Didn't get the chance to post this last night, but wanted to share.
I work at a pharmacy so my days off aren't normal weekends and whatnot, and Wednesday's are usually my Fridays (though obviously today I have to go in when spurs are playing Borussia
). But I generally get off work at 3 on Weds and, after a full long work week, like to go to a bar where I know noone will know me.
So I drive 20 minutes away from where I live to go to this country ass bar with actually really good food for a late lunch and a couple pints. I whip out my phone to check twitter and realize Chelsea PSG is on, and remember the first leg was super entertaining. I have second thoughts, but I figure since nothing else is on in the afternoon (though some spring training Mets game was on), I'll ask the bartender to put it on. She asks me the channel, I tell her. She sees that it's soccer. "soccer?", "yeah", "ok".
She puts it on, and it's just after PSG scored their first goal. Her name happens to be Chelsea so she's slightly interested. She asks me what the deal is and I try to briefly explain what the champions league is. She doesn't really get it but nods. The 4 or 5 other people in the bar, who appear to be construction workers, watch vaguely. The bar only has 2 TVs and the other one is on CNN. One of them makes a comment about "flopping". I tell them they actually made a rule against it 5 years ago so there's much less now (I totally made this up, when did simulation become a foul? I have no idea), they appear to be slightly more interested. ZLATAN makes a fairly hard challenge. I get to tell them about the gloriousness of ZLATAN. They don't really get it but they nod.
Then the Chelsea goal happens. It was such a good goal that you could tell these dudes who had clearly never seen a professional game of soccer before were thinking "How did those mother****ers do that???". I asked if I could put the sound on. The bartender did. I excitedly told them that if Chelsea scored again they'd advance, which is strange for me since I ~hate~ Chelsea. The next 25 minutes or so were really fun. Actual comments include:
"the commentator is about to have an orgasm"
"these people have ridiculous sounding names"
"well they're foreign"
"But they're athletes"
(what?)
They pretty much disengaged at halftime, which was kind of a shame, but since PSG scored next and won, whatever. But still, got to watch 25 minutes of European football with American hicks, and, at the very least, convinced them soccer players are, in fact, athletes.