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.
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| 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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