so, here goes. we are nearing the end of an exciting european football club campaign for many countries, full of ups and downs and twists and turns. what i’d like to begin with, however, are the extremities of my footballing psyche, all full of either love or hate… or hell, both.

But before i begin, I will admit this: I am a diehard Chelsea fan. Before the Man Utd kiddies (by that i mean the entire population of china) mount me like a horny bull and shove down my throat the warm white juices of Cristiano Ronaldo (now with over 1000ppm  of hair gel!), or Arsenal fans tell me their squad is so much more relevant than mine (or that my club is run by a bunch of dirty money-grubbing Jews, the true Arsenal insult), I will politely remind them this simple fact: we’ve got avram grant. ON THAT NOTE…

I. Avram Grant & Nathan, a film by Ingmar Bergman

 Few men make me into a PMSing wreck like Avram Grant. After the loss of Mourinho, I felt lost. Who else was going to make omelettes out of our eggs? Enter Avram Grant. Ugly motherfucker, doesn’t dress classy like the special one. He didn’t take a worthless overrated Portuguese team to dominance. What the fuck? Where’s mah boii Hiddink? I felt we were doomed, and the Arsenal fans’ declarations that Grant’s entrance heralded the jewish corruption of the beautiful game didn’t help my confidence. Man, was I wrong.

It turns out Grant is a pimp. Unlike Mourinho’s probable reaction if he were manager still, Grant actually considered the attacking, the “we can be the English Barcelona” approach to the game that Henk Ten Cate brought with him from the hobbling retarded excuse for a club called Ajax, approach and unlike Mourinho, some games under Grant we scored more than a goal or two. And when we didn’t win with style, we drew worthlessly (like against Blackburn, WHY GOD WHY?) or we won in an efficient matter. Either way, we’ve got ourselves our first Champs League final and we’re down only on goal differential against Man Utd. We’re working as such an integrated team that critics are noting we don’t have any shining stars in our squad this season like we did last season with Drogba. Who cares? I went from being happy for keeping third place to now settling for nothing less than the fucking trophy. We don’t need shiny attention whores who win PFA awards; we’ve got Ballack and Makelele playing their best football in years, Drogba scoring when it matters, Essien playing essentially EVERY FUCKING POSITION, and Ashley Cole being a wonderful human being (guess which one is sarcastic). But yet I’m still hurting, deep inside, because Grant hasn’t revived my holy eastern european soccer jesus,

2. Why I am an atheist — god would never let this happen.

Shevchenko, the once great patron saint of eastern european football, now a fallen angel ranked between Tomas Brolin and Paul Gascoigne. Let’s be honest, a return to AC Milan isn’t going to make any difference, his career is almost as good as over (until MLS picks him up, muahaha). But it hurts, hurts so hard. Shevchenko was at one time like the jesus of eastern europe, definite bathroom material for Michel Platini’s tradition of jerkin’ it to iron curtain football, and a fucking monster in Winning Eleven 9.  Barcelona fans feel like their team wasted 16 million pounds on a certain French asshole… we wasted 56 million pounds for someone who isn’t a huge douchebag. Some men have no inhibitions to complain about lack of playing time, but Shevchenko has more or less kept his mouth shut. Of course he’s getting paid ridiculous sums of cash to sit on a bench, but i think if anything Shevchenko realizes he’s never going to the savior of Kiev. But it’s not over for Ukraine because there’s always the apostle of Chernobyl Jesus…

III. Anatoliy Tymoschuk, or Bayern is going to win the UEF–HOLY SHIT ZENIT MOTHERFUCKING SAINT PETERSBURG???

Fear not, acolytes of Platini football, the Russian league has something to say. And it’s loud and clear. Fuck your Luca Toni, fuck your Ribery, we’ve got the world class: Tymoschuk… and uh, ok, it’s him, Arshavin and a bunch of scrubs. I was ready to concede that Cardiff City in the FA Cup final was this season’s “aww so cute” story, but Zenit now has defied all possibilities and secured $20 bucks in my pocket from a bet and got themselves a big game with the masters of defensive anti-football, Rangers. And the bigger surprise: Zenit isn’t built on Team Dunga players (cough CSKA cough), but on true comrades of the beautiful game. But where it all comes together for me is Tymoschuk. After a long career at a favorite club of mine, Shakhtar Donetsk, Tymoschuk has been the center of attention given that he’s taking his team to second tier european dominance. His abilities as a holding midfielder evoke feelings of Essien or even a bit of Vieira, except with a touch for set pieces. He’s getting old, 29 (so to an Arsenal fan, he should be approaching social security age in the next 6 months or so), but the fact that Zenit paid nearly 15 million euros for this guy suggests a lot about his talent, and the fact that he has taken his band of iron curtain (and an Argentinian) scrubs to the final in Manchester certainly adds a lot to his overall worth as a player. If they win the Euro, I can see him going somewhere else very quickly this summer. Although I’m a Bayern fan, I can’t help but to sit here and applaud Zenit; after all, it’s pretty stunning to see such a low-key team bring down a giant like Bayern not only in Russia, but in Munich too.

I admit, I’ve spoken almost none about the like blatant news story here, e.g. the “OMFG CHELSEA IN CHAMPS LEAGUE FINAL!!” thing but i will discuss this at a later time.

- Nathan