SONG OF THE DAY: Shaky On The Phone

Sovthern Gothicc Fvtvrism is way different than old dystopian movies foretold. No hovercrafts or spaceships or teleportation. We’ve got abandoned power plants being reclaimed by mimosa trees and honeysuckle vines, and we’re just setting up autonomous compounds of communal lounge along the old Richmond and Alleghany Railroad line. The James River subdivision and Rivanna subdivisions are about the midway point between the Clifton Forge to Richmond railway, and this past weekend we had our big once a year soccer match like we always do the Saturday/Sunday closest to June 27th, with “goals” set up at Clifton Forge and Richmond (69 points each), and at Natural Bridge and Columbia (13 points each), and we kick it off with two teams, western and eastern, and play to 69, starting at the Gladstone yard, where we have a giant cookout the whole weekend long. Nobody down there gives a fuck anymore, as the town is crumbling back into the river little by little. They tried to save a community center to make it an actual community center but CSX just demolished it instead to save themselves the liability. The Natural Bridge and Columbia goals are only 60 miles from the kickoff, but it takes five of those to break the 69 point total you need. Going the full 100-plus miles to the outer goals in Clifton Forge and Richmond ends the game with one goal. I was there for the opening kickoff, at noon on Saturday, and played all the way through Sunday night about 7:30 pm, before I had to come home for work today. I might call in sick tomorrow and join the game again, wherever it’s at. I slept along the river Saturday night, with a dude who called himself “Gee”, but said it didn’t stand for anything. We were talking about what was going on in Richmond, and playing a bunch of Fly Anakin & Big Kahuna OG on my iphone before the battery died. The river was just rolling along, like always. Not sure where the ball was when we woke up – seems like it had moved further west with other people playing, but my phone was dead so I didn’t know, and Gee was involved in some sort of argument with his cousin via Signal text. I love these annual soccer games, which usually last maybe a week or two before the last people quit. I don’t think anybody’s ever actually gotten 69 points as far as I know, but I’m on furlough next week from work, plus the 4th of July holiday being Friday, so I’m gonna figure out where the ball is Thursday night, and fuck it, gonna spend my furlough week kicking that fuckin’ soccer ball along the railroad tracks all the way to the Clifton Forge goal. I figure if I can do ten miles a day, I should be able to make it. Hopefully everybody on the western team has given up so I can actually do that ten miles a day goal. You’d be surprised how difficult it is to dribble a soccer ball on railroad tracks, while somebody is trying to take it away. But it might be the first time in the history of Sovthern Gothicc Fvtvrism somebody actually wins our annual Sovthern Gothicc Fvtvristic Super Cup 69.

TR14NGVL4R B4LL C0NTR0L...

triangular ball control

makes better sense in soccer

than small scale basketball court

SPORTSBALL 69: Winter 2018

I’m resurrecting trash culture anthropology through the filter of the world’s football, with plans to do so according to solstice/equinox schedule, but I’m doing so through my patreon, because I’m attempting to move to analog zines again, or doing longer winded projects on my patreon. I’m making this first of 3 installments of this Winter 2018 Sportsball 69 free to all, because information wants to be free, but the second and third installments the coming two weeks will be patrons only, because electric bills want to be paid. It is your choice to support or not. I realize we live in a time where we’ve been trained to look at social media and click a like button instead of actually clicking a link, and I’m as guilty of that as anyone, but if you spend $20 a month on coffee, or alcohol, consider spending $1 a month on me. I’m better for you.

THE LINK - LIKE A RED CARD FOR YOUR WORLD FOOTBALL IGNORANCE

SPORTSBALL 69: June 2016 Day Three of the three

(you know how we do; kickin' it like boban)

In order to instill Golden Ratio blessings unto this initial Sportsball 69, to hopefully universally magnetize all further future endeavors under this banner, I have decided to employ Fibonacci sequence to the syllabic blurbage for these top 23 teams. SEE YOU IN TWO MONTHS WITH THE NEXT INSTALLATION OF THIS METAPHYSICAL NONSENSE GIBBERISH!

#1: BARCELONA (278 pts): Spain. Champs. Messi. Plus Suarez. Plus stupid Neymar. And yet somehow, they still struggled.

