Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Finally

At long last, Atlanta is going to get a notable footie match. After being ignored by MLS, after being dismissed by the U.S. Men's National Team (which would rather play a match in friggin' Birmingham than play in the Capital of the South), and after being an after-thought as countless European sides toured the U.S., we're going to get a game this summer. Unfortunately, Grant Field is too narrow for soccer, so the Georgia Dome will have to be used, but beggars can't be choosers. A.C. Milan and Club America, come on down. Hopefully, I can nab good enough seats to help reenact Dida's famous performance in Glasgow:



Dida's opposite number in the game will likely be Guillermo Ochoa, who appears in the most unrealistic commercial in human history:



I cackle to myself every time this spot appears on GolTV. The next time that a member of El Tri gets whacked in the shins by an opposing player and then actually helps that player up (as opposed to writhing around on the ground for 15 minutes [five minutes if Mexico are behind] before being hauled off on a stretcher), I'll eat my hat. I look forward to discussing this in detail with Ochoa on July 22.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just got tickets. Section 321. My kid will be in his Juventus jersey and pulling for Club America. Looking foward to this. Just wish Chelsea were playing a little closer to Atlanta.

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Kevin said...

Michael, you mentioned the width of Grant Field being the issue, but there was a women's soccer league that used to play there (I lived across the street and had to deal with Brittney Spears blasting through the speakers once a week or so). Did the rennovations affect the width of the field there? Did the women play on a smaller field? Just curious.

LD said...

I think the womens' team played at Morris Brown.

Any idea who the opponent for Mexico in June is? If it's a decent team, I eagerly await paying to cheer against Mexico.

Michael said...

I'm going in my Barcelona jersey so I can have a few words with Gordinho.

The Atlanta WUSA team did play at Grant Field, but I suspect that women's games can be played on narrower fields. Milan will want to play on a full size pitch so their players can do a good amount of running.

Anonymous said...

For the uninitiated, why did the goalie take a dive after being slapped by the fan? I understand players often take dives in order to sell a foul by the opponent, but this was a fan. Is there some special penalty that occurs when a fan strikes a player?

Michael said...

The goalie took a dive probably thinking that the ref would penalize the home team for a fan coming onto the field to injure the goalie. Several years before. this particular goalie was hit by a flare thrown by his team's arch rival's fans, leading to the game being abandoned and the goalie's team winning. (The goalie's team was ahead 3-0 at the time, so it didn't much matter.) The goalie was hoping to get a similar result in this instance.

What's most hilarious about Dida's dive is that you can see that his first instinct is to fight like a man and as he's chasing the fan, he realizes that he won't catch him. You can imagine a thought bubble in which he mulls over a second option now that he can't assault the fan, ultimately deciding to fall over and seek medical attention.