of other things.

Never before, I think, have we seen so glorious a motive for winning an FA Cup match as Cardiff City has for winning against Middlesbrough on Sunday:

Litigation management.

From what I can tell, the fans and (I believe) the players would be alright with just glory, pride, and adulation, but if it's the prospect of paying legal bills that get Pete and Dave get all hot and bothered, we can now rest assured that they will give it their all come Sunday.