#2: BAYERN MUNICH (241 pts): Pep. Champs. German. Mongoloids. Eternal red wealth. Those dudes in crowd keep waving flags. Robotic German arms continue waving those flags. LIKE THE WHOLE FUCKING GAME EVERY GAME, THOSE DUDES DO NOT EVER STOP WAVING THOSE FLAGS!

#3: REAL MADRID (219 pts): Spain. Blech. Bitches. Weak football. I hate Ronaldo. Fashion magazine modern sport. Hologram jerseys never get blemished by real dirt.

#4: AL AHLY (217 pts): Kings. Gold. Masters. Al Ahly. Where Pharoahs are born. Billed as “Club of the Century”. The ultras overthrew President Morsi’s regime. Attained complete perfect season in 2005, unbeaten in 55 games. A true people’s team born from student union century ago, and maintains level of patriotism deeper than just government. Send me to Cairo to soak in Ahly vs. Zamalek, a true blood rivalry, which both teams are still in group play of African Champions League this season, so they both could advance, and be drawn together for two-leg war.

#5: ESPERANCE ST (177 pts): Blood. Gold. Tunis. Esperance? Doesn’t that mean hope? North African football hates France. The legacy of colonialism still lives. A top Tunisian player still is worth more in Europe than at home in Africa. These are the lingering effects of the era of conquest, where the leagues considered world champions are also the ones which took the whole world.

#6: GUANGZHOU EVERGRANDE (174 pts): Wack. Wealth. Chinese. On the rise. It’s all new money. Owned by the Chinese ebay group. Top Chinese soccer is built off smoke and mirror wealth. It will wisp away like smokestack emissions, nothing left but creosote of failed dreams.

#7: DINAMO ZAGREB (165 pts): Rough. Raw. Balkan. Bad Blue Boys. Somewhat infamous. Champions League draw to avoid. If you go to Zagreb for football, you might get stabbed.

#8: CELTIC (153 pts): Green. Proud. Old Firm. Antifa. British pariahs. Scotland’s premier dominant force. Brendan Rodgers appointed new manager/new hope. Bastard Rangers’ recent promotion means return to regular blood feud rivalry. About to begin another mid-summer early qualifying round Champions League two-legger against some Euro bottom feeder. But football builds heartfelt fanaticism not in corporate spotlight moments but all those obscure memories during remote minutes which blur together into supporters’ passion deeper than literal ownership.

#9: AL-HILAL (153 pts): Boss. Oil. Saudis. King Fahd Stadium. Half their players named Abdullah.

#10: THE NEW SAINTS (152 pts): Welsh. Saints. Minnows. Not “British”. Sports green and white hoops. Home stadium seats two thousand. At one point were known as “Total Network Solutions”. Actual full name is “The New Saints of Oswestry Town & Llansantffraid Football Club”.

#11: ES SETIF (148 pts): Dumb. List. “Sportsball”. Black Eagles. Algerian Champs. Fibonacci blurbs is stupid.

#12: PARTIZAN (146 pts): Serbs. Crazed. For real. Insane fans. (All Serbs are insane.) At first, Yugoslav army team. Their ultras called Grobari, which means “undertakers”. Dominant during pre- and post-Yugoslavia, and to be honest, they scare me.

#13: SHAKHTAR DONETSK (142 pts): Wax. Tap. “Waxtap”. (From their crest.) Displaced due to war. Used to have like nine superstars. Sold them all off, still ruling Ukrainian football.

#14: JEONBUK HYUNDAI MOTORS (129 pts): Cars. CARS. Dak Gong. “Dinos” once. They rock lime green kits. Recent Korean K-League kings. Drunk drove my friend’s mom’s Hyundai Excel lots in high school.

#15: RED STAR BELGRADE (126 pts): Serbs. Reds. “The Star”. Balkan wild. Eternal Derby. That’s Red Star/Partizan showdowns. Imagine drunken militant Balkan berserkers. Then multiply that by two, add pyrotechnics, homemade weaponry – LET’S PLAY FOOTBALL!

