How on earth is a Premier League fan supposed to live life — work, cleanse one’s body, feed it on occasion, and, oh, I dunno, sleep a wee bit — when there are all of these games? My God! I simply cannot keep up.

I missed my very first Liverpool Premier League game — the Liverpool-Luton Town draw on Nov. 5, featuring Luis Diaz’s header goal and the flashing of his heartbreaking white tee, “Libertad Para Papa” beneath his jersey for his kidnapped father – because I had the nerve to be traveling at the time. I can hear my Chelsea-mad son’s voice ringing now in my head as I type these words: Plastic fan. Not a true football supporter. (But keep in mind, he only has to take care of himself, which largely consists of going to work, the gym, and Chick-fil-A or Chipotle. I’m sure he would never schedule travel when Chelsea was playing.)

So if you’d like to stop reading and dismiss this entire British football fan odyssey as “performative,” be my guest. I maintain, however, that it’s okay to miss a game now and still call oneself a football fan. Maybe that makes me a phony. Whatever. I’ll own it.

But back to my point: Why do there have to be Premier League games (one game a weekend) AND international play for the Europa League AND have an English Football League (EFL) competition for the Carabao Cup … CONCURRENTLY?

This last competition, the Carabao Cup, befuddles me because the Premier League is already an English football league where 20 teams compete against one another twice each season. Why the hell do they have to compete with MORE British teams? I’m well aware – thanks Welcome to Wrexham, my Chelsea-fan son and his girlfriend Jess – that there’s an abundance of English leagues (see graphic) and that every year, a few teams move up a league (promotion) or down a league (relegation). But that amount of interplay between leagues is apparently insufficient. WE. NEED. MORE. (Reader: No we don’t.) 

Enter the 63-year-old English Football League competition for the Carabao Cup – which doesn’t sound at all British but it’s named after its energy drink producer-sponsor: The Premier League teams compete against their own league’s clubs as well as teams from lower leagues in a seven-round knockout contest. According to the EFL website: “Premier League clubs enter the competition in Round Two with clubs that have qualified for the Champions League or Europa League joining in Round Three. The competition culminates in a final at Wembley Stadium, with the winner qualifying for the subsequent season’s Europa League.” (Okay, my head is spinning.)

And these Carabao Cup games occur at weird times. I was not expecting, for example, that on a random Wednesday (Nov. 1), a Liverpool game would be taking place, in the middle of the workday. A routine morning check of my social media feeds — which include ample Liverpool and Premier League accounts — informed me that there was a 3:45 p.m. game vs Bournemouth that day. (*Bournemouth is a team Liverpool beat 3-1 in August in the Prem and are slated to play again on Jan. 21.*) I was in the middle of preparing for a writing course I teach on Wednesday nights and had to scramble to see if I could get access to our ESPN+ account or whether there was a limit as to how many people could access it at any given time. The fact that I was able to log in means either that there’s no limit or that the other four members of my family were doing other things … like bad football fans. (I didn’t text my football-mad son to ask him because I didn’t want him to know I was unaware of this scheduled match.)

The Carabao Cup game featured torrential downpours. Everyone on the pitch, including the Reds in their lime green and white kits, looked like they’d rather be anywhere else. Liverpool took the early lead with a Harvey Elliott shot on goal that was deflected by the Bournemouth goalie only to be drilled to the back of the net on the rebound by Cody Gatkpo. Early in the second half, Bournemouth evened it up with a goal from Justin Kluivert for whom announcers said this was his first in English football.

While working to create lively and engaging slides for my writing students on one half of the screen, the rainy EFL game played on, ending in a 2-1 win after a Darwin Nunez goal (that dude is on fire these days).

I totally missed Liverpool’s Sunday, Nov. 5 Premier League 1-1 game against Luton Town four days later. (Liverpool had been expected to best “lowly Luton Town,” as Reuters referred to them. Yikes.) I haven’t told my Chelsea-fan son that I missed this game either lest he chastise me for choosing travel over football.

To eliminate future scheduling surprises, I’ve now entered the entire, godforsaken Liverpool schedule into my calendar and empowered my phone to annoy the piss out of me with reminders when kick-off is slated to begin.

This is exhausting, this British football stuff. 

Image credits: William Hill and Colombia.com.