The Footie Fool

Arsenal plays tomorrow, and I have just painfully admitted that I don’t care. Actually, I just lied. It wasn’t painful.

Something has happened to me this season. Something has changed. No, Arsenal, I don’t think it’s you. It’s me. Really.

Oh I am not saying you are not partially to blame. We all know it takes two to make a relationship work and, let’s face it – you have been hot and cold for the past while. Sure, there has been the occasional spark, but lately, well…sigh.

Let’s face it. 12 years is a long time and we have some good memories. A double in 2002, Champions League final in 2006, goodbye to Highbury, hello Emirates. It’s been a helluva ride. But truth be know, there is someone else and perhaps my fair weather bandwagon fanboy affair with you has come to an end.

I realized this on Tuesday. You were getting ready to tangle with Roma in the Champions League, an event I would have been anticipating for weeks. But no. On Tuesday I was preoccupied with something else, another piece of footie news.

TFC had signed Canadian international Adrian Serioux.

Once I got over the shock that I actually cared more about Serioux going to TFC than Arsenal playing Roma, things began to feel different. And it didn’t take long  for me to realize something – pro soccer in North America is winning me over.

I care about TFC.

Okay, care may be a bit harsh, because I always cared about how they would do, being the flag bearers for major level soccer in this country (easy there, Ultras – I’m getting there). Maybe put another way, I am beginning to form a relationship with them, thanks in no small part to the signing of DeRo and Serioux. My Canuck heart is starting to swell with the thoughts that we might just have the makings of something Canadian here. And, as someone who originally lived in Alberta, admitting that something good might be happening in Toronto is not something I say lightly.

DeRo. Serioux. Sutton. Brennan. 4 Canadians who will play prominent roles for TFC this season.

And then there is Montreal. 55,000 fans in Olympic Stadium. Impact defeat Santos of Mexico 2-0 in the first leg of the CONCACAF Champions League quarter-final. Sure, the stadium was papered, but from all accounts the crowd was knowledgeable and supportive, and completely dwarfed any Mexican presence in the Big O. Now, the MNT cynic might say where the hell were these people in September, but right now I prefer to believe that September was one of the reasons why 55,000 turned out. Maybe the CSA learned something from the Honduras debacle.

What does this endless rambling mean? I don’t know. But this is my blog and I can endlessly ramble if I want to. What I do know is that I suddenly have a more than just passing interest in professional soccer in North America. And for the first time ever, I have 2 dates in my soccer calendar that have never been there before. March 21 (TFC season opener vs Kansas City) and March 5th (Impact vs. Santos). And it makes me feel good.

Photo credit: TFC’s Inaugural Home Match against KC by dreistreifen. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.