#16: EMELEC (123 pts): Chill. Ball. Chillball. Ecuador. Called “El Bombillo”. Technically, that means “light bulb”. And yet Ecuador recognizes Rights of Nature.

#17: ASANTE KOTOKO (121 pts): Black. Stars. Gold Coast. All red kits. Porcupine Warriors. A top Ghanaian football team. Motto: Kill a thousand, and a thousand more will come. Their crest, in fact, refers to the Kingdom of Ashanti, pre-colonialism. Owned by the actual emperor of the Empire of Asante, which still exists as an entity, although it’s rule is not final.

#18: LINFIELD (121 pts): Blues. Fucks. Minnows. Protestants. Irish (Northern part). Sectarian conflict on pitch. Current ownership tries to move on; history don’t. Currently managed by Northern Irish legend, David Healy (all-time goalscorer).

#19: FENERBAHCE (118 pts): Turks. Strong. Sketchy. Fixed some games. Yellow Canaries. Galatasaray’s main rivals. Founded in secrecy during Ottoman Empire.

#20: NACIONAL (115 pts): Whites. Yeah. Hinchas. El Parque. Uruguayan champs. Fans displayed largest flag ever.

#21: CHELSEA (115 pts): Blues. Trash. Roman. Corporate. Soulless entity. At what psychic cost comes winning? We truly do live in dark age reign of quantities. (I wonder if Rene Guenon – were he still alive – enjoy the English Premier League?)

#22: PARIS SAINT-GERMAIN (114 pts): French. Champs. Fuck them. Rouge et Bleu. Owned by Qataris. Still worship Zlatan (though he’s gone).  Good example of modern football (in the bad ways). For real though – fuck modern football’s billionaire owners pricing out drunk criminal fans.

#23: AL-JAISH (111 pts): Shrug. Yawn. STARS LEAGUE! From Qatar. Arab football’s fucked. Their crest looks militant as fuck. Kick it in Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium.

NEXT TIME: shooting for August 1, for a bi-monthly feature, but keeping this thing deeply in spirit of football metaphysics (which is essentially life metaphysics), one can never predict how the “hand of god” will alter master plans made by feeble monkey man mind; perhaps the golden ratio plan was a struggle, but all supreme mathematics are.

SPORTSBALL 69: June 2016 Day Two of the three

(internet sports sciences, simplified beyond belief)

The methodology for this list this first time is simple – I valued teams for finishing in the top 3 of their domestic league for each of the past ten years, with most recent year weighted heaviest, most not recent year (10 years ago) weighted lightest, with 3 for first, 2 for second, and 1 for third. I also did this for the top continental club tournaments per continental confederation (except Oceania because lolol how the fuck do you play proper football on the ocean?) and also even the world club championships, so that some teams got bonus plus points from those things. But also, look I am a real dude doing real things in a supremely real life, so it’s not like I’m gonna do this for every domestic league on earth. So I did some of them. Which ones? Whichever ones seemed most important to me in an intuitively gut level, as well as probably the most prominent ones on earth, although that itself is a self-perpetuating colonialism, and I don’t want my Sportsball 69 project to be tainted by such bullshit (even though it probably will because we probably always are). But I did a lot of them, most all the big ones from Europe and some of the other countries that I am fascinated by, and the top couple in Africa and Japan and North America and a big chunk of South America, but all these leagues have different chaoses and structures, so even with my set method here for this first time listing, it got messed up here or there. You know what I did in those instances? Whatever felt truest to the purpose, even if that meant just straight up skipping years or giving up because it required too much research (beyond the magic combo of Wikipedia and Soccerway).

So now that you know the basic dork matrix methodology for this first month’s list, let’s run through the middle third…

#24: DYNAMO KYIV (110 pts): top Ukrainian team, so top that it was still mid-top even during Soviet philosophical colonization; post-Soviet collapse has been stalwart Kings of Free Ukraine, 28 times 28 times 28 times champion of domestic league, including a lucky 13 times as champion numero uno of Soviet top league (now long fractured into this and that)

#25: BOCA JUNIORS (109 pts): Maradona’s psychic home, and perhaps the most popular South American team on earth, although supported at home by legit crazy fuckers; I guess could sort of be considered the ManU of South America (weird how lots of dudes like those two teams specifically) but only if ManU were unpolished, non-corporate, and still street legit (and barrio approved)

