A battle of reds

I usually break my streak of daily posts on Saturday and/or Sunday. I find it difficult to write on the weekend, because I'm not sure anyone is actually reading. So I'll use this opportunity to write about something almost none of my readers care about, something like the English Premier League.

One day before the NFL's "Super Bowl 41.5" between the Patriots and the Colts, the top two teams in the EPL (Arsenal and Manchester United) faced off today at the Emirates Stadium in North London. That picture shows the stadium on a rainy Tuesday afternoon a few weeks ago.

In the few years I've been following the EPL, I've become an ABMU (Anyone but ManU!) fan. United are the New York Yankees of English soccer, the most valuable sports team in the world, and a true evil empire.

Arsenal is Nick Hornby's favorite team (as everyone who's read Fever Pitch knows) , probably the second most valuable club in the EPL, and another team that's quite easy to dislike, except when they play Manchester United. To quote Billy Bragg: "Which three English football teams have swear words in their names? Arsenal, Scunthorpe and Manchester F--ing United."

Arsenal and ManFingU entered today's match tied at the top of the EPL standings with 26 points (8 wins and 3 draws each). United had one loss to their local rival Manchester City (Ian Curtis's favorite team, at least according to Control) but Arsenal hadn't lost yet. When top teams square off in soccer, the result is usually a scoreless draw, because good pitching(defending) stops good hitting(attacking) and teams that don't lose have really good defending and goalkeeping.

Today's game was a 2-2 tie, so each team managed to score two goals, but they're still tied on top of the table with 27 points (8 wins and 4 draws each). It was a lunchtime fixture in London, which is 5am Pacific Time even with the early time change in the UK, so it was all decided by the time I got up this morning. When two teams you don't like square off against each other, the best result you can hope for is probably a tie.