Worldwide efforts to slow and curtail the virus have led to dozens of lock downs. Most leagues have extended their hiatus until early May. Some, who had been almost done seem totally at a loss to know whether or not they’ll return at all (fingers crossed for India, Serbia, Scotland, and Mexico).
With minimal adventures outside the home a lot of fans are limited to attempts to stay active and sane through various competitions and questions. So whether you’re trying to keep the ball/toilet paper aloft, or ranking your favorite fictional footballers, keep your eye on the prize: normalcy.
News & Notes
CountyCan’t Keep Up with PSV
Despite a dominant showing against Cork City in round 1, the Staggies’ man on the joystick was very much on the other end of things against PSV Eindhoven’s pro gamer. Falling behind 3-0 Sean Kelly made an epic comeback to tie the match and force a rematch. He fell behind by three goals again, and then…didn’t comeback at all.
A strong showing from Ross County’s midfielder going 1-1-1 over 3 matches. While he won’t earn a trophy or bragging rights he did get to share in a truly epic tournament. Bravo Sean Kelly
Again, no matches makes it hard to pick a best player of the week. So let’s tip a hat to the social media directors who keep churning out content during these difficult football-less times. In particular Alebrijes de Oaxaca who brought out a bright little math puzzle (one that I whiffed on).
It struck me that I ought to explain a little bit about why we cheer for the teams we do. Well, in part, it’s because I thought we ought to, and I’m the one of us most capable of complex thought and logic. But also, each team has a special something that captures part of what I love about life, and part of what makes you who you are.
So periodically (like during international breaks, long summer holidays, or say, global pandemics that completely alter everything we understand about our lives and ourselves), I want to introduce you to the teams we are tied to.
First up, Rosenborg BallKlub of Trondheim, Norway. A team that captures your proud past and our family’s strong future.
Dear Boys,
Wherefore Rosenborg Ballklub?
This is our Norway team.
That is no small matter, especially since you are both half Norwegian. We’ll talk more about the other parts of your heritage but the biggest identity marker is undoubtedly the Norwegian part. After all, from the top of your blondish heads, to your fjord blue eyes, to your lefsa white skin, you look Norse.
What it looked like when our ancestors left
But it goes beyond your looks. It’s in your names as well. Your mom’s maiden name, Gorder, is probably a lazy immigration agent’s interpretation of a great grandparent’s home: Gårder (farms). Owen Roe, your middle name (and mine, come to that) is a similarly lazy translations of “Røv”. The valley your great-great-great-grandparents left behind to come to Minnesota almost 170 years ago.
I find it easy to imagine your ancestors. Simple folks tired of the squeeze of crowded farm land and nosy neighbors, heading up to one of the biggest ports in the country and heading off too seek their fortunes in the new world.
Had they stopped before the boat. Had they abandoned the farm land for city living. We might have settled for decades and decades in the popular port of Trondheim. Even if they hadn’t–if they’d clung to the local land and familiar faces–it’d be hard to resist the lure of the team that defines Norwegian clubs today. And that’s where Rosenborg BK comes in.
Who is Rosenborg Ballklub?
For a team that can fairly be called the Real Madrid, the Manchester United, the New England Patriots of Norwegian soccer, Rosenborg doesn’t come from sterling silver stock.
The Original Rosenborg (Nee Odd) 1917
At first they were just a few boys from a local suburb with some big dreams. How big? They named themselves “Odd” after the best team of the time. As hopeful and idealistic as when your uncles and I pretended to suit up for the Michigan Wolverines during driveway basketball.
The difference, most aspirational names remain just that: a hope, more alive in mind than in reality. Rosenborg outgrew Odd, growing more prestigious and popular in their own right. The team’s first trophy, the national cup in 1960 was won by beating Odd.
Since then the team has come to rule much of Norwegian soccer. Ruling the league table with a full decade of dominant title wins. Cruising with confidence into competition against the continent’s best teams. But in many ways, they still feel like that neighborhood gang of boys who dreamed of greatness from day 1.
How are we Rosenborg Ballklub?
To be clear, we are not Rosenborg because we are consistent champions. We are not. We do not rule. We do not dominate. We do not cruise with confidence.
Your Norwegian relatives had something else in mind, something very in keeping with Rosenborg. They had hopes more alive in their minds than in reality. They hoped to see their kids go beyond a little village. They wanted to do more than farm the same little acre of land. Not only did they succeed, they went far, far beyond it.
Historically inaccurate, but cute
One of their grandsons (your great-grand-father) not only went beyond the tiny village, he went around the world to Kolkatta and Beijing. One of their great-grand-daughters (your great-grand-mother) did much more than farm a little acre of land. She got a college degree. (She also got in trouble for sneaking back from a dance, but that’s another story.)
