Got Up Late, No Fit State To Write

My mood is foul. I woke up half out of bed, lying sprawled across the remains of last night’s TV dinner, and with my legs tangled around Matthews, my five year old labrador. Everything about last night’s game had dried around my mouth. The anger, the disgust, the despair, the corruption made real. We need weeks like this to remind us who we support when it all comes down to the wire.

Tonight we have to make another stand. Are we for the red or are we for the blue? We’re all partisan to one side or the other. Some of us just don’t know it yet. Tonight’s matches in the European Championship marks an important moment in world affairs. Are we for Russia or the USA? Liverpool play the current champions Barcelona, while Chelsea take on FC Porto, the team once managed by their current manager José Mourinho.

Anti-American sentiments might make it hard for some of us to support Liverpool now they’re owned by two American billionaies, one a close supporter of George W. But are we really so naive to think that supporting Chelsea is to support good old fashioned football virtues? Roman Abramovich, friend to Putin, or Tom Hicks, friend to Bush? Or do we try to support the little island in the middle? Hard choices. Big outcomes. The world in balance. And that's before we've even put in our bets.

But isn’t it this that makes it such an exciting yet funny old game?