With last weekend marking the beginning of the Premiership season in jolly ol’ England I have become, as you might imagine, a bit addled by what I lovingly refer to as “Red Fever.”

What’s that?

You have no idea what I’m talking about?

Well then, let me broaden your world view.

I am, I will freely admit, a geek in the truest sense. No one with as much knowledge of the Warhammer Fantasy world as me can claim otherwise. But I am also a rabid football (that’s proper football, you know, the kind where you kick a ball with your feet) fan having played it in some form or other for most of my life. And this past weekend opened up the new season in England with my beloved Liverpool (look at the icon on the bottom) taking a 2-1 victory away at Aston Villa.

No doubt you American readers are wondering why I would root for a team thousands of miles from me when the Galaxy play 50 miles from where I live…well, you obviously haven’t watched much MLS. It’s kinda like watching a really good Elvis impersonator. He might entertain you for a bit, but after a while you realize it’s just not as good as the real thing.

So, anyway, I’m going to be in football heaven for the next eight months, provided Liverpool can grab some hardware this term, since we was robbed in Athens last May.

But the season has started well thanks to one Steven Gerrard and a free-kick worthy of the ages. Behold and bow in wonder at his awesomeness….

Of course, we do have someone over here in the states that can play a bit…now that his ankle is better…

…in honor of the excitement, and regardless of the fact that Kilian’s club is half a match up on me (we tied in our opener, where as the ‘pool won their’s), I figured I would whip up a little something to sum up my feelings about futbol, the season, and Manchester VS Liverpool… here it is:

^__^ the gauntlet is thrown. We have many months to wait still, but the beginning she has arrived.

I was meaning to do this last week, but many things got in the way. A new strip will be coming this Friday, but in the meantime, it’s time for a bit of “catch-up.” So here are the current, NormalityRestoredHooliganFutbolLeague standings, according to the official NRHFL scorecard…

currently, ManU (my club) is behind, but not as badly as it could be compared to the current record for Kilian’s club… luckily, this is still early in the season. Time will tell, time will tell. Until then, back to work!… *sigh*

–Aleister

I’ve been…quiet…of late in regards to the ongoing football season. After a brilliant start, my beloved Reds have faltered a bit. They are still unbeaten in the Premier League, and their away form has been excellent. But they’ve only claimed one victory in 5 matches at home (which is something out of bizarro world, honestly). Even worse has been their form in the Champions League. I expected them to get at least 4 victories (and two draws) out of the six group stage matches, but after losses to both Marseille and Besiktas (seriously, Besiktas, I’m not even making that shit up) Liverpool was looking like they might have an early exit out of a competition that they’ve played in the final of 2 of the last 3 years.

And then came Tuesday’s match, at Anfield…

That, friends, is a new Champion’s League record for goal difference in a single game. Now I didn’t see the whole game, it being on at 11:45 AM in California (I do have a job, after all). But from all the highlights I’ve seen, I’d say that is probably one of the best total team performances I’ve ever seen. The Besiktas defenders looked absolutely lost, and there always seemed to be at least two Reds open at any given moment. Not too mention that Liverpool’s passing was, across the board, cleaner than at any other time this season, and you can see why the game ended the way it did. It’s also interesting that so many of those goals came off rebounds. The keeper did a good job on stopping a lot of first shots, but they were so well placed that he couldn’t catch the ball or deflect it enough for a clearance and there was, invariably, an unmarked Red set to pounce on the rebound.Hopefully the lads can parlay this victory into a good run of form in the league and climb back up that table…

Hotdamn! But lookie-at-us-Normality Restored folk, 3 posts in one single day! Hath the Orange Curtai finally frozen over? No, but this should be a sign of excellent things to come in our future. Things like regular posts filled to brimming with content. To full brimming I say. Full!

Since everything works better with visuals, I think it’s time that we brought back an update for the Normality Restored Hooligan Futbol League. Here’s the current scorecard between the 2 major powerhouses of the league (as provided from the official League standings), especially considering that these are the clubs that Kilian and myself are following.

Because too much gloating may come off as being unseemly… I will simply direct everyone to the little words at the bottom of the picture above… the words labeled as ‘points’. From here, all that I ask, is that you look directly to the numbers left of these ‘points’. I am sure that from this junction there is no reason to impress more gloating, everyone can see what needs to be seen ^__^.

–Aleister

Yesterday was quite a banner day for football (proper football, that is) watching. Three decent matches were on TV, Galaxy v Rapids, Germany v Poland, and US v Argentina.

The weekends being what they are, I was only able to watch portions of each game, though that still allowed me to see each of Podolski’s goals in the Germany match, and two of the three goals that the Galaxy scored, so all in all, not a bad day’s watching.

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