Behind Enemy Lines

 

I had the opportunity to travel to Baltimore and attend the Liverpool v. Tottenham soccer (football) game a few weeks ago. For those of you are soccer illiterate, Liverpool and Tottenham are two clubs who play in the English Premier League, which is the preeminent  and most popular league in the world. Full disclosure, I have been a Manchester United supporter for over a decade (as long as I was aware of their existence) and they play in the same league as these two clubs. So if I seem snarky at all towards the two teams it is only because: 1: they are our rivals, and 2: I hate them.

Thanks to the Amtrak I was able to make going to the game a day trip, taking the 40 minute train to Baltimore at 8 A.M. and returning that night. I met friends from home there, and unfortunately they were all Liverpool supporters so we met at the official Liverpool pre-game event. There were probably 1000 fans there when I arrived at about 9:30 A.M and the game did not start until 1 P.M., so there was quite a crowd.

About an hour before game time we all marched towards the stadium together in a parade of sorts with a police escort, it was a great experience but unfortunately it was the most exciting part of the day. The game itself was actually quite miserable, and both teams looked like they had no desire to be there, but this is not shocking from teams of their character. It was exciting to watch two EPL teams play each other here in the US; the game just didn’t live up to the event surrounding it.