We are so far beyond the hopes and dreams of the Norwegian ancestors who left little farm villages, trod the streets of Trondheim and headed to the new world. We have reached greatness beyond what they might have thought or believed to be possible.
And still, we have those little glimmers of Norwegian neighborhood in our veins. It’s in the lutefisk we still make for Great-Grandpa Bud even though he isn’t here and no one else likes it. It’s in the Spritz Cookies that bring a tear to your Grandpa Mark’s eye when he makes them for you like his mother did for him, and her mother did before her.
Rosenborg BK is our Norwegian team because you are both a hope surpassed and a history alive. Our past is proud, our future is strong.
Every game was cancelled due to concerns over Coronavirus. This keeps not only fans safe from spreading the virus to one another, but players safe from swapping it like a sweaty jersey.
News & Notes
Ross County faces off with Cork City…Digitally
In an effort to bring a little more football into an otherwise silent stretch, little Leyton Orient FC in England tossed out an idea: video game tournament.
In a response my brothers and I could only dream of 127 more teams signed up. Among them: Ross County FC, drawn against Ireland’s Cork City.
Late Monday afternoon, Defender Sean Kelly and Cork City FC Midfielder Daire O’Connor played the game on the streaming service Twitch. Kelly and his Staggies dominated with a bevy of balls splitting defenders and setting up dozens of shots that left O’Connor consistently wrong footed. The final score was 3-0 and probably flattering for the Irishman. With the win Kelly and County moved on to the Sweltering Sixty-Four (Draw TBD)
While the season began with a beautiful bus, boisterous fans, and big name half time performers, the Royals’ first season has been (to put it mildly) a colossal disappointment.
Jonah Attaquaye hopes to help Royals Attaq Credit: Frank Darkwah
To that end, Ghana Web is reporting that 15 players will be dropped soon and in their place will come a variety of other stars in the league (including Kingsley Osei Effah, Empem Dacosta and Douglas Owusu Ansah of Kotoko and John Attuquaye of Berekum Chelsea)
Of course with the team ignoring medical expert recommendations to stop gathering, they may need all the replacements they can get.
Man of the Matches
There’s really only one choice, the only person in action at all, Ross County’s man at the controller: Sean Kelly! En route to a comfortable 3-0 win he never looked trouble running long balls over a harried Cork City to set up delicious cross after delicious cross so effectively that some might wonder if he was making a play for a promotion.
Non-Digital Kelly
What’s Next
Wednesday, March 25
12 AM-11:59 PM staying alone at home hoping this all ends soon (repeat every day of the week.)
Corona virus 2019, a sickness that gives a bad cough, an achy body, and a high fever, is all around the world.
It doesn’t care who you are, how old you are, where your family is from or whether or not you can handle it.
It is scary because you can have it and not know. You can pass it along and not know. You can be sick, think it’s something else, and accidentally hurt someone else. That not knowing, that uncertainty makes lots of things you take for granted suddenly uncertain and unsafe.
So, soccer pitches and stadiums, where people sneeze on you, cough near you, or spit in your direction, aren’t as safe as we thought. And to be careful, leagues are postponing or canceling games to keep people safe.
Out of commission
I know it’s the right thing to do, but still, I’m disappointed. I was excited to go back to see the Loons. There was a game in two weeks I thought the whole family could go to. Even as the disease got stronger I thought we could risk it: I’m healthy. You boys are not at risk. We could go, have fun, and be none the worse.
But we shouldn’t even if we could. Even if we’d be okay, we need to do what’s best for the others around us.
Maybe we’d go and nothing would happen. Or maybe one of us would catch it. If we caught it we could get a grandma sick, or we could pass it to a friend who got their grandpa sick, or we could pass it to a friend who could pass it to a neighbor who could get sick. There’s no way to know. And our fun shouldn’t be more important than one one else’s safety.
So, hard as it is to give up our fun. We should do it.
The best view, for now
Each of the 11 clubs we follow is taking a break.
Emelec and FK Vazdovac might be back this weekend (or might not). Freiburg, Punjab FC, Oaxaca, and Grenoble might come back at the start of April. Minnesota and Rosenberg are taking a month delay. Legon Cities, Ross County, and Montana…nobody knows.
The only teams still planning to play (as of now) are Vozdovac, Oaxaca, and Legon Cities. All three of them are also still considering options. But in the mean time we can enjoy them from afar and appreciate their play like we appreciate those who choose not to.
