Presents...
The Football Fallacies
with Graham O'Doherty
OH, I DO BELIEVE THAT WE ARE IN A SPOT OF BOTHER
Hello guys, and welcome back to another edition of The Football Fallacies with me, your gay Irishman Graham O'Doherty. Title says it all, really. In the Independents Cup, the women's team are currently struggling to get off the ground. They currently have a grand total of zero points (zero points!) against their name, and frankly I cannot say if it's going to improve anytime soon. I wouldn't say that we're doing bad though; that is just patently untrue. What we do have a problem is the fact that we have so far not yet been able to close out these games. Yes, I am specifically talking about the game against Reçueçn. That was a game for the taking for us but we started off slow and now, we the team and we the fans are paying the price.
As far as goals go, we are definitely not lacking, both in terms of scored and conceded. Kelly McGinnis currently has a brace to her name and Erin Jensdottir just scored that absolute banger of a free kick against the hosts earlier. We are still leaking goals, but at this point we are all growing ever number to it. But it is still a problem, and right now we are very much getting in trouble once again because of that. A lot of these goals—no, all of these goals were and are avoidable; ergo, they should not have happened in the first place. Phil Thomas's goal would have been easily avoided if Catarina Soler hadn't been left for dead by Queen Yarnall. And then there was Debbie Riddles' stupid tackle on Steffi Tucker that gave away the penalty that tied the game at 2-2. And if the sun hadn't broken through the clouds at the exact moment that Oona Kerry slipped in between the center backs then I'm sure that Steph Bryan would have saved that. I'm very sure.
And don't get me started with the game against Reçueçn. Both of those goals were flukes, and any other time they would not have gone in. Any other day, any other way, and Hippolyte Lavigne would have sent the ball into the stands, not just underneath the crossbar and the left post. And Franky Adams had no business, no business at all, scoring from near the halfway line.[1] That's just unbelievable. Somebody get in touch with the mods of the Matrix; I think there's been a glitch with their football subroutine. Or at least I think that's how you tell this to the IT guys. I don't know.
I mean, I guess you could say that Abanhfleft's performances at the Independents Cup is a microcosm of what's been going on with the team for quite some time now. Sure, the men's and women's teams are playing different styles under different coaches but it kind of feels like there's a pervading sense of "why bother" going through the teams at the moment. It's kind of like they've lost their sense of self-belief. It's like they're all saying "what's the point of playing well in this competition if someone else is going to win it anyway?" Which, I have to say, is a very dangerous line of thinking indeed. It's edging dangerously close to the thought processes of those conspiracy nutters who believe that there's an all-encompassing plot out there to deny Abanhfleft a world championship of any sort. And I can say to all of those nutters that you are all crazy. We've won championships in lacrosse, basketball, gridiron. So what if we don't win any trophy in football? It's a very competitive field out there; if anything, anyone who wins anything in football is very lucky indeed. Or they've got all of the best players that money could buy.
It's worth noting that the current generation of Fleftic players have pretty much grown up in an environment where they were exposed, or had the opportunity to be exposed to the sort of stuff that can maybe implant the message that no matter what we do, we'll never be good enough to win anything. Oh, God, now I'm sounding like one of those very nutters I'm trying to discredit. Maybe it's a good idea to stay away from this topic in the near future.
But in all honesty though, a lot of these players would have been kids when the "Real Fans of Abanhfleft" hit the peak of their terroristic activities, which we all know culminated in the kidnapping of the Yeezie ambassador to Qasden. They probably would have kidnapped the Yeezie ambassador to Abanhfleft if they could, if not for the fact that there was no Yeezie ambassador to Abanhfleft back in 2018 or thereabouts. There was a sort of liaison office in Wanda Island or somewhere near it but nothing like a consulate or an embassy. I digress though. The point I was trying to get to in this paragraph is that our players today, they were pretty much kids when all this stuff with the "Real Fans" was going on, and it would undoubtedly have stuck in their minds as they were growing up.
