2002- Oh the glory, oh the pain, oh the heartbreak, oh the thieving fucking German bastards, namely Torston Frings and his blatant slap off the line, maybe not as blatant Terry Henry but blatant enough and the officials just looked the other way and smiled cuz the last thing the world needed was a bunch of septics in the semi's but i'm getting ahead of myself here...
See this was the World Cup in which i was unemployed which meant i got to watch all of it, getting up at or staying up for the 2:30am games and living like a king, the business was in full swing and i had managed a workers coup at the warehouse i was humping in resulting in my dismissal with full unemployment benefits of course, the guys who got the axe with me were all working for me anyway and i assured them they'd be just fine with the dole and the side gig, of course it started with our massive upset of the Golden generation of Portogeeze futbol, Figo etal were sent to a stunning 3-2 loss where none other than Carlos Bocanegra scored for us Yanks, of course we got a big lead and then held on for dear life but we got all three points and after drawing a game South Korea squad on their home turf we promptly shit the bed against Poland only to get some help but from who else? the Portogeezers who kindly tanked and sent us through to the knockout round where we got to meet the most hated El Tri aka Mexico aka can't beat us unless they are playing in that shit Azteca Stadium a million miles above sea level and filled with third world smog... the result 1-nil to the Arsenal, whoops i mean Septics and bring on Ze Germans!!!
Quarter finals, the fucking quarter finals, us poor septics didn't know whether to shit or blow bubbles but here we were, it was a day that would become known as The Longest Day and i awoke at 2:30 to watch Eng-guh-land take a lead on Brasil only to once again not deviate from the script and get bounced by a South American side in the quarters, it was a game they could have won but somehow managed to lose and as i spoke to some of my downtrodden mates across the pond i could feel the disappointment thousands of miles away, then of course came 7:30am and kick-off, to say we outplayed Ze Germans would be an understatement, at the time it may have been the most complete game we had ever played, we hung with the robotically efficient blue eyed master racers and were having our way at times, i remember the announcer stating that the average height of Ze Germans was 6'3 and that we only had one player over 6 feet tall, and yet at one point i remember a replay that most of my mates missed as they yelled and screamed and guzzled beer of Claudio Reyna chipping a shot from just past midfield that caught Ollie Kahn in a brilliant oh shit moment, Kahn was beat and he knew it but the ball sailed well wide and i thought that would have been one of the greatest goals, it was the kind of shot us septics never even thought of and it showed as Kahn changed his shorts and breathed a sigh of relief, of course a few minutes later came the scramble in the goal mouth and as the ball was drifting over the line, in fact it looked like it crossed the line, TorstenfuckingFrings slapped it back out as a roomful of Septics went absolutely bat shit crazy, at best it should have been the go ahead goal and at worst it was a red card and a spot kick but the blind mice at their whistles and minutes later Michael "Second Place" Ballack scored to break our hearts... Ze Germans 1- Septics nil...
Now some of us didn't have jobs and some of us called off work and even though we lost we felt the need to celebrate cuz dammit we did Ze Germans and they knew it and the world knew it and fuck we were gonna celebrate anyway so after a few rounds with the peace pipe we headed to the Footie Bar and drank pints and commiserated with other like minded Septics and even some Limey's who agreed we got the shaft and around noon we headed to the rib fest to eat copious amounts of BBQ'ed pork and beef while drinking more beer in the blazing June sun, we then headed to the strip club at around 4pm and enjoyed a few more bevys while being entertained by some aspiring actresses and around 7ish we ended up back at the Ginga Yinza Ninja's house where we were all so fucking loaded that i thought it might be a good idea to eat a bunch of mushrooms, which might have been a good idea if we weren't off our heads on booze and grass but in the end i think was still a swell idea... needless to say things get a big fuzzy after that we ended up in the swanky hood fucked off our faces and one of my party who shall remain nameless completely lost his shit and ended up meeting Jesus but not before he offered to steal a purse, offered by telling the girl that he could easily steal it and there was nothing she could do about it, me of course being the most seasoned of wastoids particularly when it came to hallucinogens de-fused the situation, had another beer and went stumbling home some 22 1/2 hours after i woke up that morning. A fine day indeed.