This is our world right now, and these are the people we need to take care of: for good and for ill.
Alebrijes seemed content to challenge the visitors to stop a variety of longer range efforts. But if their goal was to draw out the back line, it was unsuccessful. Atlante continued to sit back in defense and pepper the box with their own attempts, until Francisco Rivera ran through the defense like a whooping cough patient can run through Target these days. (too soon?)
FK Vozdovac 1 – Partizan Belgrade 2
When you’re a team that hasn’t won all year, facing the team that is the gold standard for Serbian football isn’t appealing. It got even worse for FK Vozdovac as it easily could have been an absolute annihilation had Keeper Marko Ilic not stood on his head for most of the match. A late consolation from Milos Stojcev was a sight to see, but that was about all there was to enjoy.
Legon Cities 0 – Medeama 2
It was over early in the capital when the league leaders came to call on Legon Cities. Prince Opoku Ageymang ripped up the Royals defense to show who the crown really belonged too. As the impotent Legon Cities attack again came up empty, there was little to enjoy but the usual joyous trumpets in the stands.
News & Notes
Coronavirus Crushes Competitions
Like most of the world, I’m taking extra precautions to protect myself, my family, and my strangers from disease. Soccer players are no different. Every league we watch is facing at least some postponements. Some hope to be back at the end of this week (see below) but most everyone else is taking an extra holiday.
Man of the Matches
What better time to debut a new feature than when there are few to no games and all of them were losses?
Recognizing the player of the week is a fun little task to do, even if things aren’t great. This week it’s the man who made the Belgrade derby kind of close! Marko Ilic, Congrats Marko!
It may not matter. Neither of you can read yet, and the only other person reading is your grandma Bekka (hi mom!) but it has been hard to write lately.
It’s not that I don’t want to write. But my first job on getting up is setting up meals for you both. Then I need to get to work and teach other kids so we can keep food, and clothes and shelter. Then I need to take care if you at home. And, oh yeah, help your mom and share my life with you all.
Burnt out
That takes us from 5 AM to 10 PM. And my brain is so burnt out that I can’t quite bring myself to make words make sense.
Burn out is real, no matter what overly peppy or intense employers would have you believe. And burn out sucks no matter what social media posts or inspirational posters will tell you.
You can’t avoid burnout, but you can acknowledge it and select the most vital and most life giving tasks to focus on.
I love writing. I love sports. And I love writing about sports. So I really want to write.
But more fun than writing is reading stories with you.
More life giving than sports are the games we play, be it airplane, or papa tiger, or vacuums.
So while I love writing, and I want to write these posts more frequently and carefully than I have been, I’m not going to forgo life with you now, for writing for your future.
This is priority one
When your burn out comes boys, and it will, I hope you look for the life you have now, and live it fully.
Every time the Staggies start to establish some security they slide back to the bottom. Despite a great run of form by Northern Ireland’s Billy McKay, a pair of predictable defeats undid the miraculous win in Aberdeen
Golukam FC 1 – Punjab FC 1
Indian Arrows 1 – Punjab FC 1
Neroca FC 4 – Punjab FC 3
A poor run of late from the men of Minerva means they’ve slipped to third despite Asier Dipanda’s one man efforts to save the day.
(M) Grenoble Foot 0 – Chateroux 1
Grenoble Foot 0 – Nice 0
(M) Caen 2 – Grenoble Foot 0
Thomson Évian 1 – Grenoble Foot 0
(M) Grenoble Foot 1 – Valenciennes 3
Unfortunately, the ladies of the alps continue to suffer near miss after near miss, and may need to rely on goal difference to avoid the drop. Meanwhile, Shockingly, Grenoble struggled to score and to shut down opponents. (Did I shockingly, I meant predictably) Most exposed: left side defenders Loic Nestor and Jerome Mombis who have been about as useful as as a megaphone for a mime.
(M) SC Freiburg 0 – Fortuna Düsseldorf 2
(M) Borussia Dortmund 1 – SC Freiburg 0
SC Freiburg 2 – MSV Duisburg 2
(M) SC Freiburg 3 – Union Berlin 1
Hoffenheim 4 – SC Freiburg 1
Maddeningly inconsistent, Freiburg’s men remain close but not close enough to qualification for Europe. Meanwhile the women’s fortunes have faded with the inability to get WunderMadchen Klara Bühl integrated in the attack, leaving them safe but far from competitive with the imperious Wolfsburg.
