Every Saturday and Sunday morning, football fans across the country wake up with only one thought on their minds: game day. As students and fans alike put on face paint, tailgate in the parking lot and scream their hearts out either at the game or on the couch, their singular concern is football. Little do they know, other football fans have been awake for hours. How else are they going to watch the most exciting sport in Europe? After all, it’s the Barclays Premier League.
England’s top flight soccer league features some of the best players, managers and teams in the world. Any team can win on any given day, and there are rivalries over 100 years old.
But, in a league so well-established with so much history, how is an American supposed to know who to support? Luckily, I’m exactly the writer to tell you who your new favorite team is. I myself have been watching the Premier League since I was 12 years old, so I have all the expertise one could possibly need. No Buzzfeed quiz, just expert analysis on which team is worth your time — and which isn’t.
Are you a Patriots, Warriors or Dodgers fan? Do you love watching “player you’ve never heard of” scoring at will and leading their team to victory every game, regardless of how the team got the money to pay for that player? Maybe Manchester City is right for you. If shady owners using even shadier business practices to buy the league is your thing, then look no further. Lucky for you, you’ll always be a trendsetter, since Manchester City only has eight other fans. But hey, at least they’ve won the league twice in a row.
What if you’re a fan of the underdog story, but not a fan of all the hard work being an underdog really takes? Well, I am just burning to tell you about Burnley. Coached by the infamous worm-eater Sean Dyche, Burnley employs a very gritty — if not lacking in sportsmanship — style involving hard challenges and subtle elbows in the ribs. All worth it for the win, right? Maybe so, if Burnley could ever score more than twice a game.
You might be the kind of fan who loves to rave about history: all those championships won so long ago when the sport was different and not just anyone could be a professional athlete. Underneath all the smoke, though, your team hasn’t won a thing in years, and even if they did, do you remember it? If this sounds like you, Liverpool is the perfect team for you. Once the most successful team in England, Liverpool spent many years a step behind the top teams in the Premier League, and Scousers could do nothing but relive the glory days while being mocked mercilessly by the rest of the country. A new golden age in Liverpool’s history is beginning, however, so bandwagon fans should hop on now.
Have you spent offseasons on end watching your team put together some good pieces, only to fall apart as the season progresses and finish disappointingly, somehow missing your already low expectations? Maybe you’re a Jets or Mets fan. If you’re used to being let down, and really have come to expect it, look no further than Everton. No matter how many new coaches or exciting young players they bring in, they’ll always be second fiddle to Liverpool. But that’s just how Everton fans want it, because they’re the “people’s club.”
These are just four of the 20 teams that make up the Premier League. If you or someone you know is looking to be told who to cheer for in a dry and only kind of funny way, I can be reached by screaming the phrase “corner taken quickly, Origi!!!!!!!” I’ll hear it, wherever you may be.