2006- I was supposed to be at this one, had planned for it and had i gone would have missed the birth of Kid A, i remember watching the final on the floor of the spare bedroom rocking him to sleep and drinking beer, watching Zizou score in his second final and watching that scum sucking prick Marco Materrazzi bait him into the head butt heard round the world, of course before all this i had to suffer through the Septics deciding they didn't really want to show up and in a must win third game in their group they fucking flitted around like a bunch of 5 year old girls at a ballet recital and managed to lose 3-2 to the Black Stars of Ghana, a game with a shit penalty against us Septics but a game that we ultimately deserved to lose due to an overwhelming show of indifference by the boys on the field, the Ginga Yinza actually lifted the no-smoking ban in his house in an effort to get me to stop pacing and screaming expletives at the telly in a non-stop torrent, it sorta worked but not really and i would have taken the rest of the day off and got supremely drunk but i had to go in to work for an in house interview that turned out to be nothing more than a courtesy chat and pissed me off even more...
The most memorable moment though came on July 1, it was the day the girl's water broke and the last night of my serious partying, see i was giving myself a three week window but Kid A was like fuck you daddy here i come and after getting maybe 3 hours sleep i was driving to the hospital where sure enough her water had broke and it was time to have a kid... are fucking kidding me? can i sleep? it's the quarter finals today? you get ABC? needless to say the girl tried to tough it out drug free but after realizing that was a big fucking mistake she called for the epidural and the nice doctor told me i should go have a sandwich or something so i walked out of the hospital and found a nice quite place with a telly tuned to the game and sat down just in time for the kick-off of Frogs-Samba or France/Brasil, got to see the exquisite free kick taken by Zizou and flicked in by Terry Hunree that sent the Samba's packing, a little later that day, 6:47 to be exact Kid A came bouncing into the world and after all the fun i was sent to get some food cuz it was saturday night and the cafeteria was closed, i stood outside a pizza joint waiting for my food and i called the Limey cuz he's the closest thing i have to a brother and stood shaking with joy and fear as tears rolled down my face and told him i was a dad.... The Eye-Ties would win the Cup, Zidane would be sent off in disgrace and it was the first football match i ever watched with my son.
4 comments:
Ignoring the reference to Arsenal, that was a great read.
You managed to make America seem like underdogs during the 2002 Fear and Loathing at the World Cup in Pittsbugh.
And cracking heart-string pulling in the 2006 review.
Wonder what 2010 has in store. One thing's for sure, you're not winning your opening match.
funny how we can remember particular obsessive sporting moments, especially when entangled with childbirth! and in your case, you managed to remember despite modified brain chemistry!
my oldest was born in '86, the night cincy played green bay in the pre-season. forrest gregg's nostrils were flaring on the sidelines that night. my obstetrician was at the the game, so my daughter held out til morning so he could be there to catch her, as i did a vaginal forward pass.
my youngest? born in dec, 1988. i was on the maternity ward, and the only woman there with the bengals/redskins game on - when the miraculous redskins failed field goal (bounced off the upright) sent the bengals to the superbowl. the nurse tried to bring the boy down for me to feed him, but i said "give me 5 minutes". every orderly and a couple docs were in my room, glued to the tv...
1986 was the year of the Hand of God in Mexico.
1988 was the year England shat out of the Euros and famously got beat by Ireland. Great Holland team though.
If you'd like football markers.
Daisy- during the birth of Kid B i won a tidy sum on the Belmont Stakes and the Pens won Lord Stanley's Cup.
Gulfboot- good call we didn't win the first match, i'll take the point and pray to Bruce Arena that we win the next.
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