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weloseeveryweek · 7 years

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season review

Champions of Europe.

That, ostensibly, is how any United fan will start a 2016/17 review. I say that. I know, just like everyone else, we aren’t, really. We’re champions of second-tier Europe, winning a competition by beating sides like Rostov and Zorya and Anderlecht. We won the most mickey-mouse trophies of them all - the Community Shield and League Cup - and we finished where we’d spent most of our time in the league, marrying sixth place in a love story still better than twilight.

Not, perhaps, the most illustrious for a team who hadn’t spent a single season without European football before Fergie left.

We’ve been in a transition period ever since 2013 when last we won the league, and I don’t know how much longer it’s going to be. It seems forever since Moyes took over and aspired his way to seventh; whenever the conversation turns to bad football experiences, watching MK Dons thrash us 4-0 at 3am in the morning always ranks up there. While it’s gotten a little better (Van Gaal, in particular, was an expert in lifting spirits with his near-impeccable record against Liverpool) it is by no stretch of the imagination where we ought to be.

I remember our twentieth time in vivid detail. It was way past my bedtime, and at that point I was still living with my parents and studying for exams so I was supposed to be asleep. I woke up at about 4am to find out that we’d beaten Villa and the party was in full swing. I remember my phone literally burning up with how much I was using it (all data, because my parents used to switch off the internet at night), reblogging photos and watching videos of the celebrations, Carrick wrapped in his flag, Evra and his rubber arm, the lads lined up in a row bouncing up and down singing that old refrain.

It was the best I’d ever felt about United. I can’t even begin to describe what it feels like to win a league title (sorry, Liverpool fans). It was better than the Europa league, and I hadn’t even watched the game. If I had known that I wouldn’t have that feeling for the next three years, and god knows how long after this, I’d probably have treasured it even more.

But that’s the thing - no one knew what would happen after Sir Alex left. There were other departures that hurt us too, of course. Losing Scholesy was a huge blow, as we’d already found out after his first retirement. Losing the backroom staff was a catastrophe almost on the scale of Sir Alex. But nothing was worse than losing the manager himself, the force of nature who had conditioned the players to perform far above their quality, such that we would always, always win regardless of circumstances, of players, of odds.

And we’ve been floundering since. Moyes was an unmitigated disaster, although in fairness to him he was sacked too early and following directly after Sir Alex was always going to be an impossible job. Giggsy was at best a stepping stone. I so desperately wanted to like van Gaal, especially with the knowledge that we could not become a sacking club, but even though he delivered big results and the FA Cup it was not the kind of football that United fans were paying (or not paying - don’t tell anyone) to see.

When Klopp was announced for Liverpool I almost cried. I’d hoped so desperately for him and we ended up getting Mourinho instead.

Mourinho.

Chelsea’s Mourinho, who led them to the worst title defence in history before Leicester trumped that this season. Real Madrid’s Mourinho, who left after underachieving / wrecking the dressing room / driving out their most important player. If you search through my tumblr you’ll probably find a bunch of acerbic jokes about him and his legion of glory hunting rent boys.

I was by no means overjoyed with the decision. In fact I was basically begging for Pep to change his mind and realise that it was the wrong side of Manchester, even though he would have come with his own problems. Mourinho wins trophies, but not much else, and his youth record worried me the most.

How do I feel now, a year and three trophies later? I don’t know. It’s certainly been our most successful post-Fergie season, and he has invested in some youth (although the last game and four debuts came as more of an afterthought, to be entirely honest). If this is a turning point, it feels much more like one than any of the rest that have come before. And believe me, there’ve been a lot. They existed under Moyes and van Gaal, but this is the most protracted spell of Things Are Possibly Going To Get Better thus far.

