A strange addiction

It’s too early. I have to muster all of my love for the team to pull myself out of bed. I look over at the clock, 3:45 AM. Why do I do this to myself? It’s Manchester City, and I’m pretty sure we’re going to be absolutely demolished. I’m not even from London and the ties I do have to the city would bring me to another team entirely! I could have picked any of the top tier teams, but apparently I have a penchant for masochism. Not only that, but the game starts at 4:45 and it’s a Saturday. My bed is warm and comfortable and definitely a sure thing. City is large and brooding and frankly, they scare the hell out of me. I ask myself again, “Why I do this to myself?”

My shower takes about five minutes to warm, and I don’t drink coffee anymore, so I’ve got nothing to do but wait. It’s cold, even for Southern California. Sitting on my toilet waiting for the blasted shower to finally warm up I think to myself that I would be better off crawling back into bed and seeing if my wife is down for a quickie. But she’s a yid too and already getting ready. Why her shower warms up about one hundred times faster than mine is absolutely beyond me.

Finally the damn nozzle is spraying out hot water and I get into a much needed shower. That’s all it really takes for some reason. That first blast of scalding hot water is enough to wake the dead. I turn down the water a bit and my imagination begins to run wild. Eriksen is on the receiving side of a brilliant Lamela flick. He’s driving down, but there stands Kompany. Eriksen fakes left but goes right, fooling Vincent entirely. Christian makes like he’s going to shoot but at the last minute Soldado comes screaming out of nowhere to receive the pass! Smashes it in! What a goal! Everyone is going nuts and we all have a feeling that this is it; we can crack the top 4! Then I remember that I’m just standing in a shower, cleaning my dick. We’re probably f***ed.

[linequote]On the drive I play Chas ‘N Dave and try to get myself as excited as I can but it’s tough to do at 4:30 in the morning[/linequote]

After my regular morning routine I switch on ESPN. See if there’s anything about the indigenous US sports that I might have missed. Drinking my green tea and hoping the wife will hurry up. She finally comes out, wearing this year’s kit and wanting to go. “Ready?” she says.

It’s only about a 10 minute drive to Shakespeare Pub & Grille, which is where San Diego Spurs meet up. On the drive I play Chas ‘N Dave and try to get myself as excited as I can. It’s tough to do at 4:30 in the morning, and it’s even tougher when I’ve been left worrying for two weeks whether or not we’ll play the way we need to in order to win. My hopes aren’t particularly high, but seeing Spurs has become like mainlining heroin for me. It’s an absolute addiction. Before the match, my hopes go through the roof. Expectations shouldn’t be allowed to be this high when it can all come crashing down so low.

I arrive at the pub and there are already a few people lined up outside the door. I say hello to the regulars and ask the ones I don’t recognize if they follow San Diego Spurs on Facebook or Twitter. Being Chair, I try to be as cordial as possible, even though I’m somewhat shy when it comes to strangers. You wouldn’t know it from the amount of noise I generate when watching football. It’s probably on the border of being obnoxiously loud. Add some booze into the mix and like Wu Tang, I bring the mother****ing ruckus.

The doors open, we grab our seats. We’re all discussing Spurs and it’s a lot of the usual. Who will start, why Adebayor should be benched for a game or two, what will we do when Lloris leaves, does Ryan Mason have a real future with us, etc. I’m quite opinionated on how we should play Manchester City and start up a discussion about how we had better sit back and play a hard counter attack.

A few people agree. One young woman is adamant in her argument against me: “That’s not Spurs. We attack, no matter what. We’d rather lose 3-4 than win 1-0!”

I like attacking too, but it doesn’t have to happen every week. I explain my thoughts on changing up the style of play to match the opponent and though she agrees, I can tell she won’t settle with a game like we had against Arsenal.

[fullquote]I’m quite opinionated on how we should play Manchester City and start up a discussion about how we had better sit back and play a hard counter attack[/fullquote]

The boys are lining up down the tunnel, and thousands of miles away from London in a small pub in Southern California we roar. Probably more like a loud “meow” in comparison to other cities in the USA, but we try. Songs are sung, we’re all truly thinking that this is the game that we show everyone what we’re made of, this is the one that we turn it all around.

Kickoff.

They score. We score. They’re awarded an incredibly soft penalty. Aguero puts it in. They get another penalty. Blocked by Lloris! I tweet about him being the best keeper in the league. The whistle blows, marking the end of the half. I’m still hopeful.

Barely got any sleep the night before. Two hours, barely. I’m still very tired, despite the caffeine I’ve been consuming. Spurs are a strange addiction. It’s not the most rewarding relationship, but it doesn’t matter. It’s taken its hold and there is this feeling that if I miss a match, or don’t catch it live and DVR it instead that I’m somehow not fulfilling my half of the relationship.

Second half. It starts out quite exciting. It continues on to be agonizing. I question why I even woke up. This is what I didn’t want to see. I don’t want to lose by two or more. I am able to deal with a loss, especially the way we played this one up until Fazio’s red card, but not like this. We looked SO good for most of the game and now it’s just falling apart before my eyes. Whereas when we were down by one the mistakes we made seemed to be not as big of a deal, now every error has me livid.

Aguero scores again. At this point I’m questioning why Pochettino even started Fazio over Vertonghen. The defender looked fairly decent from time to time, but all in all Fazio was slow and clearly has poor decision making skills. I wonder if there is any chance we’ll be able to get another one in the back of the net, but I already know how this will end.

Townsend continues to take the exact same shot he misses on an extremely regular basis. Soldado misses chances. The script plays itself out so perfectly that I wonder why I didn’t bet money on this one. I’m sure someone on the forum said these exact same things would happen. I did everything I could to not let those thoughts into my head in the days leading up to the match. I tell myself to not be negative, but after such a beautiful and exciting start it’s unreal that 4-1 will be the final score.

[linequote]We looked SO good for most of the game and now it’s just falling apart before my eyes[/linequote]

The effort at the end of the match is pathetic. Three minutes of stoppage can’t end soon enough. All I can hear in my head is the voice of a certain someone from our past going on and on about capitulation. It’s a voice I can’t help but agree with. We deserve a full 90 minutes of effort. It doesn’t matter how the match is going. We deserve it and the shirt deserves it.

I drive home and I don’t say much. This allows for some introspection and I slowly start analyzing the match a bit more in my head. Was Fazio’s red card warranted? Aguero was already down before the pass. It was certainly a yellow, and certainly a foul, but I think the card was harsh. Soldado created plenty of scoring opportunities and the goals he didn’t make were absolutely of no fault of his own, but brilliant work by Hart. The substitutions weren’t exactly what I wanted to see, but they were needed. We put up a huge fight and did much better than last season. There are positives to be had from this day.

It’s a tough morning, but my addiction is strong, and I can’t help but think ahead to Asteras. Also, Newcastle is next in the Prem and we will utterly crush them. Yeah, this wasn’t our best outing, but it was only one game. We can do better, and we will do better. Plus, the next two games aren’t at this ungodly hour and that really is something to be excited about.