Real United

Kind of ironic, wasn't it? One of the 2009 season's most hotly anticipated matches had nothing to do with the 2009 season. But it had everything to do with the spirit and potential of football* in America.

It sounds so nice to call these matches friendlies: Exhibition matches which allow us lowly Americans to tangle with the Europeans and South Americans. On one hand, it's just another opportunity to risk injury and keep the team off-focus from the regular season. On the other hand, it's a very important diplomatic (and financial) exercise. FIFA gets to market world-class brands to us barbarians who have yet to understand (as a nation) what a magnificent game this truly is. And we barbarians get a chance to see some world-class players. We're doomed to lose the match, but it's still a win-win.


It was exactly thirty-five million degrees (kelvin) in DC yesterday, with humidity at nearly sixty billion percent. The match was held at FedEx field, home of the Washington Redskins and property of Dan Snyder, evidently the most hated team owner in American sports. Reportedly a great number of rabid DC fans boycotted the event to avoid lining Snyder's pockets. I understand that many Redskin fans do this as well.

Hasn't Six Flags bankrupted that man yet?

Whatever. I mashed my way through the gauntlet of security to my seat (by way of the vendors of unspeakably expensive fluids), chanting quietly to myself:

"All I ask, Allah-God-Buddha-Santoshimaa-Eris-Soehn, is that we not end up as humiliated as Toronto..."

It's true. Real Madrid had just come off a victory against Toronto that bordered on torture-porn. The 5-1 result left the Canadians in stunned silence, drooling on their boots. They were clearly too busy being dumbstruck by Madrid's offensive powers to bother playing the match. "Just let it not be quite that bad, various gods and goddesses..."


And I daresay I got my wish, despite the 3-0 loss. DC held firm for a solid 55 minutes of play, providing a great showcase of the DC back-line and goalkeeper Josh Wicks' trademark daring saves. And then of course, it all fell apart, and we began letting them through. ATTACK, ATTACK, we're all shouting from within a gigantic, viscous pool of sweat from 71,000+ dying spectators, JUST SHOOT THE F*KKIN' BALL...

I won't bother with the match details, since Steven Goff has done his usual, exquisite job [link.] As for Madrid, between their two big star acquisitions, I was much more interested in seeing Kaka than Cristiano Ronaldo. I've seen Ronaldo and I seriously don't get the appeal. The man clearly has world-class talent, but his lack of sportsmanship and obvious ego issues make his presence in any match an annoying distraction. And every time that bitchy fruitcake takes an overly-theatrical and time-consuming dive, I feel the need to perform bizarre rituals to cause his head to explode on the pitch...

...but the FedEx security goons had confiscated my sacrificial chickens and sharpened ox-bone blade at the front gate. Bastards!

I must say though, it seems a bit too easy to assemble a world-best team by simply buying world-best players. It does away with the whole romantic notion of developing team chemistry and reduces it to a packet of dehydrated Instant Championship: just add seventeen trillion dollars, and voila! The salary comparison between Madrid and DC would be too hilarious to mention. But whatever: it's always great to see such talent on a home field, even if it is a bit pre-fab.

Still, the taunting chants of "MONEY FOR NOTHING" (sung to the cadence of the typical "DC UNI-TED") was ripping bloody hilarious.

Enough! It was an entertaining match. And it was a groove to see the mixed fan-base (more white jerseys than black, and many wore a mixture, like the dude in the top photo) -- Well over 70,000 tickets were sold, so clearly there's an interest here.

It was my first time at FedEx, so this may be an ignorant comparison but despite the lack of gooey comforts, RFK is a far more comfortable venue to catch a match than the obscene plastic hellhole at FedEx. If this is the kind of rancid pit throwball* fans stew in every week, no wonder it's such an impossible sport to watch. They can have it.

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*If you've read this blog more than twice, you know by now I'm referring to true Futbol. That ridiculous American game played by thick dudes in body armor and no pace of game-play is henceforth called THROWBALL, to avoid confusion. Don't darken my doorstep with that septic nonsense.