I suppose that would mean I’m well satisfied with this season. Certainly it gives me great pleasure to point out to errant heathens that we’re the second most successful club bar Chelsea, and I do acknowledge that Mourinho is trying to fit himself into the United philosophy - I suppose it’s different when it’s a job you’ve wanted for ages. At the same time, though, we’re Manchester United. Enough with the complaining about number of games and all that bullshit; look at our squad, our reserve squad is probably (on paper, anyway, you don’t have to tell me about underachieving) better than half of the league’s. The ‘99 treble winners hardly ever changed personnel during their long, hard, game-stuffed slog. Gary Neville started 54 games in that season; Marcus Rashford made 53 appearances this season and 23 of them were substitutions. Jose needs to get his shit together if he wants to make something of his time here, because winning the Europa was a breath of fresh air, but things can go stale very quickly if the window slams shut again.

More than that, though. More than the basics of the week-in-week-out trials and tribulations, the countless draws and ridiculous conversion percentages that make me want to smack someone with a big stick (volunteers welcome). More than our mess of a transfer policy and the ultimate will-they-won’t-they saga that is David x Real Madrid.

When I first came to England I was freaked out of my mind. I talked about this in my first prompt response, but really - I can’t even begin to explain what kind of stabilising effect football had on my life. If nothing else, I was finally in the country where it all began; I was walking on the same soil as my heroes, I could take a train up to Manchester any time I wanted (you think I’m kidding? I hopped on a train the day before my final exam to catch us lose 1-0 to West Brom). It was the kickoff I looked forward to every week, congratulating myself that it was at 3pm and not 3am.

I watched the final of the Europa League in a bar in Belgium with my friend. We had our United kits on, and we were screaming our heads off while the Ajax fans next to us grumbled and this big group of Americans in the same bar looked completely confused. After the game I slumped back, completely emotionally exhausted, but still absolutely fucking buzzing from the fact that we’d managed to pull something out of the bag after all.

It was only much later that I realised the importance of it all, and it hit me so hard like a sucker punch that I just stopped in the middle of the street and got weird looks off people. I was in Brussels because it was part of my graduation trip. I’m no longer a student; I’m going off to the world of working rat racers and stuffy offices. I’m going to be leaving London in two weeks. And, I don’t know, but it felt like such a huge, symbolic moment, that. I, too, am at that proverbial turning point, stepping off the island (in this case literally).

For all the terrible beginnings I have grown to love London so very much. If I had a choice in the matter I wouldn’t even be leaving. Every day I think about the fact that I move out in two weeks and my heart gets heavy and I cry just a little bit more. My fingers are crossed that I’ll be back one day, but if I’m not, then that’s the last game I’ll ever watch at Old Trafford. The last game I’ll ever watch at Wembley. The last time I’ll ever walk down the Thames, looking at the way the London Eye lights up in the evening, Parliament sitting pretty just beside.

So I suppose this season was about endings, beginnings, everything in between. There was some kind of strange, spiritual handover between my life and my team’s. The Mourinho era has begun. God knows what will happen. More trophies, more dressing room fallouts, Wayne Rooney being sent off to China somewhere. There was drama for people who wanted it, boredom for people who weren’t so keen, and while there wasn’t quite as much entertainment as the Louis Saxaphone van Gaal seasons, Fellaini played enough to get a laugh. I, meanwhile, went for two games, caught almost every single one but the last (I even leeched off public wifi in Glasgow central to watch us fuck up 2-0 to Arsenal), integrated Carrick’s testimonial into my graduation trip.

And then it was over; and then we packed up and thought about next year; and then I packed up and thought about leaving.

Unless you achieve something spectacular in that year, a season doesn’t really matter. It becomes a footnote. A wikipedia entry to tell you that your club still exists. Even though we won the Europa - champions of sodding Europe - 2016/17 feels like one of those to me; one where we were not spectacular but firmly middle-road, where any attempt to pretend that we were ever challengers would be delusional. If we aren’t fighting for the league there seems to be no point.

