11:02 - Fox's national coverage kicks off. Curt Menefee is pitch-side. This is the embarrassing part where he tries to convince skeptical Americans that this game matters. Fox uses their NFL theme music for the CL - presumably so people half-watching the tv will go, "WHAT?! AMERICAN FOOTBALL, OR SOMETHING OF EQUIVALENT GRAVITY?! LET'S WATCH!" This is stupid because the Champions League has glorious theme music.
11:09 - That said, I want Chelsea to win. When I first started following the Premier League in earnest, a mere six or seven years ago, my Liverpool friends would always bitch about how Chelsea were ruining the game. Russian oil billionaire owner Roman Abramovich was pouring unprecedented amounts of money into Chelsea, and even traditional powers like Manchester United, Arsenal, or Liverpool couldn't keep up.
That seems like an attractive enough argument: teams ought to be built "the right way." It ignores the fact that while Manchester United and their kin were possibly built the right way once upon a time, what keeps the powers on top is the deployment of resources that lesser teams can't match.
Once you understand that, the argument against Chelsea (and nowadays Manchester City) becomes: "We should be the only teams that are allowed to bully smaller teams with our money. Only teams that traditionally finish near the top should be allowed to finish near the top." This is obviously hypocritical and preposterous. Where "traditionalists" (read: people with a rooting interest in the status quo) see modern money-splashers like Chelsea or City as ruining the soul of the game, I see it as proof that ANY team can compete given the sort of resources traditionally enjoyed only by the top teams. This also punctures the idea that there's something "special" inherent in those teams that makes them win. It's just money.
NOW WILL SOME TRILLIONAIRE PLEASE BUY EVERTON!!
