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So while the main reason for my trip to OKC the past four years has been Mark Harmon, this year I lucked out by having TWO legit reasons to brave the heat, humidity and crazy southerners. Soccer!

As most of my friends know, I’m part of a new soccer podcast call the Soccer Talk Show (find us on facebook OR @soccertalkshow on twitter). We’re pretty much Sounders only, but I have always been of the belief that ‘once a sounder, always a sounder’ – except Shalrie Joseph. I hope he doesn’t see that.

Or maybe I do. Meh.

I met up with Philip Lund (2013 Sounder & fellow Dane- hollaback with the diggitydansk) at their Fri am practice for my first ever interview. I had zero clue as to what I was doing, and probably looked less than legit with just my iphone to record, but overall I think it went pretty well. Jay and I have some recording to do, but once the podcast is up, I’ll link to it here and on social media. We had a great chat for the podcast and an even better chat after I stopped recording and let loose a bit with my own pet peeves on how the team is run. I mean, most everyone knows that I’m #teamschmetzer – but it was nice to get more of an inside perspective.

Saturday after the cancelled baseball game, the weather picked up and I made my way to the Energy FC game. Nice to chat with Philip again, and meet a family who has spent some time living in Wa (and are also Sounders fans – small world). Funny to find those connections. I sat in the ‘fan zone’ – remember, I’m legit now with my Energy tee – complete with Philip’s name/number on the back in Zebra duct tape (because supplies are limited in OKC, apparently). It was fairly disorganized, but with a few ‘leaders’ in the group. I give them props for having some decent chants, though they rarely run through more than 1-2 times. It doesn’t give people much time to learn them and jump in. And at one point they were ragging on the east side for not cheering. Um, encourage, not discourage them to sing. But it’s only their first season – they’ll grow. Look at the ECS.

The game was good, but I was worried the first half. The Energy were much slower than Sacremento, but the biggest thing was size/force. Whenever it was 1 v 1, the other team almost always came away with it. They were much bigger size-wise, so OKC has to find a way to be faster and get in there and take the ball away.

But, I must’ve been decent luck, because they ended the game with a 2-0 win!

Funny to see Jimmy Nielsen as coach. I want to like him. He’s Danish and did very well in MLS. But totally still bitter about the Open Cup that Salazar handed them. Sorry, club over country. But I’m sure he’s nice?

After the game I met a  SKC fan and we talked about that game, and the fact that they were just kicked out by Portland (and then beat Portland a few days later in a regular season match.

<– me in my okc gear. which looks like sounders gear. I like.