But that’s what it is, isn’t it? Hindsight and the way football plays you for a fool with it. There’s this quote from Nick Hornby in a book I’m reading now, where he goes to watch Cambridge United draw nil-nil with Grimsby, forsaking the comfort and company of Christmas in his parents’ home. On the way back, he says, he realises how incredibly pointless it all was; but on the way there all he could see were the floodlights and the promise of the three points that were rightfully theirs. That is a season - the promise of something. Not all promises will be made good, but just the fact that they are there makes you pick yourself up, rejig the telly, put on your kit one more time.

United, the rock to which I tied my ship, will go on. As will I. We’ve both circumvented the crossroads and who knows what’s going to happen from here on out. I don’t know if the rest of my life is just going to be a string of footnotes. I don’t know if the rest of United’s seasons will ever return to league-winning wikipedia section entries. But there’s one thing I know - the rock will always be there, and as long as it is, my ship cannot sink.

#manchester united #mufc #lmao this got long #football #soccer #prompt response #submission

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eastithoughtyousaidweest · 7 years

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Laos is More

7/11

Ok fair warning, I’ve only gotten about 3.5 hours of sleep in the last 24, and most of it was on a plane, so I wanna make this fast. But I had to write about my first day in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, because it’s been killer.

My flight from Hong Kong was 3 hours, then a 6 hour layover from 12am to 6am in the Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia (where I’ll be back at in 5 days lawl), and then another 3 hours to Vientiane. Luckily, the KL airport is pretty nice, with trees and lounge chairs and abundant outlets. So I worked on my Malaysia film the whole time, which was solid.

I arrived in Vientiane and took a taxi to the hotel where Christina (who is a great friend of mine from Northwestern) and her group of 5 other students are staying while they take Lao language classes and Laos history classes at the nearby university. I got immediate good vibes when my cab driver, without prompting, started teaching me how to say “hello” and “thank you” in Laos (see list below). We spent most of the ride doing a vocab lesson, with various interruptions for him to point out cool spots. Vila was his name. A homie indeed.

The hotel itself is nice; a bed, hot water, A/C, a western toilet, so I can’t complain. I met up with Christina for lunch at 12, and got some fried noodles with chicken at a little restaurant down the street that reminded me a lot of Masaya, the city I stayed in in Nicaragua. All the tables and chairs were plastic, and the nylon tablecloths were covered in giant Pepsi logos. Loved it.

The rest of the day, I sat in on her Laos history class and learned about the various conquerors and movements for independence (Siam aka Thai, then French, then free but screwed by the U.S. during the Vietnam War. For more info, read this: https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21714972-how-unremitting-decade-long-bombing-campaign-affected-small-southeast-asian).

After class, which I mostly dozed off through cause jet lag, we walked to this amazing Buddhist temple called That Luang. It’s a huge golden spike with colorful, elaborate buildings all around it, all hosting shrines to the Buddha, paintings of the Buddha’s life, and amazing sculptures of dragons and gods and spirits. We walked around talking about religion and commercialization of holy places and admiring the artistry of it all.

Then we walked around an amazing food market, this enclosed tunnel with food stalls on both sides, long tables covered in skewered meat, huge bowls of sautéed veggies, intestines and rice wrapped in lotus leaves like tamales, and bubble tea in plastic bags. Other plastic bags served another function; they were attached to fans above the food, where they swung around like ghosts, keeping flies away. I got a pork bun, which made me SOOO happy because they’re my favorite food from China and I didn’t get to eat any in the airport yesterday and I thought I’d never see them again.

We actually ended up going back there for dinner, and I got a plastic bag of spicy green vegetables and some skewered spiced hardboiled eggs. We went with these two women from England, Jess and ____, who we actually met on our way out of the hotel. They were looking for English speakers, and lo and behold, we speak English. We took them to the market, chatted about Islamophobia in England and Trump in the US (of course), and then made some plans for me to meet up with them tomorrow while Stina’s in class and go to a cool park. The beauty of traveling and spontaneity.

