The Freak is back home from his
European trip, but took time to take in a football game while in London. No, it wasn’t the Rams and the Patriots at
Wembley Stadium which was a blow out, but a football (soccer) match in the
English Premier League. The game
featured underdog Reading and powerhouse
Arsenal. The final score ended up being
7-5, the most goals in the history of a Premiership League Cup game. If you put it into an American football perspective,
the Browns only beat the Chargers 7-6 last Sunday, so really it would be the
equivalent to a 49-35 NFL game which would no doubt be very exciting to
watch. The game was very entertaining
and the crowd was much different than NFL games the Freak has been to, because
in your typical NFL game, the home crowd cheers very loudly when the visiting
team is on offense and there are really no organized chants amongst the crowd
unless you are at a Jets game. However,
at this football match, the home fans would all dance after a goal was scored
which was different, but also the Arsenal fans would not sit down for the whole
game and would sing throughout most of the night, some not suitable for young
ears!
The product on the field was
unbelievable as these top players in the world run at top speed with the ball,
make any pass thinkable, and have great footwork and body control. Furthermore, this game is much more physical
watching it live than on television while the pace of the game on tv doesn’t do
it any justice.
One huge difference between
watching the two types of football in person are all the visiting supporters
(Arsenal) must all sit together in one end of the stadium which was cool as you
knew the guy next to you was also cheering for the same team so you could
celebrate and cheer together and not be worried about getting punched in the
head or being verbally abused by other fans like at a NFL game.
The one thing the Freak didn’t
like is how the extra time at the end of the game is controlled only by the
referee. In this case, there was only to
be four minutes of extra time, but it ended up being six minutes and Arsenal
ended up tying the game at the end of this extra two minutes. It has been like this forever, but giving the
ref all the power of how much time is left on the clock seems wrong as luckily the
Reading fans were good natured or there might have been a riot and this zebra
probably wouldn’t have made it out of the stadium.
Finally, there was no
tailgating before the game which is a big part of the experience of the NFL,
but not with soccer. You could still get
a drink in the stadium, but you were not allowed to take it to your seat for
security reasons. This was probably the
Freak’s and his family’s last English football game, but it was a fantastic
experience that all sports fans should try. The Freak is happy to be back home to watch
the NFL and is looking forward to seeing four NFL games live in December.
The Freak (a.k.a Dad)
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