#derby my beloved anyway moving on now

[loki-rhymes-with-adhd]

THIS CANNOT POSSIBLY BE REAL. I AM DYING RIGHT NOW.

GOD I LOVE TUMBLR.

BECAUSE LIKE

Most popular thing in queer culture right now meets thing that an incredibly small handful of people from my generation only would remember. I just... I'm actually losing my mind at how funny this is. And also, for the LOVE OF GOD, let me find SOME STUFF IN HERE thats not a Good Omens joke, because I need this fandom to exist 😭

Gig and Brendan

[calciumdeficientt]

HAIII some Justin HCs mayhaps? 😋

JUSTIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNN i have built my life around bullying this little freak like it’s some kind of chronically on like Olympic sport. but i do actually have a lot to say about him and most of it is quite positive.

JUSTIN VANDERVELDE HCS

I forget whose post you made it under but i really liked your idea about his last name being Van Der Velde, and it just had to be squished to fit into the yearbook, lord knows the yearbook editors dont care enough to even try adding the spaces and formatting that shit. His last name is obviously supposed to be some sort of callback towards Vanderbilt, so its easy to figure that his family have some sort of hand in railroads. I don’t really agree, I like to think his family are in something that is equally as profitable in the US as it is overseas like diamonds, maybe there’s even a particular shape or cut of diamond named after their family. There’s undoubtedly blood on their hands but it made them the family they are now so he likely doesn’t dwell on it. A lucrative and crazily profitable business like mining and processing diamonds makes Justin one of the most wealthy preps, and might explain why he’s close enough to Derby to propose alliances.

His last name clearly has Dutch roots (sorry to stay on this one detail for so long i promise i’ll move on soon) so I think his family spend a good amount of time in the Netherlands, likely where their ancestral business is based. He was born in the Netherlands and has a dual passport, as well as Dutch as his mother tongue. He rarely speaks any Dutch unless he’s talking with his older relatives, grandparents, uncles, aunts and distant cousins, because he thinks it makes him sound stupid. He can’t speak Dutch with his faux- English accent and it makes him feel inferior. Also, it is quite a silly language. He has two middle names: Augustjin and Coenraad, both of which were a real hassle for young Justin to spell out when his parents forced him to write his full name on their Christmas cards in childhood. Now, just Justin will suffice.

He’s a big piner, Justin wants friends but doesnt have many of them. Not good ones anyway, all the preps are more acquaintances to him than they are friends. No-one at bullworth truly has friends, but especially not preps. Prep friendships are alliances in the war against the poor, and friendships outside the clique are frowned upon because everyone that’s not a prep is well… a poor. It doesnt help that he’s a weird ass bitch that without all that money, would be nothing less than a nerd or a sketchy non-clique. He’d like to have a few good friends but he knows better than to think that once you reach adulthood, the friends you make through business are never real friends.

An impeccable swimmer, he’s tall, slim and athletic. He cuts through the water like a hot knife through butter. He’s honestly unbeatable, and believe it or not the swimming cap and goggles actually make him look less weird. His body is perfectly built for professional swimming, all the inbreeding paid off in a weird sort of way. His legs, while a little stubbier than expected for a boy of his height give him an extra helping hand in the hydrodynamics department, as do his weirdly large (undoubtedly webbed feet). His arms are long, thin and double jointed. This grossly long wingspan gives him that extra pull as he swims that makes him such a joy to watch in the water, and caught him the attention of his beloved Ted Thompson, who despite being critical of Justin’s girlish frame, can really appreciate him as a stellar athlete.

Justin’s teeth, if you can believe it, used to be worse. He was born with a mouth that was far too small for the many many teeth that he was growing in. It was an entire mouth full of snuggle teeth, sort of like when you look in a shark’s mouth and see all its rows of backup teeth. Honestly, it was like he got all of them knocked out and the dentist shoved them back in blindfolded. That meant that as a youth, he was a lot quieter tan we see him in game, he opened his mouth as little as possible because one time, someone fainted. He is in the process of getting veneers, but his father is adamant he wait a few years until his teeth have settled down. His braces came off just before the events of the game I like to think, maybe in the summer before.

Another tooth hc, but the reason his teeth are quite so prominent is that he was, and still kind of is, a thumb sucker. It’s a mindless action he’s been doing since he was a tot, but the consequences are his teeth are all kinds of fucked up now. Usually when he’s writing an essay or trying to pay close attention to something, like one of Derby’s impossibly long rambly speeches, his thumb just seems to teleport into his mouth. It’s not that he wants to, it’s embarrassing and childish. But he can’t really seem to stop doing it.

[anewkaiju]

Psychic Wound (a Premier League write up)

It's a lot to take in, honestly. The action flows from end to end uninterrupted. The slightest touch can create chaos and heartbreak in an instant. Any and all storylines contain layers. Watching Premier League long enough in one sitting, and it all really does start to feel like that one Lord of the Rings meme. You don't just simply turn the television on and watch Prem; it's more of Matrix type thing. The only way to really do it is to plug in and immerse yourself. Or at least, that's how it feels after following this for the first month.

