Tag: Premier League rules

adventures in british football: weeks three & four … then a break, already?

I’m a tad behind on blogging about my adventures following the Prem this season because I was on vacation on Cape Cod and was trying to NOT work during that time, which meant no writing. But I did watch Liverpool rack up two more wins … and now they’re on a break? Already? Only four weeks in? I’ll tackle my being mystified by that fact in a separate post. Meanwhile, below are recaps of weeks three and four in my British football odyssey.

Week Three: Short One Player, Liverpool Comes from Behind to Beat Newcastle, 2-1

My Liverpool-fan son Jonah joined his Chelsea-fan brother Casey, the “neutral” Scott, and Liverpool-fan me minutes before the Reds took on the Magpies at St. James’ Park. (Okay, I know that the name “Red Sox,” especially with its odd spelling, is a stupid team name, but, come on … magpies?)

Anyway … Jonah, who was celebrating his 25th birthday, spent most of this game slamming his fist into the couch and shouting, “No!!” which caused our 12-pound, caffeine-on-legs dog Tedy to bark wildly, widely sharing his nasty breath around the room with each, “woof.” (We can never tell if he barks when we cheer or jeer because he wants to join in or because the sounds upset him.)

The flurry of yellow/red cards didn’t make for an enjoyable first half in my house. As the sea of black-and-white clad Newcastle fans provided nearly constant noise for the first nine minutes of the match, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Liverpool’s right-back, received a yellow card early in the game for tossing the ball out-of-bounds after he believed he was fouled on the back but the shove wasn’t called. (See above.) Seriously? Given the immense physicality (and subsequent bad acting) in typical EPL (English Premier League) games, tossing a ball away, instead of to an official, leads to a yellow card? Yes, according to this season’s new Prem rules, established to curb bad behavior. Officials, according to TalkSport.com, can distribute yellow cards for “time-wasting from the clear and obvious (kicking the ball away), to the more subtle (delaying goal-kicks).” This meant the Alexander-Arnold couldn’t play as aggressively for the remainder of the game lest he receive a second yellow card and serve a one-game suspension.

“Trent’s finished, mate,” Casey said to Jonah, as the two expected Alexander-Arnold to be subbed out. Only he wasn’t subbed out.

By 24:44, the guy who Jonah and Casey thought should’ve been subbed out misplayed a pass and Newcastle’s Anthony Gordon scored. Jonah and “neutral” Scott groaned their displeasure. Three minutes later, Liverpool’s defender Virgil Van Dijk (VVD) received a controversial red card — meaning he leaves the game, the team continues with one fewer player, and he’d be suspended for the next game — which prompted the loudest angry shouting in my house that morning. Tension in our family room was thick and was curdling the coffee in my stomach.

While some Liverpool fans think VVD got his foot on the ball while tackling a Newcastle player, the referee “deemed Van Dijk’s foul on [Alexander Isak] to be a denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity (DOGSO), leading to the red card,” according to Liverpool.com. A what now? A Dogso? Do dogsos get along with magpies? (I know. Stupid mom humor. I’ll stop now.) The commentators were agog saying this red card “brandished in his face [was] for the first in seven years.”

While Liverpool goaltender Alisson Becker made a dramatic save – even Casey blurted, “Hooollly cow” in serious admiration – the talk in our house at halftime was about whether the rumors about Mo Salah going to the Saudi Pro League for a massive, otherworldly payday were legit. This topic further darkened Jonah’s mood.

The Reds’ luck changed in the second half and people in my living room became markedly less grumpy. After coming off the bench in the 77th minute, Darwin Nunez (above) outmaneuvered a Newcastle player and scored, yielding the day’s first loud exclamations of the happy variety (accompanied by Tedy’s yappy barking sending its indiscriminate message).

The happiness was short lived as, four minutes later, Nunez received a yellow card because, like Alexander-Arnold, he disposed of the ball (kicked it away) like an angry child instead of just giving it to the ref. Has the dude not been paying attention? They’re down a player already? I thought but didn’t say out loud. However, said dude redeemed himself minutes later with his second goal, lighting up the resident birthday boy’s face watching the game with me. As the whistle blew and Liverpool emerged victorious, the commentators employed lame, Dad-joke puns like, “A Darwin evolution is underway.”

Image credit: This is Anfield.

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adventures in british football: liverpool at chelsea

As I prepared to watch the first Liverpool game of the new Premier League season this past Sunday, I hoped to do so while donning the brand new Liverpool jersey I ordered in honor of the start of my British football experience. Instead, when I plopped myself down next to my spouse I was wearing my black “Democracy Dies in Darkness” tee because the football shirt didn’t arrive on time. I tried not to read anything into this, into the fact that the shirt didn’t arrive before the game. It’s not an omen or anything, I told myself.

