In Which I Sound The Same Note

That note being that Tom Soehn cannot be gone from my futbol team's life soon enough for my taste. Did he give up two stupid goals? No. Did he actually put in an innovative lineup against Toronto tonight, one that generated some energy? Yes. Did he bunker, during the 5 minutes in which he could possibly have done so? No.

Then why, Landru, why? Why do you so hate this man? Why do you hold it against him, and not his predecessor, Saint Piotr of Polska, that he played for the fucking Fire? Why do you deride his coaching ability when his team, your team, isn't as bad as you feared, as bad as it probably should be, would be if not for the sucky rubitude of Rinky Dink League Soccer (h/t this guy, as ever)? Why do you bust out in uncontrollable laughter at the sight of his tough-guy picture during introductions? Why can you not restrain yourself from chanting "wanker" when his name is called?

Because he's the worst man manager ever, that's why. I'll give him credit for the starting lineup. I just did. See? It's right up there, top of the post. I wasn't even pissed off by the first sub, at least not too much--Fred needed to have a sit, and while Tino Quaranta will remain forever unforgiven, he's no longer discommodated and he doesn't quite suck. And his wife just had a baby, so he's all peppy and shit. Fine. I was apoplectic about his second sub. Lessee...restarting from a stunningly stupid goal that puts us down one, we remove the one guy who's been showing energy up front, the guy who's still running his ass off and showing some flair, and put in Jaime Moreno and his osteoporosis--who already went 70 minutes, about 30 over his weekly limit, on Wednesday night? And leave in Emilio, who's acquired this hobby of trying to dribble into three defenders on every touch? What the fucking fuck, dood? The only good thing I can say about it is that he didn't pull Rodney Wallace and put in Boy Z--my faith in Soehn is such that, while I'm pretty good at predicting his substitutions--even the braindead ones--I missed with that prediction around the 60th minute or so.

So, the Moreno thing actually turned out good--anyone else in the game in stoppage would've shanked the penalty that equalized--but not percentage baseball, not good situational management. And you will never in a million years convince me that Soehn was playing a hunch.

It was also dumb in light of the offense's particular affliction tonight, which was that it wanted to play with its food. Time and fucking time again, the attack put together beauty touches to get the ball in the 18, then kept trying to make more beauty touches rather than beautifully touching the ball in the direction of the fucking goal. Here's a clue, boys: the mouse is better in your tummy than it is scuttling off wounded into its hole in the wall. Cut it the fuck out and shoot.

What was I babbling about? Oh yeah, the one guy who wasn't playing with his food? Ange N'Silu, yanked by Tommy Soehn after Dejan Jacovic gave up The Dumbest Goal In History.

Look, there's nothing better than standing with this guy and this guy and this guy and watching United, except maybe substituting my wife for that last guy--she has considerably less back hair. But he's a perfectly palatable sub. No matter: I love my club. I love the game. I love many of the players. But Jesus H. Tittyfucking Christ on a Wobblyass Bamboo Crutch, I'm tired of the dumb.

Final weird and unrelated note: every time someone scored in this game, someone scored in the hockey game, which I was tracking on the Crackberry. Damnably odd. I'll forget about it by my end-season hockey rant, which by my calculations will be coming sometime very soon.