Confessions of a Football Junkie

Did anyone manage to see Parma vs. Sampdoria on FSC Thursday night?  Me neither, although my television set was tuned to the game.  Truth be told, I don't think anyone, including the men on the pitch, saw much of the game. I initially thought the poor visibility was due to the lovable Italian tendency to use flares as lighting instruments at sporting events, but later deduced that the inability to see the far side of the pitch was due solely to incredibly bad fog. And I don't mean just any fog, I'm talking John Carpenter-type stuff, although regrettably, the sexy Adrienne Barbeau was not playing today (but she can be seen directly below, in a shameless attempt to build viewership -- after all, sex and horror sell).



 

Watching the game last night was one of the more surreal television experiences I've had recently, kind of like watching television yet listening to the radio at the same time, as the spectral-looking players floated in and out of visibility, as shown below.



Even if I could have seen the players, apparently there was little worth watching. To wit, this gem, coming from the game's announcer -- whose paid, mind you, to make this stuff exciting:

"Twenty minutes gone, Parma nil, Sampdoria nil. Very little entertainment. No corners, no shots, no saves.... No drama, no tension.... What can you say?"

Exactly.  What can you say?

Yet still I watched -- am I a glutton for punishment, or what?  Yeah, it's bad when there's no EPL, La Liga or even Bundesliga from which to get my fix, so I slummed it last night and watched a bottom of the barrel Serie A game, with Parma struggling to get out of last place, under the theory that some footie's better than no footie. Based on my experience I'm not 100% sure the theory holds.

I did have the common sense to turn the game off before Parma won it late.  By the time an 84th minute strike put them past Sampdoria, 1-nil, I was long gone. I mean I do have a life...  What was I doing you ask?  Why, watching the mid-week EPL highlight show, of course.  What else would you expect from a junkie?  This is farlieonfootie for November 13.