I guess this probably explains why it's the outsiders who are pretty much leading our teams at the moment. By outsiders I'm talking about the players who were naturalized so they could qualify to play for our team. Remember the Alternative Football Program by Heinrich Wurzmann, the one where washed-up stars and players who had potential but weren't really in the radar of the big teams got to play for the national team, incidentally at the Independents Cup? Well, it was through him that we got the likes of Guildenstern Cardew, Apolloscleiyali, Stephanie Winter-Slaughter, and Abigail Papadiamantopoulos and gave sportswriters all over the country nightmares to last a lifetime. God, he had a penchant for long names, didn't he? And so far, they've all been pretty much worth their weight in salt, or gold, or whatever. And they've all been pretty vocal about their displeasure with the way their teammates have been ready and willing to give up the ghost once they concede.
And what of our other recruits from Anglatia, and arguably the two most controversial selections to the Lady Revolutionaries in recent memory? Yes, I'm talking about Erin Jensdottir and Britt Hanokssen. There's no denying that Erin is a premier football player. She's got pretty much everything going for her... except for her little "addiction". Yes, it's no secret that for pretty much her early football career, up to and including her breaking into the Hunsen Loggers first team, Erin had a narcotic problem. It's basically the reason why she was overlooked by scouts, not only within Anglatia but also throughout the multiverse. Even the one and only Matt Cave, the "Spotter of Stars" himself, barely gave little Erin a second glance upon learning about her "problem". And then there was that whole brouhaha about faking their deaths to get away from some debts from the Anglatian mafia or some such and getting signed for the seventh division on false names and papers. But Erin's still getting the job done for Rosenpfelblatz, and I haven't heard a single word about her "condition" so she must be getting some help for it, and good and successful help at that.
And of course we cannot talk about Erin without also mentioning Britt. Britt Hanokssen-Hanks, as she is registered in the SFA database because of aforementioned faking death brouhaha; just Britt for short; nicknamed "the Bulldog" for her sheer never-say-die attitude. They say that Britt and Erin are pretty much a package deal; where one goes, the other follows. It's no secret that they're in a relationship, although I have to say that I find it interesting that there's been no gossip or rumours about them having any sort of row or quarrel, so maybe their love trumps all else that's come their way. That being said, I haven't also heard any rumours about the two of them getting married, which is very much a legal thing over here in our country (yes, Packie, I'm fecking talking to you) so make of that what you will. Anyway, the point I've been trying to get to is that Britt has been doing pretty much all of the work in the final quarter of an hour of the game egging her teammates on and going for both balls and shots at goal and trying to get the fans back on the team's side. It's been a bit of a fruitless effort so far given the results, but it's also far from thankless. Britt has long been criticized for being a waste of space in the national team with what she brings (or actually doesn't) to the table, but her efforts to stir this team back into action has not gone unnoticed by the fans. Even I, a Markovskite through and through, can only appreciate the heart and effort that this salt miner[2] has brought to the Lady Revolutionaries.
The main point of what I've been trying to say, really, is that because of our absolutely horrible start to this Independents Cup, we've left ourselves no room for error at all to pull this back from the brink and make something out of this absolutely horrible situation. Three games left to go, and maximum points is the only thing that will get people seeing this thing as being somewhat of a success. Anything less and you might as well not have bothered qualifying for the Independents Cup anyway. And the rest of the team has to pick up the slack. Erin, Britt, Stephanie (both Bryan and Winter-Slaughter), Kelly, Elene; they can't win anything by themselves. This has to be a team effort. There is simply no other way. And that is the end of my TED Talk; thank you all for coming. XOXO from Graham....
(OOC Note 1: For Franky Adams' halfway line goal, look up Charlie Adam's goal against Chelsea.)
(OOC Note 2: "Salt miner" is a slightly derogatory term used by Markovskites to refer to citizens and residents of Rosenpfelblatz, which is located on the edge of a massive salt basin and was founded as a village for the salt harvesters working on that particular part of the basin.)