Carl Tyler's Blog

1 - No big decision really. Manchester City is the obvious choice.

2 - Having grown up in USA, and therefore not being genetically predisposed to one club over the other, I can't claim allegiance to a particular club. I do always root for Manchester City when they meet Man U. And Newcastle IS my beer of choice, so a definite nod toward Newcastle. But truth be told, at the Litton house, we just enjoy watching ANY EPL match. We much prefer EPL (or Scottish, French, Mexican, Italian, etc football) to American football. And I am quite happy that as I read the article and the author mentioned the "Celtics", at first I thought he was referring to "Celtic" from the Scottish league :)

sigh. I miss the World Cup.

3 - Thanks for sharing that link. It was excellent! Shameless plug: Not only is Brad Friedel from my hometown, I have played golf with him. It's funny to hear him speak with an accent, knowing that we grew up a few streets apart.

4 - So I'm the guy who sent Carl this link. I am a true-blue American who enjoys baseball more than sex, and football (NFL) is close. Bill Simmons has been one of my favorite writers for years, dating back to when he was Boston Sports Guy on AOL Digital City. I can tell you that he (like me) sees the whole soccer -- sorry I mean football -- thing from a wholly American perspective -- by which I mean blissfully ignorant. I mean, he wrote EPL when no one who knows anything about soccer would know better. (I certainly didn't know better.)

I'm glad Carl posted this link because, as a sociological study, I'd like to see your reactions to this as it plays out. How do you feel about a Yank actually caring about real European football? What do you predict for Bill? What things will he see and feel for the first time as an English football fan? What will be your reactions to his reports on this through the season? Interesting stuff.

BTW, I'm the dumb Yank who took all your money in Carl's World Cup Pool prior to this one.