#26: CERRO PORTENO (108 pts): Paraguay’s hardcore darlings, and old and popular FC for that nation, who remains most relevant thru the footballs

#27: MANCHESTER UNITED (106 pts): basically the Boca Juniors of White Earth; home to lemonface Wayne Rooney, the most easily hated man in all of the world’s football; and now also the home to self-hype machine Jose Mourinho, who will spend millions of euros and hopefully fail immediately (instead of his usual 18 months down the road)

#28: AKTOBE (104 pts): aka the Aktyubinets, top Kazakh club owned literally by “Aktobe Region” – a true team of the people who make their small-steppe nation way into early stages of European cups to confound richer, more sterilized and easily shocked footballing nations; goat meat forever in my opinion

#29: STEAUA BUCURESTI (104 pts): shout out to Romania’s most trophied up club; shout out those north African/east European sporting clubs with not only football but also basketball, handball, swimming, wrestling, cycling, judo teams; shout out Bucuresti derbies inside the city but especially the great one betwixt Steaua and Dinamo – real football rivalries, not no “lolol let’s take up 4 hours Saturday night ABC/ESPN but only actually play smashhead game for like 11 minutes tops”

#30: ZENIT ST PETERSBURG (100 pts): Hulk play for Zenit St Petersburg but Zenit St Petersburg fans ultra-racialist also ultra-homophobic, demand Hulk smash way out of pure Russia, not even winning help because winning not winning if not done in pure ways of white Russian

#31: AMERICA (99 pts): this is not America the America (which the real D Trump gonna make great again, you watch) but America the Mexico football team what which just won the North American version of the Champions League and also maintains stellar reputation amidst freestyle clusterfuck of Mexico soccer chaos structure; one time I don’t mind saying Go America!

#32: ENYIMBA (98 pts): Enyimba are one of the first Nigerian teams in recent memory to make it through to group stage of African Champions League (begins later this month – check your local obscure football streaming listings), which is proud moment but not really because even though football is by far number one sporting and leisure activity in Nigeria, everyone suffers from post-colonial self-loathing in this corporate globalization era, watching European football first, thinking of Nigerian premier teams as far from premier and not worth attention

#33: BORUSSIA DORTMUND (97 pts): when I started dorking to international footballs, BVB was making their Champions League run under crazy man Jurgen Klopp, and fan/supporter/ultra displays during that run were fairly amazing, and as crazy as Klopp appears sometimes (especially to genetically uptight English fucks), and it made me love the team; but also you have to wonder is nut like Klopp born from team like BVB or is team born from Klopp or both, and if both (which I say is the right answer) why don’t more clubs encourage such relationships because god, it’s what any sane fun-loving fan wants

#34: ZAMALEK (97 pts): one of Egypt’s big two, and as is the case with most Big Two eternal derbies, one is of the people and the other is of the oppressor class; Zamalek traditionally is of the oppressor (military) class, but with recent upheaval in Egypt, perhaps now is not you would think, yet somehow people remain crushed and power remains powerful, regardless of the era or empire

#35: KANO PILLARS (95 pts): one of best clubs in Nigeria, which is a colonially drawn geographic creation of a nation-state in Africa; the Pillars are premier team of Kano region, which historically was where Kano Kingdom existed before Fulani conquest and ultimately European exploitation of the African continent, which is ongoing through capitalist corporation colonization of all valuable resources, but done with local figureheads so as to seem all open and friendly and shit; Pillars have a dope crest – green and yellow crests remain top style, regardless of continent or era

#36: CORINTHIANS (95 pts): all I can think of is Ricardo Montalban; audiobooks of every poetr book I’ve ever self-published exist in deep space multiverse, all read by Ricardo Montalban, with Herve Villechaize working as hype man; not enough audiobooks utilize hypeman techniques, by the way

#37: PENAROL (94 pts): ahh, Uruguay – such a beautiful tiny nation which has football performed far above its population base; this has culminated in many things for the rest of the world to enjoy, and one of them is Penarol, who has the most aesthetically pleasing footballing crest on all the earth