Watching West Ham versus Manchester United this morning, I was struck by how technically foreign all of this is to me. In some respects, I can feel my understanding and familiarity go up each week and I'm now able to connect some dots and fill in some blanks. However, a lot of the context continues to elude me. And to quote Tom Scharpling, from his memoir It Never Ends, "So many of the world's problems stem from a lack of context. If you can't understand who someone is, you will struggle to understand why they do the things they do." He's rather obviously not talking about football, but I think it's still applicable here. I can try and follow the ball as it moves up and down the pitch, but in most cases, I know precious little about the pitch itself. The history of the grounds and the tales that are told about classic matches from years past; that information isn't readily available, you have to dig for it. It's the same thing when it comes to the clubs. I can look at all the kits and listen to the crowd reaction and use that to try and find my squad, but in doing so, I run the risk of stepping over so much history. Most of these clubs have existed in some shape or another since the late 18 or early 1900s. Now, I don't expect to learn everything there is know about all of it, but at the same time, I do think that I should, at the very least, know the last 30 years pretty well. And it's bigger than the Premier League too; there's the Champions League, the FA Cup, the Europa (plus, a few that I probably don't even know about.)

Anyway, these thoughts were rattling around my head while I watched Premier League this morning. This was actually my first actual Premier League morning watching all of the matches live. After the other week against Leicester City, I was quite ready to watch Michail Antonio and West Ham take on Manchester United. He has been an absolute joy to watch, and while I may be new, at the same time I can say quite comfortably that Manchester United is my least favorite club in all of soccer. If I didn't already feel this way then I definitely did after the match was over. They snatched another one! This one was even more of a gut punch when you learn that Jesse Lingard, who hit the winner, spent last season on loan to West Ham and is still much beloved by their fan base (they gave him a standing ovation when he checked into the match.)

Another thing that I kept wrestling with all day while watching was the atmosphere of the crowds. Yesterday, the energy at Villa Park rose to a level normally reserved for Evangelion Unit 01 to grab the forks and bring about the next impact. The opening goal from Matty Cash was nice enough on its own, but it stirred something up in the Villa supporters. Then Leon Bailey checked in and took everything to another level. It sure look like he scored on that corner kick, but it was ruled an Everton own goal. Since he didn't get credit for it, Bailey went ahead and hammered home a beautiful, undeniable goal minutes later. The crowd was rapturous and the vibes were high.

That was the only match that I caught yesterday. After the West Ham versus Manchester United match ended, I threw in a load of laundry and got ready for Tottenham versus Chelsea, which by my count is my first derby. Based on the way they are talked about other places, I find myself pulling for Spurs, at least a little bit. This is definitely informed from watching the documentary series and learning about their squad. At the same time, though, as the guy I share a workspace with will tell you, I've caught every Chelsea match so far this season and think pretty highly of them too.

Today, Chelsea appeared inevitable. Like Thanos who came before them, they moved forward according to their own plan. Things were pretty close in the first half, and the broadcast team said that if there were an edge then you would have to give it to Spurs, who were playing without Japhet Tanganga who had to serve a one-match suspension for the red card from last week against Crystal Palace.

However, the second half was a different story. Thomas Tuchel put N'Golo Kanté into the match and things changed. Romelu Lukaku had a relatively quiet today, aside from the times that the commentators called attention to the fact that he wasn't dominating the game, and despite that, Chelsea still walked with relative ease out of Tottenham today. It's hard to say what went wrong for Spurs exactly, aside from Delle Ali not jumping when Tiago Silva went up for that first goal and then the ball careening off of Eric Dier for the second one. I can confirm that Heung-min Son and Harry Kane played and were active today, but am having a hard time recalling any real quality shots on goal.

So, that's how it went down this weekend. Somehow, I'm still no closer to a squad of my own. At my most honest, I would say that I have narrowed the league down to a handful of clubs but I still feel that I have a long way to go. Next week already looks strong with Manchester City and Chelsea locking up on Saturday and then a big North London throwdown on Sunday when Arsenal and Spurs meet.  

[racingliners]

Get to Know Juventus

Alrighty then, since that transfer move has actually happened (I’m in as much shock as everyone else), I figured I’d make a (long) post about my amazing club for any new fans that decide to start following Juve (I’m also making this for @vergne because I’m proving to be a terrible influence)

Juve is based in the beautiful city of Turin in Northern Italy (I haven’t been but I’ve seen pictures and trust me, it’s gorgeous) we play our home games in the Allianz Stadium (used to be called the Juventus Stadium, but the name got changed because sponsorship money) and our official mascot is Jay the Zebra, because why the hell not.

