I don’t like football.

It’s a 60 minute game that takes half a day to watch. I don’t see the skill beyond basic catch, or body slamming someone to the ground. The sport produces so many brain injuries, that a player killed himself but did so in a way that doctors could still look at his brain because he KNEW he was so messed up from repeated hard tackles. These men are getting paid millions to sustain brain damage at the delight of millions. I don’t claim soccer to be an injury-less sport. People have dropped dead on the pitch mid-game (unchecked heart issue), left with broken bones, concussions, etc. But unlike football, it’s not a massive epidemic of brain injury. 

But even all that aside… it just isn’t for me.

Maybe I’m still bitter about the lack of attention the Sounders/soccer has received over the years. Since joining the MLS we’ve gotten more coverage and actual color photos, but there still isn’t a ‘soccer page’ in the Seattle Times the way they have one for football or MLB. I was at QFC the other day and they have Seahawks flowers. A bouquet of flowers dyed blue and green with a small Seahawks balloon in the middle. Where are the Sounders balloons? We’ve made the playoffs the past 5 years. Actually, I used to make Sounder flowers. I’d buy a couple bouquets of white flowers and dye them blue the night before a soccer game. I’d arrive 2 hours before kick off and hand them out to the players (and coach Schmetzer) at memorial stadium as they arrived. 

I don’t hate the Seahawks, I don’t hope they lose. But I do find this bandwagon business amusing. Amusing because I’m an outsider. I know what it’s like to love a team through the hard times and then watch as THOUSANDS descend upon your team claiming to be ‘hard core’ (I’m looking at YOU non-USL sounder fans). It’s insulting  irritating.

And hey Starbucks, where’s my ‘full -90’ .90cent coffee in honor of the Sounders?