Football, no, the other one

I just searched my old posts for “soccer” and there are a bunch, but none about the Premier League and proper football.

I’ve been going through the 2,500+ posts on my blog, fixing things broken by moving platforms, and there are so many posts about American football. Jen and I used to Tivo all the games, watch for hours on Sundays and then the recordings throughout the week. We had Sunday Ticket and everything… for probably the first 15 years of our marriage.

And then we just stopped. We realized we were spending way too much time and money following a sport where we couldn’t balance out the long term health effects for players with watching it. So, we just stopped cold turkey. That was probably 10 years ago. And then we just kind of stopped paying attention to sports at all.

Until COVID. The Premier League was the first major league to come back, and Peacock not only streamed the games, but all the replays were there. So, I started watching and the spectacle of football played in completely empty stadiums where it was so quiet you could hear the players talking to each other. And I fell in love. The action is nonstop, no five minute commercial breaks every five minutes and the anticipation of misses and build ups – it’s just great.

Now I’m back into sports and back into football, it’s just the other football. I love that the games are on in the morning on the weekends. I love that I can pick up a replay whenever. I’ve been trying not to be so attached to it that I have to watch the matches live, but… I did get up and turn on Man City vs. Liverpool at 7 this morning.

It’s fun. I even love the video game version. And, I’ve gotten into the women’s game and the WSL thanks to the World Cup and Big Kick Energy (the best sports podcast in the world).

I think I can keep it under control this time. I probably only really watch 2-3 matches a week.