#38: GALATASARAY (93 pts): when I was made aware of the insane joys of Turkish league soccer, I ever so briefly flirted with caring about Galatasaray, due to a Didier Drogba fetish at the time; but a little bit of internet video watching and I quickly realized that philosophically I stood more in-line with their rival Fenerbahce (which supports the people vs. oppressor theory of big soccer rivalries, although Besiktas, also in Istanbul, shows the fallacy of two-party system and how third parties are probably even more relevant to me personally); and yet, even with that change in heart, there can be no denying there is no scarier place for visiting teams or amazing thing to see (and a place I’d love to go in my real life at some point before dying) than a big, fiery WELCOME TO HELL beginning to a Galat home match; (you should probably just google “Welcome to Hell Galatasaray” if you don’t know about that shit)

#39: CRUSADERS (92 pts): Crusaders FC are top club from Northern Ireland, and that alone is a lot to handle on the heart level because when it comes to that United Kingdom divisive conflict between tribal Celts and empirical Anglicans, I stand with non-empirical peoples always, anywhere on earth; my shoot last name is Scottish and my paternal bloodlines are straight up Appalachian hillbillies who arrived by boat from Scotland nether regions, and in fact it is all these things that make me conceive of “sportsball 69” instead of “TEN TEAMS WHO STAND BEST CHANCE AT WINNING NEXT YEAR’S CHAMPIONS LEAGUE” because big data is empirical and thus Anglican and thus devilry, and even in metaphysical meandering list, I cannot endorse, not even tacitly, crusading devilry

#40: SANTOS LAGUNA (90 pts): neon green socks, in Mexico, equals unstoppable force; add in stereotypical visions of brown-skinned women in white cotton sundresses and psychic game over

#41: CSKA MOSCOW (90 pts): was literally the Soviet army’s team during Soviet Union of Russia and its subjugate states, so as you can imagine, not the most popular team in non-Russian places; now privately owned with minority ownership by Russian Ministry of Defence, thus still the military’s team, just privatized, in nefarious ways; also as you can imagine, draws some of the sport’s least open-minded fans in one of the earth’s least open-minded domestic leagues, but hey, it takes all kinds to make the world go round (including drunken racialists with highly questionable tattoos)

#42: MANCHESTER CITY (89 pts): I hate ManCity because they wear Tarheel Blue and represent that same godless ethos of purchased dominance; but then just as I had discovered a team to give my full psychic attention to in Swansea, who were powered by the simplistic grace of Wilfried Bony, he was bought up by ManCity; now this is normal for football, and in itself not an eternal slight, except Bony was leading goalscorer for EPL at that point, and was then situated firmly on ManCity bench as potential replacement for whatever might need replacing, essentially put on striker ice, having had 18 primetime months of his simplistically graceful life put on mute, all because of ManCity having too much money; but rest assured, the world economy will collapse, and modern corporate football will absolve itself into irrelevance (because there will be no profit)

#43: SEPAHAN (87 pts): Persepolis and Esteghlal, both based in Tehran, have traditionally been the two dominant powers in Iranian football; but in recent history, Sepahan has become new force, winning five titles since Persian Gulf Pro League’s current format was institutionalized in 2001 (more than anybody else) and collecting other hardware in cups and continental comps along the way as well; they are known (according to Wikipedia, which is probably sketchy source for anything) as Asia’s Yellow Storm, which I refuse to make any sort of joke about so as to avoid eventual Raven Mack Horrible Person thinkpieces once I become famous for my outsider arts of various methods (and I’ve probably given enough arsenal for such thinkpieces already, to be honest)

#44: ATLETICO MADRID (86 pts): actually was rooting for these godless fuckers this past weekend, just because they were playing the even further godlessly bastards from Real Madrid; and though the game ended in tragic “almost” as is destiny for teams like Atletico Madrid, I was able to instill in my 8-year-old child a strong understanding of why to hate Cristiano Ronaldo

