by Ose Oyamendan

The one I love the most is the official bra and bikini. It helps these days that women are getting more and more interested in football. Hell, they play it better than most men over here anyway.

I love days like this. After the doldrums of the summer, when all you’re consigned to as a sports fan is watching female basketball, here comes life again. Not that anything is wrong watching ten tall, sweaty and screaming women run up and down the court. If they were rolling through my room individually in their bikinis, I’ll stay up all night just to pray with them.

But, nothing compares to football.

Football is the king of sports. Thrills and madness. When you think you’ve had enough, these gladiators on the green grass take it up another level. And, this is the day before hopes are systematically crushed. So, you learn to enjoy it.

If you’re an Arsenal fan, for instance, you know this is the last day you can conceivable think you have a shot at winning a title, any title. When the men come to play, the fans know the boys who have refused to grow up will queue behind their manager and whine until the season fades away. I mean, the invisibles of yesterday can not even win the only cup they’re guaranteed of, their own preseason tournament!

If you love football, you must know a team of rascals down in Madrid. In the post-Jose Mourinho era, and with Barcelona seemingly in a funk, they seem poised to stay atop the two-team race in Spain. But, this little fascination with Gareth Bale may just derail them a little bit. A team in debt in a country in economic crisis is hoping to lure a #100m talent! It’s like me showing up in a bank and trying to withdraw a billion naira. I’ll either be laughed off or arrested for wasting the bank’s time.

This year, all necks gotta be craned in the direction of Munich where Bayern is threatening to be the new Barcelona. They don’t have the skills that makes people suspect Barcelona always play with a ball magnet in their cleats but they have a system that feels like a train on a roll. They may just continue to roll all over Europe.

But, nothing compares to the English Premier League. It’s the king of all leagues. It attracts both the sane and insane. Or, how do you explain a bunch of guys on the west coast of the United States of America waking up at 4 am just to watch their team play? If that’s not madness then I’m completely sane. Or, in Nigeria for instance where people have shunned their own league in embrace of a league whose leaders are charging them #3,000 to even be considered for a visa.

The EPL turns you into a zombie, a reference number at a team’s ticket offices or just a plain number in the offices of some data crunchers for team sponsors. You become a walking wallet. You drink the official beer, you wear the official shirts, you stay on hold forever waiting for an extra ticket to a game and you worry for hours on end about a team list while the coach is busy sampling the menu in another city.

The one I love the most is the official bra and bikini. It helps these days that women are getting more and more interested in football. Hell, they play it better than most men over here anyway. A God-fearing Christian like me has no choice but to buy pretty girls that support my team bras and bikinis. Someone’s gotta do it anyway.

Since they have to strip before they wear it and since I’m a Christian who likes to pray, I always insist on two things – that they put the bra and bikini on as they normally would when I’m not there then before they take it off, we hold each other and say the Lord’s prayer but skip that bit about “lead us not into temptations”.  I’m too way deep in tempt-ville.

This season looks like a very open one in the premiership – at the bottom. Who would get relegated? It seems the consensus is that Chelsea will coast home with the crown. But, never underestimate a Manuel Pelligrini coached team. He’s done splendidly with little. He may yet turn golden with his spoilt, rich bunch at Manchester city?

Then, there’s Arsenal, a team whose coach has admitted that their ceiling in 4^th place. I suspect this is Arsene Wenger’s last year and I can’t wait to see him march off leaving his team wrapped in the stench of failure.

You gottas wonder about Manchester United. Alex Ferguson was always good for ten points a season on his own. He did that by cajoling and intimidating the league and the referees. David Moyes is good but this is really not a league of the blind where the one-eyed man is King. Everyone has 20/20 vision here. Is this the year Manchester United start their slide?

And yes, have a good laugh now when you can. I’m a rabid fan of the mighty Tottenham of London. This year, we will march on and conquer England and annex the Europa Cup. We have the players and the coast seems really clear. This is the season we will fulfill our potential and be the team. Come on you Spurs.

Wait, I said that last year. And, the year before. And, we crumbled. Oh, well – this is what makes football fun.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.