...but watching soccer not at all.

I took a break from the Historic Festival yesterday. Actually I had planned to take a tour through the Provincial Archives but when studying the map I realised it might take me between 45 minutes and an hour to bike there, so I would have struggled to make it and lost a lot of working time. I decided to postpone this to later this year when the weather’s bad and there aren’t that many other things going on.

Instead I watched Eric and his team in the evening. He was playing for the second university team in Premier Division, which is Alberta’s second best league, the best one being Major league (among others including the first university team for which Eric’s playing now as well). As Canada is just too large and soccer too unimportant they have no national league and the Canadian champion, therefore, is determined by a tournament between the best teams of each state (Major League winners). Eric told me that Alberta’s university team won the championship one or two years ago, so they are pretty good for Canadian standards. However, in Premier division, players actually have to pay (100-200 $ per year) for playing! As to the standard I’m unsure. When I watched them I thought they are not playing better than Dominik’s team (which is 8th and pretty much last Austrian division) - and unfortunately also told this Eric when he asked me about my opinion. Yet the more I think about it the less sure I am. Maybe I’ve been too reserved and negative about Canada once again (which seems to happen quite a few times these days). I figured it is difficult to compare: They very likely play technically better, but I estimate their physical play and also shooting power was weaker. Still, the goalie of theirs plays for Canada’s under 19 national team, a youth player has made his way to the Ajax Amsterdam youth team, others played in German Regionalliga or in Hungary and Croatia – so they must be pretty good. On the other hand most of those players returned after a year or two, so maybe they were not that good. I don’t know. Guess I’ll have to watch a couple of matches to make up my mind..

Some other observations: In many states or cities the teams have been named according to the heritage of their founders. So there used to be (or still is) a Polish, an Italian, a Scottish team and so on. Eric and his teammate Sean told me that until a couple of years ago Edmonton’s German club, Victoria, used to be undoubtedly the best team. Although losing ground the organisation is still firmly established, owning its own field and area (which we passed on our way). However, most teams increasingly carry on carrying the name but don’t represent the ethnicity anymore. Eric said, the polish club in Winnipeg restricted itself to having at least half of its players Polish or half Polish (for which they rewarded by sponsorship money for example from the Polish Catholic Church) but the result was that the team was relegated twice..

The place they were playing at, the "Edmonton Soccer Association Complex", was just at the north edge of Edmonton (or so my map suggests) which probably reflects very well how generously they can be with space here: I just had to take a picture of the complex map. Imagine, soccer is a rather marginal sport (at least as far as professionalism is concerned), but they still have a complex with 10(!) fields, and number 11 to 13 just about to be built! Unbelievable.

These days the fields seem to be heavily used (due to the fact that many matches had to be postponed because of rain earlier this year). On the three pitches I could see from my position I could see parts of five different matches – and quite surprisingly for European standards, only three were men’s matches, the remaining two women’s. Actually it must be quite nice for the guys here to know that they can practice their favourite sport, see nice girls and furthermore might get in touch with them more easily as they share a common interest. Compare that to Austria.. Obviously in Canada soccer is, similarly to the USA, much more a sport for both sexes. Actually it’s less surprising given the fact that both USA and Canada are among the top female teams – who in comparison do much better than their male counterparts. (But even the latter still managed to beat Austria 2:0 a couple of months ago..) In fact it’s an interesting question how it came that exactly soccer, the embodiment of masculinity in Europe (and pretty much everywhere else), is so successful among North American women. Maybe exactly because the traditional domestic sports, Ice Hockey, Basketball, Baseball and Football, were so much dominated by men that women had to find a niche, became globally successful and, therefore, strengthened the sport’s reputation and attraction?

As to the match itself: Eric’s team lost 2:3 to a team from Hammer. Very unlucky. First of all they were only 10 players in the first half (reminded me of my youth career..) and in the second one their coach played to make it even. (But Hammer swapped about four times so they still had an advantage.) Then they conceded a first goal within the fist minutes. It’s so bad – for you the match hasn’t really started yet but you’re already one goal down. But although they were two goals down, they scored the 1:2 a couple of minutes before halftime and even equalised right after half time. (This picture shows the scene which lead to the equalizer, number 11 is Eric.) After that I felt they did too little for the match, Hammer pressing for the lead again. The team had all of their players in their own half apart from two on the centre line, one being the coach (whose purpose was mainly to prevent one defender from joining the attack) and one striker. Oh, I wish I could have been this latter guy. That was exactly the position I used to play in our team in such a situation. Waiting at the centre line, and they just had to play one long pass and I was gone, just too quick for the defence. But they didn’t play such passes for him. Coach pleaseeee take meee! In the end, in the very end to be precise, Hammer scored the winning goal after a goal kick – poor defence – and right after the goal the referee blow the final whistle. Very, very unlucky; very, very upsetting.

A final note: Another thing which made me question the professionalism of that league was: Number one: The teams jersey’s don’t only resemble but are the ones of Portugal. Which real team would, without any connection to a club or country buy jerseys of another team? Especially a university team, shouldn’t they have jerseys in their colours, even if it’s only a second team? Number two: The behaviour on pitch, especially in concern of Hammer’s team, was pretty much 2. Klasse (last division in Upper Austria). Hammer conceded two yellow cards for arguing with (or insulting) the referee, the Eric’s team three, two of them for delaying the game. Number three: They had no linesmen. How can this happen (and actually be quite common) in a country’s second best division? Do the rules forbid taking random spectators? Even in my 2. Klasse youth team there were always one or two linesmen; usually spectators or officials from the home side – but still there were linesmen. Seriously, it’s not that difficult if you restrict their function on indicating whether the ball is out or a player offside and at least they’re always better positioned than the referee. (And especially if you have so many teams playing at the same time there must be some possibility.) Still it's a good sign if soccer's so popular that they are short of referees and linesmen..