Send us your questions: sportstips@complex.com | @Complex_Sports
Previous entries:
What is the Most Meaningless Stat in the NFL?
If the NBA Were a Fight Club, Whose Starting Five Would You Want?
Q: In high school my dad couldn't stand it when my brothers and I would wake up to watch soccer on the weekend mornings. We're all coming home for the holidays and I'm dreading his bitching about A.M. soccer. How can I make him shut up? —Aaron from Florida
1.
Aaron, all of us here at Complex are distraught to hear about your dad's feelings about the beautiful game. Mind-melting goals like the one above from Newcastle's Papiss Cissé deserve everyone's attention and awe—they're worth getting up a bit early and fighting thru hangovers. But on a personal note, I think your dad should join the likes of Michael Wilbon and all the other old farts who are too traditionalist to appreciate something different. Please stick your head in the sand elsewhere.
BTW, if your dad's on Twitter, don't let him see this.
twitters, ranked 1. awards show twitter 2. nba thurs./nfl sun. twitter . . 17. lifetime movie twitter . . . 245. saturday AM soccer twitter
— Shea Serrano (@SheaSerrano) December 6, 2014
In fact, encourage him to follow Saturday A.M. soccer Twitter! The banter gets super live and you may or may not receive death threats in your mentions in another language. The World's Game can really help expand your horizons.
If your old man is also technologically illiterate, sell him on the narratives within the game, particularly in the English Premier League. The holiday season is the hottest time of the year for the Premiership. Between now and New Years Day, there are 41 Premiership fixtures to catch. That's like a whole college football bowl season, or something. But unlike college football (now at least), there are no playoffs—whoever wins in the regular season wins the title. That makes this set of holiday footy so damn important—with all the December fixture congestion, this is the most hectic time of the year across the EPL. We're seeing Southampton melt down before our eyes and Manchester United surge to the top. Shit is v lit in England rn if TBQH.
2.
Adding to the fire is England's biggest rapper alive/the guy with the white hair getting active above, Newcastle manager Alan Pardew. The squad rallied around Pardew after early season struggles nearly saw him sacked. They haven't lost at home since losing to Manchester City on the first day of the season, and have bolted from the bottom of the league to a crowded mid-table—a decent position to be in right now, especially with half the league (including some expensively assembled teams like Liverpool, Everton, Tottenham, and Arsenal) treading water. But back to our man Pardew AKA Anderson Cooper's stunt-double:
3.
4.
Pardew is a head-butting, horse-fighting mime, and also a proper bastard of a man. England's Silver Fox will face Manchester United the day-after Christmas at 10 a.m. EST. Get up a bit early before dad, make him a strong coffee with some eggs and bacon, and soak in Pardew's dewiness. If that won't save your family, I can guarantee whatever's written below this won't either. —Justin Block (@JBlock49)
5.
How can you get him to shut up? Short answer: You can let him sleep in and watch college football.
This is the most hectic time of year for many reasons, but the bonanza of sporting events doesn’t have to be one of them.
After all, there aren’t many hours to set aside for sports, you got to get up early (for reasons other than watching soccer), shovel heart-attack-inducing snow (maybe not in Florida, I guess), prep big-ass meals and practice phony smiles for crappy gifts. Your old man needs to soak up every second he can with the Sandman before prepping for a few days (or in the worst of cases, a week) with the extended family and in-laws. He shouldn’t have his REM interrupted by cheers for non-stop action back and forth scoring whatever the hell soccer fans cheer for.
It’s tough enough to set time aside when half the family wants to watch Elf and half your family wants to watch A Christmas Story, to have his sons watching the EPL on top of that might just be too much to take. This is the one time of year to envy the suicidal, because at least their loneliness gives them the time to absorb this year-end bonanza of sports that’s hoisted upon us annually. As bowl season—and especially the long-awaited inaugural College Football Playoff—makes its yearly holiday stop, that’s exactly where the end/beginning of year sports viewership should be focused. Entirely.
Sure, any bowl (even including the Popeyes Bahamas Bowl) in and of itself would be preferable to the EPL at 7 a.m., but this year it is even more essential to tune into America’s “amateur” football ranks to see four conferences vie for FBS supremacy. Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and Ohio State are all facing off to represent their regions. And though I know that isn’t enough to unwire a lifetime of soccer loyalty, it’s just as frenzied as European soccer action, arguably more so since every game doesn’t end in a 0-0 tie.
If the old timer falls asleep halfway through Bama-OSU (where the score could already be 28-3 if you believe the SEC hype) because his sons were loudly screaming over whether or not a player flopped, that’s the type of behavior that’s worthy of a lump of coal (which admittedly would only come if you celebrate Christmas a week late).
At the beginning of this season I made it clear that college fooball is my sport of choice and that the up-and-down, back-and-forth quality of football tops the NFL's watered down brand. I've also written at length about how soccer sucks, which certainly converted nobody, but it still had to be said. And that’s the point: Us haters feel an unexplainable compulsion to vocalize it.
I don’t think there is a way to get your dad to “shut up” because the synapses in our brains force us to let out a loud, annoyed, condescending sigh every time we see this:
6.
Or a scoreboard showing yet another tie (contrast that with the thrill of college overtime). Or the announcer going nuts over nothing.
Soccer would be a sleep-aid for him except for the never-ending/inexplicable cheering from some viewers (don’t take it personally). While college football is Red Bull for the eyes, there's only so much you can consume when you were awoken by the screams of grown men abiding by the time zone of a different continent.
To come full circle on your question, the only feasible way to get him to completely pipe down is to give up soccer while under his roof (like some sort of Christmas-season Lent). This is the time of year for him to gather with loved ones and reflect ignore everybody and watch the most unique postseason on a recliner in his den. Please keep that in mind so he doesn’t have to tap the DVR ‘record’ button as he’s beginning to pass out. —Gavin Evans (@GavinEvans187)
