Rider Insider

AO Boston takes a picture with the Rider Insider

I have been incredibly busy playing soccer 4 days a week, working, volunteering to help make the Breakers cool and going to the Revs games. Now that my excuses are out of the way let me explain what’s going on here. I started this entry a long time ago (2 weeks or so) and never got around to finishing it until now.

I wanted this to be a full recap of my time in Chicago but I hardly feel that it holds much relevance in these modern news times where information moves at the speed of light or whatever. Most of the trip was spent in an alcohol-induced haze, which certainly doesn’t help my memory much. And really, the quicker you read this (I hope you at least read this) the quicker you get to post comments. So I’ve taken great artistic liberty and decided to share just two stories from that great weekend. I’m sure I’ll be littering my future posts with other fanciful quips from the trip as well.

By now you’ve probably heard about the great march from the bar and all the wild antics of the sore-losing Hondurans but what I am about to share was not covered by any of the other professional writers in attendance. The first story involves a certain female on our trip who had made a promise to “make-out” with some dudes at some point during the trip. Well she made good on that promise and made sure everyone in the supporters section was fully aware of it as well. “Hey Camille!” she yelled, garnering my attention with a wave. Her next move was to immediately explore the inside of a young man’s mouth with her tongue. It was an impressive display that preceded an impressive display by the United States Men’s National Team; though I’m not too sure the two events had much to do with each other.

In the not-so-impressive-display department is my other memorable story of the trip. Alerted to the fat, bald man atop the U-Haul fan by the encouraging cheers, I was intrigued. His presence appeared to be greatly appreciated by the throngs of American Outlaws and when he was handed a funnel full of beer I could certainly see why. He was taking on the Hand of Justice in a very public trial. In the interest of brevity, the Hand of Justice is a funnel that pretty much decides if you can party or not. Finish the funnel and you pass the test. If not, prepare for the scourge of drunken soccer fans to be brought upon you.

After lifting the funnel to his lips you could tell this man wasn’t up for the challenge of taking a cold beer down in a few chugs. He proceeded to spill about half of it on the top of the van. This angered the crowd and our challenger quickly turned from face to heal. In an attempt to win back his short-lived spot as most loved guy at the tailgate the fat and bald guy poured the rest of the beer in the funnel over his head. This just drove his popularity level down even further as the tailgate was suffering a severe beer drought thanks to several hours of heavy drinking. Beer was not to be wasted!

Realizing that his moment of glory was now over, fat and bald guy went to step down from the van. Unfortunately for him, the combination of cold beer and smooth fiberglass van roof rendered the surface as slick as an ice rink. He quickly went flailing through the air and down to ground, but instead of a nice piece of pavement awaiting his impact there was a fiery grill with the aforementioned hot coals. Needless to say the crowd gasped in horror fearing the worse. Fat and bald man was in fact burned–probably quite badly–but he jumped up, said he was fine, and ran off into the crowd, most likely in search of his friends and a first aid kit. It is a moment that I will always remember; it is not every day that you get to see a man suffer a severe injury in front of a crowd because of his own stupidity.

I would also like to take this chance to point out some more of New England soccer’s finest amateur soccer players and congratulate them on the Open League West Co-ed Session 4 title. Stallions FC defeated some team full of cry-babies (especially that little girl who cherry picks all the time) in the finals to claim their first piece of silverware this season. They also claimed two free pitchers of beer and t-shirts.

Hilltop FC has also begun EMMSA action for the fourth consecutive summer.

SuperLiga Preview

If you thought that they tanked the US Open Cup last year to rest players, just wait until you see this year’s display in the SuperLiga. Sure they turned in a gutsy performance last Sunday against Santos Laguna, but I really can’t see them risking any of their top-notch talent in this tournament. Shalrie and Twellman were already ruled out for the whole tournament before it started and after Sunday’s match don’t expect to see Kevin Alston or Steve Ralston either. Luckily, the Revs have some tested depth that should keep them in most matches. But without Ralston, Shalrie and Twellman there just aren’t enough goals in the squad to win silverware. Let’s just hope that the Revs can use this time to get healthy enough to make a playoff run and maybe take the US Open Cup half-serious.