#45: LA GALAXY (86 pts): the US home of Landon Donovan, as well as career twilight David Beckham, which should tell you all you should need to know about LA Galaxy; in fact that is a psychic litmus test, because if you think to yourself “well that’s great, London Ativan is great, and who doesn’t love David Beckham?” then you are definitely in the wrong place and you’ll never understand Sportsball 69 and you’ll also never understand 69 itself so I imagine you are strong purveyor of patriarchy and predatory behaviors and I hope my great-grandchildren stab your great-grandchildren with rusty holograms of knives

#46: VELEZ SARSFIELD (85 pts): Velez Sarsfield is last on this list today, and any time I see a short, overweight, latino dude walking alongside the road (about once a month it seems), I always assume in my brain his name is Velez Sarsfield, and he is almost always walking to K-Mart

TOMORROW: we wrap this thing up, like a lubricated condom

SPORTSBALL 69: June 2016 Day One of the three

(the earth's eventual champion of sports ranking perfection)

I was sitting around dorking the fuck out with scientific heart, contemplating the vast organic yet anarchic organization that is the world’s football, and thunk how there should be a metaphysical pseudo-scientific list of the world’s most football teams. (I contemplating saying “best” but that conjures up our pre-conceptions of what it means to be successfully reknowned as the “best”.) I do a lot of fucking around both at work and in personal nonsense gibberish channeling with spreadsheets, and we certainly live in a mistaken golden age of data analytics. I just rode to the country store up the road to get a 2-liter of ginger ale, and on the NPR while I rode up there was a story about predictive policing and using algorithms to harass young black men in Chicago. The drunken neighbor young man was there, telling everybody “holla at me”, and he joked with the cashier lady in slurred mannerisms while I gawked at the bongs on the top shelf behind her, plus the fact they had dice for sale in three different color, quarter per die. The country store (and surrounding parking lot) is as generally bordline lawless as the urban corner store as in Chicago (or anywhere), but I doubt any predictive policing will ever reach out here, not until predictive policing is useless and two versions aged out of relevance to whatever tomorrow’s hot new fake science will be.

So this will be called the Sportsball 69, and it will be pseudo-science, or metaphysics, but real as fuck. It will be as real as country store parking lots, and tattoos of leprechauns smoking joints, and drunken happy men tearing down fences together to go stand on grass and celebrate a sporting victory they had no physical involvement in but actually own more so than the actual players involved. There is a methodology to this, but it’s fucked, and I rambled about the country store too much and am just gonna get into the list. I’ll probably explain more about the methodology tomorrow, or I might not. Who the fuck knows? But holla at me.

#47: UANL (85 pts): Mexican Tigres, from Nuevo Leon, who almost nearly became first Mexican club to win Copa Libertadores tournament last year, losing in grand finale two-legger to those bastards from Argentina River Plate; technically a college football team but never mentioned in American Lamestream Media

#48: SANFRECCE HIROSHIMA (85 pts): football born from nuclear ash pit, called Sanfrecce which I am too far into the back yard to consult the internet (my wi isn’t that fi) but it sounds like the type of pasta noodles you get at pretend fancy store in recently gentrified hood, getting you some sanfrecce rigata and goat cheese with some farm-to-table Funny White Devil Cider Stout pint growlers

#49: MONTERREY (84 pts): arch regional cultural hated rivals of the Tigres UANL team two slots above, and nothing is more chaotic and exciting and splintered into more mini-seasons and tournaments and strange “you might qualify for this tournament but also might qualify for that one” craziness than Mexican football

#50: TP MAZEMBE (83 pts): this kinda my chosen team from African continent because their nickname (Les Courvoisiers?) is frenchy for The Ravens, but their logo has an alligator holding a soccer ball (football) in its mouth, and they are from deep Congo DR, down in Lubumbashi, nasty ass mega-city sprawling out from open earth sore copper mine, almost like the earth itself spat the city out around the manmade hole

#51: MAMELODI SUNDOWNS (83 pts): one of first South African teams to be in African Champions League group stages (final 8) in last few years, so folks are hyped as fuck, because usually every year there are two or three South African teams who are like “WE ARE GOING TO SPEND MONEY TO WIN CHAMPIONS LEAGUE” but then they don’t do shit because South African soccer is not nearly as tight as one would expect