I don’t need to say it but Juve is the most successful club in Italian football and we have more trophies than I’ve had hot dinners (34 Serie A, 13 Coppa Italia, 7 Suppercoppa Italiana and many, many more). For the past 7 seasons we’ve won the Scudetto (synonym for Serie A title, and it’s the little Italian flag shield on our shirts) and for the past 4 years we’ve won the Coppa Italia (which we get to wear little Italian flag badges on our shirts too). Our main derbies are the Derby Della Mole, which is against city rivals Torino and the Derby d’Italia, which is against Inter Milan.

Speaking of shirts, we definitely have the prettiest strip in Serie A and you can fight me on that.

I’ll try and be brief about the squad, but I love a lot (and I mean A LOT) of our players so we might be here a while, but I’ll try and stick to the important ones.

Manager:

This is Massimiliano Allegri (but we all just call him Max). He’s been at the club since 2014 and has led the club to our 4 consecutive league and cup doubles, as well as 2 UCL finals (2015 and 2017, but we don’t talk about them). He also likes to shout (a lot) and when watching matches on TV you can literally hear him screaming at every player and their grandmother from the touch line.

Players:

Any Real fans will know who the first two are, but if not: this is Gonzalo Higuain (#9, Forward), or as we all call him El Pipita. He came to Juve from Napoli back in 2016 and as such we now have some big ass beef with Napoli (when Higuain left Napopli their fans printed his face on toilet paper they were that pissed off about it). He’s scored 40 goals for us so far, some love him, some dislike him, but he’s one heck of a good player.

my love, my darling, my sweet German prince

I could say many, many wonderful things about Sami Khedira (#6 Midfield) but I’ll reign myself in even though he’s one of my main fave players. Another one who joined the club in 2015 (what do you know from Real Madrid). While he’s a defensive midfielder he’s still an utterly amazing player, last season he scored 9 goals which was is personal best for any club (19 in total in 77 Juve apearances so far), and on top of that he’s a World Cup winner to boot. (He also bought 1200 tickets for Germany's World Cup Qualifying match against Norway back in 2017 and sent them out to disadvantaged children as the match was in his home city of Stuttgart, so he’s also a very good bean)

The man who was bitten by Luis Suarez and lived to tell the tale. Giorgio Chiellini (#3 Defender) will start this season as Captain following Gigi Buffon’s departure to PSG *sob*. I have no words to say how much of a legend Chelio is, but he is an incredible defender and easily one of the best I’ve seen. Try and get a ball past him, I dare you.

World Cup winner, rescuer of moths (and Olympian, he was part of the Italian men’s football team at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens) Andrea Barzagli (#15 Defender) could not be more of an icon. Everyone loves him (litterally everyone and for a man of 36 he still plays insaely well. Him and Giorgio are an incredible defensive duo. He’s the player we don’t deserve but have been blessed with anyway.

No, it’s not the face of Armani. It’s our beloved Il Principino and Vice-Captain Claudio Marchisio (#8 Midfield). I don’t even know where to start with this man, he’s from Turin and as far as I’m aware is the only home boy in the squad. Over the past couple of seasons he’s been recovering from a very nasty knee injury, but he still plays as beautifully as he always has done.

Miralem Pjanic (#5 midfield) is the King of Free Kicks. When it comes to set pieces I trust this man with my life. Some call him the magician he’s that good. Seriously, watch one of those compilation videos on YouTube of his free kicks, they’re that iconic. (Also if you follow him on social media you’ll see lots of his adorable little son Edin, who is the cutest little thing I’ve ever seen).

The real Drama Queen of Argentina. Paulo Dybala (#10 Forward) is one of the younger players in the squad. But holy moly is he talented. He works amazing with Higauin (forming my beloved Argentine Super Duo). He scored 22 goals for Juve last season, He’s an amazing talent who is just going to get better as the years go on, and despite his occasional overly dramatic antics, we all love him to bits.

They man, the myth, the actual Prince of Croatia. Mario Mandzukic (#17 Forward) is just incredible (okay I’m biased because he’s another one of my many faves), he’s such a versatile player; he attacks, he defends, he assists, he’s even played as a goalie in training. He was another player that joined in 2015 and boy are we lucky to have him. To date he’s the only player to score in a UCL Final for two different clubs (Bayern in 2013 and Juve in 2017) and if that isn’t iconic enough then I don’t know what is (well... apart from his 2017 UCL final goal)

And last but most certainly not least... Wojciech Szczesny (#1 Goalkeeper). Formerly of Arsenal and Roma he is the successor to our beloved Gigi. He had an incredible debut season, keeping 14 clean sheets in 22 appearances. He really is a safe pair of hands (pun definitely intended)

I’m going to leave it there, but if you have any questions about more players or Serie A then just ask! (I’ve only been a Juve fan since early 2017 but I’ll try my best). And of course there’s the amazing Netflix documentary ‘Juventus: First Team’. It was filmed over the 2017-18 season and provides such a good behind the scenes insight. It’s definitely worth a watch.