Anyway, so far I’ve been super impressed by Stina’s Lao skills, and have felt super welcomed by all the smiling Lao people who say “hello” when we walk down the street, even if they don’t speak any other English. Sure, we have the foreigner exoticism going for us, but their genuine smiles tell me it’s also just true friendliness, and I’m psyched to explore that more tomorrow.

<3 Scaht

New Words (these are spelled how they sound in my head, not necessarily how the English spelling is supposed to be)

• Sabaidee-hello

• La kon- Be well

• Pope gon mai-see you later

• Ka lu nah-please

• Buo-no

• Kop chai-thank you

• Kawhy suh-my name is….

• Hong nam yu sai?-Where is the bathroom?

• Phuh-noodles

• Nung-one

• Song-two

• Sam-three

• Ha-five

• Hok-six

• Sip-ten

• Sao-twenty

• Poi-hundred

• Pan-thousand

7/15

The Mekong River, also known as the Nam Khong in Lao and Thai, is the world’s 12th longest river, and it winds its pretty little way through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. And today we spent a glorious day riding its currents.

Christina and I signed up literally 15 minutes before this tour agency our friend on the trip told us about last night. We roped in two other guys who are part of Christina’s program in Laos as well, Russell and Devon.

We started at 8:30 am after my hostel, which I’m paying $6 a night for, made me a beautiful omelet and half a baguette, as well as fresh fruit, for breakfast. God damn. Analong, our guide, was probably about 28 or 29, and had a big smile as he greeted us. We hopped in a van with him and headed to pick up the kayaks and hit the river.

On our way, we drove on a bumpy dirt rode, clanking up and down through potholes, surrounded by steep mountains blanketed in deep green brush. Pineapple farms, rice paddies, cornfields and more lined the road, and wooden stalls every few hundred feet sold huge piles of fresh pineapple; Analong told us it was pineapple season, and judging by the amazingly sweet chunks we ate a lunch, I believe him.

We entered the river off a muddy, unmarked gravel bank, Christina and I in one kayak and Russell and Devon in the other, with Analong and our other guide Jim in a third. The sun was bright and hot, and as Analong explained safety stuff to us, I could already feel my bare toes roasting like chicken nuggets, but once we started paddling, the breeze as we sliced through the water kept me cool.

As we paddled through the greenish-brown river, we passed fishermen in long, thin wooden canoes, farmers taking a break from their riverside fields, and a bunch of other tourists, mostly in motorized canoes drive by Lao men. But the traffic wasn’t too bad, and there was no way it could take away from the peacefulness of flowing down the river, chatting sometimes, other times just looking around taking in the palm trees and thick jungle and river weeds and mountains in the distance.

After about 45 minutes, we stopped at a park called Tad Sae, where a little waterfall ran down over big mossy boulders into multiple pools. Tourists, white Asian and Lao, all were splashing around and swimming, or hiking along the shaded dirt trails around the water. In the corner, there was a big shaded pagoda where about 6 elephants stood around, wooden seats strapped to their backs for tourists to ride them. It made me sad to see, but the good news is that Analong told me a new law was passed last year that will phase out elephant riding and send all elephants to a sanctuary within the next few years. However, when I Googled this, I didn’t find anything, so it’s unclear where this info came from.

Anyway, the best part of the park was about to come my way, because as we turned down a path, a little black monkey, so fuzzy and arms as long as his body, came hopping up to us. His pupils were huge, making his whole eyes look black, and he made little chirp chirp noises as he jumped up at our feet. Then he grabbed onto Christina’s leg and yanked himself onto her outstretched arm, swinging there from his hands like it was a branch. After exploring her a bit, I put my arm out and he swung over to me.

The minute I touched him I knew I was in love. I have a very clear memory of where my monkey visions began. I don’t know if it was an actual dream or a daydream, but at some point when I was maybe six years old, I had a vivid picture in my head appear: I was an adult. I arrived home from work, and opened my front door. Down the long hallway in front of me came bounding a little fuzzy monkey, just like this one, who clambered up my leg and sat down on my shoulder, overjoyed to see me, as I was him.

