On the Road

I am upset with myself for not having worked on this blog enough. I have all sorts of half-written blog posts - on Buddhist football; Game 39; the new Canada Cup, the strange fact that George Gillett, tired of Liverpool, has decided that Montreal, of all godforsaken places, is the place to stake one's claim to football glory. All sorts of feelings of shame and guilt.

But I have decided to liberate myself of these feelings. Fuck it, life's too short for that kind of guilt. And, praise the Lord, the new MLS season starts today.

It's funny: a year ago, I would have described myself unabashedly as an Arsenal fan. TFC was new and interesting, but essentially a diversion from my relationship with Arsenal. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, that changed. There was no eureka moment, no time when I sat bolt upright in bed and said: damn, I now belong to TFC. But at some point during those 824 minutes without a goal, some afternoon at the stadium spent singing and cheering without any real prospect of recompense in the form of a win, I became completely and utterly theirs.

And so, today, L'Ecrivain and my son and I are among the2400 TFC fans making their way down to Ohio and invading that cowshed they use as a stadium in Columbus. A 14-hour car trip for the sake of an hour of tailgaiting, 90 minues of singing and some smaller period of actual football. The season begins.

I am firmly in the majority of people who think that TFC will reek this year, that the off-season was - draft apart - an unmitigated disaster. There will be long goalless spells. But I'm romantic enough to think that we'll win today and that the boyswill give us win on the road because we'll be there making it feel like home. I know this to be completely illogical on my part, but I don't care.

I am a fan. I belong to TFC. And today is going to be our day.

More when I get home.