About 6,000 miles away in Moscow, the biggest soccer game in the world was played on Wednesday. Here in Los Angeles, as well as everywhere else in the world, the game was enjoyed by every true soccer fan.
The UEFA Champions League Final was played between Manchester United and Chelsea. The British teams gave the world a taste of brilliant soccer and an intensity that can only be felt in a game of this magnitude.
In the end, Manchester United won the cup with a final score of 6-5 in dramatic fashion via penalty kicks. Regulation ended with a tied score of 1-1 and was followed by a scoreless extra time.
Portuguese international Cristiano Ronaldo, front-runner candidate to win the “FIFA Player of the Year” award, scored the first goal for Man U. with a magnificent header in the 26th minute.
An inspired Frank Lampard evened the match for Chelsea with a nice strike inside the box in the 45th minute and dedicated his goal to his mother, who had recently passed away.
In the penalty shootout, United’s goalkeeper Edwin Van der Sar became the hero when he stopped the last penalty to give the championship to the Red Devils.
With this win Manchester United, coached by the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson, wins for the third time in their history the cherished cup.
But while parties, celebrations, laughter and tears reign Europe with this game, back in Southern California nothing really changed.
Even though local bars and pubs were semi-filled with soccer aficionados, the anticipation for this game in Los Angeles was minimal. While people celebrated outside in the streets of Manchester and other parts of Europe, in L.A. only the typical rush hour traffic ruled the streets.
It is sad but realistic, Los Angeles is not a soccer town and possibly never will be. As much as I would love for more people to experience the excitement that soccer brings, the thought seems to blur away. They even tried to bring players like David Beckham to raise the interest and that didn’t work.
So I give up.
Something extremely big has to happen in Los Angeles for soccer to become a serious sport. Perhaps a couple championships here and there by either the Galaxy or Chivas USA teams couldn’t hurt. As for now, all I can do now is enjoy all the soccer I can and think to myself, “Too bad for the rest of them, they don’t know what they’re missing”.
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