Other than being inappropriately attired when I watched the Liverpool-Chelsea game on Sunday, what was the big news? The match ended in a 1-1 tie between Chelsea (my 22-year-old son Casey’s favorite) and Liverpool (my nearly-25-year-old twins Abbey and Jonah’s favorite), during which two goals were “disallowed” by officials because players were declared offside after VAR (video assistant referee). Luckily, football’s confusing offside rule had already been thoroughly explained to me by Casey who used popcorn kernels inside a semi-darkened movie theater a few weeks ago before the movie Oppenheimer began to illustrate what offside is. Without this explanation, along with important clarifying details from his girlfriend Jess, I would’ve likely been mystified by watching a Liverpool, then a Chelsea goal nullified on Sunday.

It’s been strange for me, this whole learning process, the fact that everyone in my house knows more about football than me. It’s been quite humbling to have my twentysomething kids — okay, mostly football superfan Casey, who’s been the family contrarian ever since he started speaking (for a short time, the kid rooted for the Yankees simply because the rest of the family rooted for the Red Sox) — teach me not only about the rules of the game, but about the Premier League and the history of some of its best clubs. While Casey hasn’t seemed exactly thrilled that I’ve decided to co-op his football passion and blog about it, he has humored me and been a pretty good teacher, as long as I don’t ask questions while a game is in progress.

During the same weekend when Casey and Jess explained offside to me (I really want to add an “s” to the end of that word, but I’ve been told that’s not how it’s done in the Premier League), they also gave me a general British football 101 primer. Using my cartoon dog notepad, the two sketched out information about the 20-team Premier League which they said represents the best of English football. Its rules and traditions, at first blush, seem odd to me, someone whose preferred sport has been major league baseball ever since I was a little kid. For example, the Premier League doesn’t have playoffs. No playoffs! Its champion is determined by who has the most points.

“Three points are awarded for a win,” the Premier League website says, “one point for a draw and none for a defeat, with the team with the most points at the end of the season winning the Premier League title.” If there are ties, there are myriad ways to further break down the stats to determine a playoff-less winner, like comparing number of goals scored in the season or who scored the most goals when clubs played one another, according to the Sporting News. Thanks to my Ted Lasso viewership, I came to this football project with a very basic understanding of the utterly bizarre concept of “relegation” — where the last three teams in a British league are demoted each year and, conversely, the three with the most points in lower leagues are “promoted” to the next-highest league.

During my first week of watching Premier League games as a Liverpool fan, I learned the difference between shots versus shots on goal quite by accident after I made a throwaway comment to Casey while we were watching the Arsenal and Nottingham Forest match.

“They’ve had a lot of shots on goal,” I said of one team, I don’t remember which. 

“No there haven’t,” replied six-foot-four Casey, his eyes darting back and forth between the screen and his phone, on which he was monitoring Premier League info.

“What do you mean? I just saw them kick the ball at the goal.” I felt like I was being gaslit. Isn’t that what they called it in hockey when teams shoot the puck at the goal? It’s different in football?

“That wasn’t a shot on goal. What is your definition of a shot on goal?”

I didn’t answer him in the moment because I despise being quizzed by the kid who once told me I was an animal abuser for not allowing our dog to eat his dinner at the kitchen table along with the rest of the family. But Casey’s subsequent explanation echoed what I later found online. “A shot on target is either any shot that goes into the goal, a shot that is saved by the goalkeeper or one where the last man blocks the ball,” said the Football Handbook. “In the last two scenarios, the ball must have a clear chance of going into the net.”

I made a mental note not to call a kick in the direction of the net that, say, hits the post, a “shot on target,” just like I made a mental note to refrain from commenting on a goal on the off chance it’s ruled offside. It’s hard enough to be the dumbest person in the room when it came to football, I don’t want to put myself out there to be potentiallly mocked for my ignorance, particularly if Casey, who consumes Premier League information like oxygen, is feeling chippy and wants to give his old mom a hard time.

On the day of the Liverpool-Chelsea match, there’d been ample pregame chatter about the tug-of-war between the two clubs over signing star footballers Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia, so I read up on it, scanned sports sites and checked social media so I could participate in any potential discussion. (Spoiler alert: Caicedo and Lavia both went to Chelsea, much to the embarrassment of Liverpool fans.) However, I didn’t find much opportunity to contribute an informed comment during the game. In fact, I found exactly zero opportunities to do so. Instead, opted to keep mostly quiet – sooo unusual for me – and simply took everything in. The fact that the game ended in a tie and neither of my sons who were watching the game with my husband and me were disappointed seemed like a win, at least for peace in my living room.

As I look ahead to week two of my adventure with British football, I’m still waiting for the Liverpool jersey to arrive, am monitoring all the rumors about Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker toying with jumping to the Saudi Pro League, and am trying to get a handle on the fluctuating roster.

Image credit: ESPN/Getty Images.