Blue Sunday
“Are you a Manchester United fan?”
This irritating question has been asked of me any number of times, either by those unfamiliar with any other EPL teams, much less the “other” Manchester, or friends looking to get a rise out of me. It works, of course. But it doesn’t fully explain why I ran through my house screaming like a lunatic when Sergio Aguero worked past four defenders, took a perfectly weighted return pass from a fallen Mario Balotelli, swung his right leg through the ball and ended 44 years of frustration for City.
The thrill of victory, the agony ecstacy of a sad Wayne Rooney. 1-0.
Two games to go.
Sunday Sports Breakdown
This Sunday got off to a rather inauspicious start. Having DVR’d the Manchester Derby, I awoke at 9 AM downstairs to the sounds of my dad yelling at the television about how shit the referee was. Over the past couple of years, I’ve gotten Dad to become a City fan, so much so that he makes it a point to try to watch a lot of the matches with me when he can and that he often gets angrier at the players than I do. (“Dzeko is lazy! He doesn’t track back! Why isn’t Adam Johnson playing?”)
With that kind of alarm, I had an idea what I was about to endure when I met up with Bowie at 11 AM to watch the game over bagels - a brave, but heartbreaking loss. Chris Foy, Manchester United’s Man of the Match, managed to do what no team in England has this season and completely nullify City captain Vincent Kompany by ejecting him from the proceedings a little over 10 minutes in for making as much contact with Nani as you or I did. United had already scored once against the run of play and, with the added momentum of having City’s best defender sent off, added two more before the half. City, however, would not go quietly into the night - Kolarov scored a free kick shortly after the restart, and Aguero, who was phenomenal as the only true forward on the field for City, added a second setting up a final 20 minutes in which Manchester United, despite being up a man, hung on for dear life after having a 3 goal lead only a half hour prior. I briefly thought I had been hallucinating in the morning because I swore I heard Paul Scholes’ name coming from the TV, but there he was, his exhumed body one of the 11 trying to stop City from a historic comeback. They did, but just barely, and given the 12 on 10 advantage United enjoyed, I’ve rarely felt as good after a defeat, especially to…them.
Just going to keep looking at this while pretending I didn’t spend my night watching the Giants game. That’s healthy, right?