Cukariki 2 – FK Vozdovac 1
FK Vozdovac 1 – Vojvodina 2
Indjija 3 – FK Vozdovac 0
Easily the worst run of form of any team we cover, the red dragons are winless in 2020. Worst they’re sliding ever closer to relegation just in time to face local super club Partizan Belgrade
King Faisal 1 – Legon Cities FC 1
Legon Cities 0 – Eleven Wonders 0
Legon Cities 4 – WAFA 1
Berekum Chelsea 2 – Legon Cities 0
The good news: The Royals got their second win of the season! The bad news: they remain just 5 points clear of relegation and face a long season ahead where no number of Hip-Life Half times can make up for a lackluster team.
(M) Emelec 2 – Blooming 0 (Copa Sudamericana)
(M) Emelec 1 – Guayaquil City 2
(M) CSD Macara 1 – Emelec 0
(M) Emelec 4 – Aucas 0
While their goal difference would place them 4th, Emelec’s results have them in 10th. It’s worth wondering if the division of attention between the league and the Copa has them dealing with a bit of a hangover in domestic competition.
Jaibos 1 – Alebrijes de Oaxaca 1
Alebrijes de Oaxaca 0 – Correcaminos 0
Cafetaleros 4 – Alebrijes de Oaxaca 1
February was full of heartbreak for Oaxaca who came up winless and could only manage 2 points from a pair of games against sides fighting relegation. Maybe they’re helpless without an in form Daniel Jimenez. Maybe they’re coasting on their apertura title waiting for a promotion playoff to turn it on. But it may be hard to get up for the big game when you’ve been sleepwalking for a month.
Portland Timbers 1 – Minnesota United 3
San Jose Earthquakes 2 – Minnesota United 5
Our local Loons are flying high to start their campaign. Winning twice on the road in convincing fashion to top the table. The wings have helped keep the attack aloft as killer crosses from Ethan Findlay and Kevin Molino have set up new striker Luis Amarilla twice and even put reigning defender of the year Ike Opara in a goal scoring mood.
You both should know, despite your parents best intentions, you will probably spend more time in life than is good or healthy for you worrying about money.
Having it. Making it. Keeping it. Growing it. Spending it. Saving it.
In truth, money isn’t that important, except for all the ways that it is. And if that sounds maddening, congratulations, that’s money.
I don’t have much to tell you about money. I’m not an investment guru or a power trader. But this week, one thing about money seemed rather relevant.
Money makes things easier, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t stand a chance against the truth.
Sheikh Mansour enjoying the attention
The biggest story in soccer right now is happening in Manchester. Man City, a team backed by the vast wealth of a West Asian prince, has spent their way from an after thought to a global power. To do so, they lied about how much they made to cover for overspending.
It may not seem like much. Really rich guys pay more than advertised to other pretty rich guys isn’t exactly crime of the century stuff. The problem with Man City is that they are doubly flouting rules designed to give smaller teams, like those from Belgrade to Trondheim, a chance.
Spending more on one player than other teams do on their whole roster because you run a smart and profitable business, that’s tough, but grudgingly acceptable. Doing the same thing when you’re losing money just to keep up appearances and because your insanely wealthy owner can do things that local/fan community trusts can’t. That’s lousy.
At the same time, the United States is seriously mulling whether or not they want nine months of bitter campaigning between a pair of a 70 year old New York billionaires: Donald Trump and Mike Bloomberg.
Battle of the Billionaires
Bloomberg’s immense wealth has pushed him close to the lead in polls of democratic candidates. But this week, when he had his first chance to speak his truth about what he will do and why we should want it to happen, Mayor Mike could barely keep up with the most fundamental challenges.
Again, Bloomberg’s wealth is pervasive, his production of pithy retorts to the president is effective if unproductive. But when it comes to speaking the truth about who we are and what we need, “Mike Can’t Do It”.
As with Man City, if Bloomberg’s wealth was used to promote powerful and popular causes, then his rise would be concerning but acceptable. Using it to instead force himself into consideration just because he, like 99.99% of the world’s population, isn’t the current president, is maddening.
In short, money for both Man City and Mayor Bloomberg gives them opportunities others don’t have. For the rest of us, that’s frustrating. Using those opportunities to obfuscate and underwhelm: that’s unacceptable.
To be fair, you may wonder why I bring this up to you, with your parents in non-profits and your power nowhere near the Bloomberg’s and Cities of the world. Why bring this up with you?
Because of who you are You are American middle class, which makes you absurdly wealthy to most of the world. You are white men, which gives you extra privileges and power that you won’t even recognize most of the time. In the eyes of most you look much more like Man City and Mayor Mike than you like the underdog. So use your power thoughtfully, with truth and talent.
Grenoble Foot 0 – Nice 0
MacKenzie's Boot Room 