Well, the big updates of things that have happened the past few days have revolved around sports.

My flatmate and I found a sports bar in Central London that shows (American) football games. There’s nothing quite like traveling 1/4 of the way around the world only to end up hanging out with a bunch of New Yorkers while the Jets and Mets blow their games.

In other football news, I won a ticket on eBay to the Giants/Dolphins game on October 28th. It cost me an arm and half a leg, but it will be great saying my first ever Giants game will be in London.

Now, onto rest-of-world football (soccer). Tonight, I went to a Brentford football match, a local club within walking distance of my flat. I would be lying to you if I said I was a soccer far, however tonight’s match was enjoyable. The Brentford offense didn’t show up for the first 60 minutes of the game and they were down 3-0. However, a goal in the 62nd and another beautiful header in the 75th put some fire into the teams and into the crowd. Brentford couldn’t convert in the final minutes though, and ended up losing. Still, I had a good time. I also enjoyed my first experience with fanatic soccer fans. The other club (Dagenham & Redbridge, from the other side of London) brought a lot of people, and both the home and away stands were doing all sorts of crazy chants (the away team more so because they were winning the whole time) and it was a festive atmosphere.

Also, two fun things of note:  The teams came out onto the pitch to the “NFL on Fox” theme song, and at halftime they played “Born in the U.S.A.”

Now, for those of you who care, a quick lesson on league soccer structure here in the UK.

The team I saw tonight is a part of League Two. Let’s make a baseball analogy here.
Premiere League = Major League Baseball
Football League Championship = AAA
League One = AA
League Two = High-A
Conference National = Low-A

Except there’s a major difference between American leagues and English soccer, that being the fact that the leagues run on promotion and relegation. Clubs can be promoted up to the next league level if they do well (generally place in the top three) and get knocked down if they stink (generally bottom three). However, there aren’t just these five leagues levels. There are 24. And they cover everything, from the pros in the Premier League down to the village teams in the middle of nowhere. In theory, a team could be formed today and start the (slow) step up from the bottom of the pyramid, and 23 years later be playing in the top league in the nation. Supplemental reading available on Wikipedia.

In addition, they do something here called the FA Cup, where ANY team in ANY league can enter into a national tournament. This year’s tournament started with 731 teams. 731! We go nuts every March with 65 teams in March Madness. Can you imagine trying to fill out a bracket with 730 games in it? New life goal:  Organize a bracket competition that has over 512 teams in it.  Also, try to imagine what it would be like if we could relegate teams in America that really sucked. If we look at the most recently completed seasons, that would mean the Oakland Raiders, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the Memphis Grizzlies, and the Philadelphia Flyers would all be gone.