#52: GAMBA OSAKA (82 pts): don’t know much about Japanese soccer, but I know a couple creepy ass 40-something white dudes who post a lot of shit on social media about that weird ass school girl fantasy J-pop stuff, so watch out for those dudes, okay? I mean, internet trains us to be more tolerant especially of consenting perversions, but I don’t know, something seems hidden weird, below the surface about it, so if we all just promise to call people out on their bullshit if they step over the line, we’ll be okay; problem is, true creeps know to not ever step over the line until they slip up one day and you find out the dude you worked with killed runaways in Delmarva peninsula

#53: LIBERTAD (80 pts): Paraguayan team which is espanol for liberty, which might be obvious but also was what everybody in Scarface was chanting as they burned up Idomeni right before Scarface stabbed Joseph Mengele

#54: ETOILE DU SAHEL (78 pts): Etoile du Sahel are a top Tunisian team from Sahel region, where many wonderful internet sounds have been discovered; also their mascot based off Red Devils nickname is a long redhaired hillbilly looking dude like straight 1800s Scotland to east Kentucky ass dude with a trident, so imagining convert Sufi mystic Sahel hillbilly (Sahel-billy) building concubine commune in innate nomadic fashion seems pure metaphysical positive manifestation imagery, in my opinion (almost just went full “imo” there but decided against it to keep this bloggish even though I’ve obviously abandoned proper civilized punctuations)

#55: ASTANA (76 pts): there are like two good teams from Kazakhstan who end up in European tournaments because Kazakhstan is in that central asia steppe region which *might* be Asia but also *might* be Europe so they joined Europe, and fuck man no fucked up team from Kazakhstan stands a chance against the likes of the big clubs from the giant cultural epicenters of world history (big five leagues) but when they do trickle through the early rounds, they end up wanting to do shit like sacrifice a goat in Scotland (true story) and it causes a bubb rubb because indignant euro motherfuckers are like OH MY GOD HOW CAN THESE BACKWARDS PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO SACRIFICE A GOAT? but real talk, goat meat is great as fuck, and also you don’t have to be cultured to know how to kick a ball into a giant net as good as way book smarter motherfuckers

#56: KAIZER CHIEFS (76 pts): South African team again, so the word “kaizer” in their name really trips me out, what with apartheid history and nazi references, but again I’m too far outside at the third tier picnic table to access interwebs; we have first level (by the house) picnic table, second level(far back of yard), and third level (invisible to unloungers), and obviously that’s where I’m sitting to compose Sportsball 69 knowledges

#57: FC SEOUL (76 pts): south korean football I imagine is played by robot cartoons in hyperspace, fc seoul created with dual meaning of “soul” because their robot cartoons gained artificial intelligence but then also artificial gut intuition which caused their artificial intelligence to expand further than other robot cartoon football teams, and that is why they are so successful; I imagine

#58: ZELJEZNICAR (74 pts): eternally fascinated by Bosnian clubs because of Muslim whitey status of Bosnia the nation, and Zeljeznicar is one of the bigger (or at least most successful) teams from the BIH; plus whenever something got all them “Z”s in it you can’t sleep on it, shit sounds tight as fuck, like how you gonna deny a bunch of Islamic bearded white ancient fuckers shouting ZELJEZNICAR! to the heavens, hoping to win some self-esteem back after the splintering of Yugoslavia, inshallah

#59: ZRINJI MOSTAR (74 pts): another major Bosnian club, but I already spoke upon that just now, and not as many “Z”s here

#60: POHANG STEELERS (74 pts): Pohang Steelers one of the all-time best South Korean clubs, and got their name from steel industry, just like American football Pittsburgh Steelers, but whereas Pittsburgh American football Steelers play in “Heinz Field” sponsored by ketchup corporation, Pohang Steelers play in THE POHANG STEEL YARD which really is unfuckwithable sounding stadium

#61: LYON (74 pts): not much to say about French clubs; like I ain’t anti-french or perpetuate anti-franco stereotypes, but I just ain’t all that interested, like I avoid the whole thing, but I doubt “Lyon” is French for “Lion” although it might be and even if it is it’s not like lions eat people in a city in France any more so who gives a fuck?