So you can see why this moment was special, a culmination of over a decade of longing for something that I had damn near given up on. I named him Nam Kong, after the Nam Khong river plus King Kong. I played with him for like half an hour, watching him swing around stair railings, scamper around people’s picnic tables and just generally be adorable. He was so smart, finding a water bottle with a lemon in it and trying to open it up, and taking things right out of my hand with his. It really was amazing how many human-like qualities he had. Even though he was ultimately more interested in people with food than my heart full of love, I understand why, and I believe that our short encounter was only the beginning of my long term monkey fantasies being realized.

I love you Nam Kong. May your days be merry and bright, and may all your bananas be ripe.

<3 Scaht

Some More New Lao Words

• Tao dai?-How much?

• Saeb-good

• Saeb bo?-Is it good?

• Saeb Saeb (high pitched)-Very good

• Buo pen yong-You’re welcome/no problem

7/16

Just some quick things I learned and reflections on Laos while I sit in the Vientiane airport for 6 hours between my flight from Luang Prabang to here and my flight from here to Malaysia:

Fun Laos Facts

According to my tour guide Analong yesterday, Laos is 20 percent more expensive to live in than any other country in Southeast Asia. I don’t know all the details, but from what I learned, it seems like this is because of the high price of many goods and the high price of electricity. Laos needs to import a lot of its goods because it’s a landlocked country and has no ports, which makes them costlier. Also, Laos generates a ton of electricity from hydropower, but this doesn’t stop the energy from being very pricey; some think this is because electricity is being exported to neighboring countries to benefit the company investors, and then resold to Laos at higher prices.

Many Lao people believe the Mekong River is haunted by spirits, which made our tour guide Jim afraid to fish in it

Buddhist monks in Laos are highly respected, and one shouldn’t even get close to them or it’s considered disrespectful. You’re also supposed to sit down when they pass by you. They even get priority boarding on some airlines.

In Laos, feet are considered dirty and the head is considered holy. It’s very insulting to point your feet at someone, and you’re not supposed to touch anybody’s head

China is investing in a ton of huge projects in Laos, including a high-speed railway connecting the two countries and a bunch of fancy hotels

Reflections

People in Laos that I met, from drivers of tuk tuks (motorcycles with carts on back that act as taxis) to street food stall owners, were all very friendly. Tuk tuk drivers were almost always chatting with Christina when they saw she spoke a little Lao, and on the flipside, every shop owner who I ungracefully tried to buy things from was very patient and worked to communicate with me, whether that was through improvised hand signals or calling over their kids or friends who spoke some English.

As a communist country, Laos made me more curious about how their system works, and how much it’s stuck to the ideals of communism that many revolutions, such as the one here, based their ideologies on. Gotta learn some more.

After visiting so many beautiful Buddhist temples, or wat, I feel really ignorant about Buddhism as a religion, and I definitely want to learn more. Gotta break out of those Judeo-Christian boundaries.

I am SOOOO thankful to Christina for hosting me here and bringing me along on her adventures. Even though she’s only 3 weeks in and is still learning so much herself, she took me to all the coolest places she’d seen, and even better, she was so down to just wander together and discover new things. Plus I feel like we got to dive deep into conversations about each other, and I learned so much about her, which is a lot harder to do when school and work and everything prevents you from just spending time with people. I’m so excited to read her blog and see how her first long-term study abroad experience shifts and shapes her.

When we were kayaking yesterday, I told her I thought we had good boating chemistry cause we hadn’t had any issue the whole time coordinating our paddles. I’ma take that a step further and say we have good chemistry period. Christina and I have been through a lot together, but just like my trip with Ben, experiencing this whole new place with her felt really special, and I can’t wait to do it again sometime.

Kop chai lai lai, Christina and Laos. Pop gun mai.

<3 Scaht

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