Skyfall

The sky is not falling.

Things haven’t gone so well for us the past few games (or the past few months, really) but VPS is still ok.  We’ve still got games against all of our rivals for 3rd place, and we’ve beaten all of them at some point this season.  There’s no reason to think that we can’t go on a run to finish these last eight games.  Like I said in my last post I think, we only need four more wins to essentially guarantee a third place finish.  We have RoPS at home (we’ve beaten them here already), JJK away (won there too), KuPS at home, Inter away (drew there), HJK at home (beat them this year), Jaro at home (beat them here), MIFK away (won there) and MYPA away (not looking forward to that).  My point is that even though I assume the fanbase is freaking out right now, things are not as bad as they seem.  Of course, a bit better play in July and August would have us maybe talking about winning a trophy, but that’s in the past and now we need to do what’s necessary to finish in third.

Obviously the main reason that finishing third is important is that it will give VPS entry into the 2013-2014 Europa League qualifiers and the $120,000 that comes along with it.  The possibility of a big bonus motivates players to want to play these games as much as prestige, since there really is no prestige in the first round of Europa League qualifiers.  They don’t even bother sending the maroon signage to put around the stadium.  They just send you a referee from Latvia or Moldova or somewhere and match you against a team from Uzbekistan (I know, and I’m not changing it).  That said, I don’t think that VPS will be throwing around huge bonuses anyway, since getting too loose with the pursestrings seems to have been a big problem in the near enough past that people still remember how poorly it went.  Realistically, bonuses would only come if VPS progressed to the second round or beyond.

Moving away from soccer, I need to apologize a bit to people who regularly check up on the blog.  I haven’t posted for the longest time since I started the thing.  I’m sorry about that, but I’m just all out of things to talk about.  I’ve essentially holed up in my apartment since Celia left and have lived an incredibly boring life.  I even started buying more frozen foods so that I wouldn’t have to go to the grocery store as often.  Essentially, I’m just missing America.  Last year I really missed my baby niece, since I had just gotten to know her a little bit then came to Europe.  Now, I miss almost everything about America, even things that are available here but that I don’t have.  I miss SportsCenter and HGTV.  I miss driving my car.  I miss the $1 menu at McDonald’s (and every other fast food place).  I miss going to Indianapolis Colts and Indiana Pacer games.  I miss being able to read all the signs.  I miss all of those things, not to mention my family and network of friends.  The reason I go to London whenever I get a chance is that it reminds me of America, and as much as I like to think otherwise I get homesick every time I come to Europe.  I’d probably be less homesick if I made $1 million a year, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen.  I don’t blame Finland for my feelings - if anything Finland makes it easier because everyone speaks english and I can communicate easily.  But if I get a bit homesick in Scandinavia after a few months, I can only imagine how I’d hold up in a Turkey or Austria or China.  I’ve gone on a bit of a tangent again, but the thesis of this paragraph is that I haven’t posted to the blog because I’ve been doing nothing because I’m a little homesick.

That’s all for now.  There is no skyfall just yet.  If we don’t take points off our next two opponents RoPS and JJK though, then maybe it will be time to go to DEFCON 5 (which despite being a phrase, is ironically the opposite of what it means.  DEFCON 5 in reality is not panic, but the least alert DEFCON status.  Something like the phrase “I could care less” which in english is commonly used to mean the opposite of what the phrase actually says).  And if the sky does fall, we’ll just call James Bond and he’ll save the day somehow.  I don’t know the particulars because we watched the movie on the bus and I fell asleep halfway through and woke up during the final scene.  I assume he just shot a lot of people and jumped off ledges until the day was saved.

See you at the game tomorrow!

The meme:  

Matchday 28 and Terrible Boredom

I’m finally back.  I would post more like I did when I was in Sweden, but there is truly nothing to talk about most of the time.  People wouldn’t think that a professional athlete’s life would be boring, but I don’t think I’ve ever been so bored in my entire life.  I can’t even do extra workouts because I’ve been specifically instructed by Juha to stop that so that I’m fully ready to play when called upon.  Speaking of Juha…

 

As soon as my post went up last week, I looked at the tv and Juha was on the screen analyzing a Champions League game between Manchester City and Real Madrid.  It was ironic because I spent most of that post talking about how nothing interesting ever happened.  I’d tell you what he said, but I have no idea because I don’t speak a word of Finnish and because the tv was muted.  That’s just how I watch tv here.

 

Fast forward to now, and things are better than before for me personally.  Not good per se, but better.  I played in the last game, albeit only for a few minutes at the very end.  I only touched the ball once, and that was to win a 50/50 ball that we didn’t keep.  I didn’t even have enough time to break a sweat.  It’s for sure better than not playing though.  Unfortunately, we lost the game 1-0 and now sit at the bottom of the table since the team previously behind us won.  Once again we played well, but we just didn’t get the results.  I have my ideas on how to improve things, but they’re not really important because no one listens to me anyway.  Maybe one day I’ll reveal my secret formula for success!

Me slightly happier than before.

 

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That was the ‘Line of Relevance’

 

Everything above it has at least some relevance, everything else I’m about to write isn’t relevant to anything.

 

Today I did absolutely nothing.  It was a day off for the team and those are the worst days for me.  They drag on forever and I spend most of them just at home.  Today was no different.  In fact, I didn’t even leave my place today.  Normally on off days I go for a run, but the instruction from Juha means that I’m not doing any extra running of any kind.  I barely even ate today.  I’ve just been sitting in my living room playing PS3 and surfing the internet all day.  I downloaded and watched Prometheus, and I wasn’t impressed.

 

Times like these make me really miss living in America.  While of course I had times where I was really bored in America, I always had something to do.  Baltimore (and more specifically Towson, MD) was fun and exciting and Harrisburg had a few things to do as well.  I also had a lot more in common with my US teammates than I do with the guys here or in Sweden.  I miss watching college football on Saturday afternoons on TV.  Now I can still watch games, but only on a crappy internet stream and at 8 o’clock at night.  It’s just not as fun.

 

Another thing that sucks about being abroad is that all my friends from back home are going forward with their lives.  One of my good friends is getting married this weekend and I literally didn’t even know.  I’m terrible at keeping in touch with people back home and finding out about this wedding just kind of hammered that point home to me.  I knew he was engaged at least.  But it just sucks that I’m not going to be able to be there and show my support.  If I lived in say, Philadelphia, I’d be on a plane right now to go to the wedding.  Instead, I’m sitting in total boredom in small town Finland.  I knew what I was getting into when I left America though.  Most of the stresses I’ve gone through were fully known before I ever set foot in Europe.

 

Oh yeah before I go I have a quick question.  My house has been really cold on some of the colder days we’ve had here in Valkeakoski.  Does anyone know how to work the radiators?  It seems like it should be really simple since it’s just one knob, but I’ve turned them all to different points and none of them have any heat at all.  I just assume that there is some sort of central radiator and it’s not turned on yet or something?  I’m only living here for a month more, but I don’t want to spend that month freezing my ass off.  Hopefully someone has the answers!

 

 

The meme: