Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Matchday 24 and Boring Weekend


I’m back.  I was gone for a bit but now it’s time to get back on the horse and do some writing!

 

Many of you reading will know that we lost again, 3-0 to Lahti.  I won’t say much about the game other than that 3-0 was a harsh scoreline for that game.  I’m not necessarily saying that we were the better team or that we should have won, but we definitely did not deserve to lose 3-0 based on the flow of the game.  That’s just the nature of the game though.  Maybe next week the luck will go our way.
This picture matches our situation.

You guys will also probably know that our coach got sacked last week.  I didn’t mention it in my last post even though I knew because I didn’t want to go spreading news that wasn’t already out in public.  I don’t look at any of the news outlets here so I had no idea if the media had been made aware.  Before I talk about Sami I will say that I was very surprised when I got the news.  It was a bit surreal because when training started Sami was there and things seemed perfectly normal.  By the time we had returned from our recovery session with the fitness coach Sami was gone.  Still, I didn’t think anything of it.  Then the owner came in and addressed us in Finnish.  Since I didn’t understand, I assumed it was a call for us to step it up.  We all know that it is unacceptable to lose 9-2 so I was not at all surprised that the owner would want to address us.  However, once the speech was translated I was totally shocked.  I didn’t think that firing Sami was even a consideration, even after such a bad loss.  I’ve never had a coach fired before, so my brain just never considered the possibility.  The decision is made though, and that’s that.  Bringing it up after today won’t do anybody any good.

 

I won’t say too much about Sami, as anything I have to say to him I can do directly and not via a blog.  But I will say that I really liked Sami as our coach.  I thought he was doing the best that could be asked of him and I know that he had the respect of every player in the locker room.  That may seem like a given, but it’s not.  I’ve played on more than one team that didn’t fully respect the coach.  It’s not apparent to the outside observer but it has a big effect on the team when the guys don’t trust the coach.  Like I said though, that was never an issue with Sami.  Also, Sami brought me to this club.  Even though he didn’t keep me when I was here back in February, he had the confidence in my ability to bring me back.  That will always mean a lot to me.  The hardest thing to do in this game is to get a chance and he gave me mine.  I will miss him, but I don’t think it will negatively affect my play.  I’m being asked to do essentially the same thing as I’ve been doing, so for me not much has changed.

 

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After the Lahti game we had a bit of a team thing at the stadium.  It was planned weeks in advance and was just a bit of a time for us to hang out together as a team and just enjoy each other’s company.  Unfortunately this event happened to come on the heels of three defeats in a week by a combined 14-3 so no one really wanted to see anybody else.  Still we had a brief discussion on what needed to be done and then got on with trying to enjoy the night.  I took a picture of the ‘party’ but I didn’t stay too long.  I’m not really a huge party animal and there was no way I was going out to the bars or anything so I just drank a few beers and went home.

 

That was Saturday and since then I have done absolutely nothing.  I went for a run yesterday and then to training today but other than that I have just sat at my apartment.  I’ve watched a dozen games, four movies, countless tv shows and played Final Fantasy XIII on PS3.  I’ve also eaten food, pooped and brushed my teeth (in that exact order).  I was planning on trying to get a decent grasp of Finnish, but I’ve noticed that none of the foreign guys on the team speak a word of Finnish so I’m not going to try either.  Maybe that makes me a dick, but oh well.  I’m just lucky that I hit the linguistic jackpot and was born to an English-speaking country.  I guess all the colonialism and slavery that has led a black guy born in America to speak the common language of the western world was all worth it!

 

That’s all for now.  The only other thing I want to mention is that Ronaldinho’s goal this week wasn’t that great.  He is one of the ten best players of my lifetime so far, but that doesn’t mean that his goal was anything more than decent.  He just muscled a defender then passed the ball past a hapless Brazilian goalie (Sorry to be repetitive.   All Brazilian goalies are terrible).  I saw a player named Wanderson score the exact same goal for GAIS almost exactly one year ago when I was in Sweden. There wasn’t a worldwide glorification of it.  Now I’m done.  The meme:

 

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