#62: AL-WAHDA (72 pts): a Syrian club, which is a good time to mention that guess what? even though countries like Syria and Iraq and Egypt have been wracked by social turmoil and civil wars and predator drone bombs galore, they have had football the entire time; Al-Wahda has remained steady success not only in Syrian top league but in Asian club tournaments, all while nation is total chaos; I think all the teams still playing the past two years have been in Damascus because that’s the only place they could secure security for games, but the games went on; in America if we have a serious incident, major sports would be shut down for weeks – if the country fell apart all that shit would go away without a fight, because it’s business not cultural (fuck business, culture first business second, which is why modern football is corporate devilry a lot of times and places)

#63: CRUZEIRO (72 pts): a Brazilian club that conjures up late ‘70s low rider magazine pinstriping sciences in my mind, because my mind is not all that controlled many moments

#64: DEFENSOR SPORTING (71 pts): Uruguay land of chill beauty and powerful Beautiful Game culture fully fermented; my ol’ lady was gonna pay for me to go to Uruguay this year and I was just gonna fuck around and go watch football as much as possible and walk around Montevideo and disappear into the coastal mountains and try to further develop my wildbird gringo mysticism with international flavorings, but instead we just paid a bunch of stupid electric and phone bills and bought gas to keep going back and forth to work until I am dead

#65: SAN LORENZO (71 pts): an Argentine club, but I have unfortunately run through personal quota of Argentine football talk for today already; I guess it bears mentioning the reason they are above Al-Ahli below them but below Defensor Sporting above them is the criteria for breaking ties in Sportsball 69 points system is my personal preference, thus ensuring this unparalleled internet sportsball list maintains my high level of integrity even with metaphysical pseudo-sciences applied

#66: AL-AHLI (71 pts): WARNING: THIS IS NOT THE MORE FAMOUS AL-AHLY FROM CAIRO BUT A LESSER FAMOUS BUT STILL QUALITY TEAM FROM SAUDI ARABIA WHOSE INTERNATIONAL FIFA CODE IS KSA FOR KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA, YOU NEVER HEAR “KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA” HERE THOUGH DO YOU? BEHOLD A PALE HORSE, WILLIAM B COOPER WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG, DON’T BELIEVE ALEX JONES HE IS A MISINFORMATION PLANT FOR THE GREY ALIENS

#67: RIVER PLATE (70 pts): most serious ass rivalry in South American sports is River Plate/Boca Juniors, which had a continental tournament game suspended last year because the fans maced all the players from the other team when they came out after halftime; no American college football rivalry, no matter how heated it is, comes close to motherfuckers getting maced by hooligan fans; uptight business-minded human beings would say “well that’s a good thing, we’re not animals” but I’d counter that wait we actually are animals, but some of us are assholes

#68: LDU QUITO (70 pts): one of top teams from Ecuador, who has been football shocker in international level as of late (well, World Cup 2018 qualifying) but this is likely because of Ecuador putting Rights of Nature into their constitution and believing politically in buen vivir aka the good living which is unsustainable by standard capitalist practices, which also doesn’t mean socialist because world is not made of only opposites; good living is the power of lounge, and main reason the world’s football has drawn my disgruntled gringo eyeballs (and heart) is because power of lounge is important to me and commercial bombardment is not the good life, but squeezing up next to a bunch of other loungers, standing room only (terrace life), seems more attuned to community than 129 euro official jerseys with a fucking commercial across the front bigger than the crest patch; just saying (plus LDU Quito crest looks like an army from Civilization patch, as all good football team crests look like – to me, fractured gringo brain of digital era)

#69: ATLETICO NACIONAL (69 pts): one of the humans I talk football with most in life is a crazy Colombiana barista lady at work around my age with insane chatter and salsa dancing predilection and golden dyed long hair, and she is from Medellin so this is her team, and she updates me and I know when they have big games because she will wear one of her seven thousand jerseys and also maybe her shoes or earrings that match, and I love her like an old friend even though we both hardly understand half of what the other one says, but the fact I decided to make a pseudo-science metaphysical list called Sportsball 69 and her team ended up in 69th place with 69 points, to me this was universal magnetic sign that I am doing this right as fuck

TOMORROW: NUMBERS 24 THROUGH 46 (aka The Middle Third)