Bursting the Bubble

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It may come as a shock to you but not everyone at TBG is a passionate football mad fan, well to be honest most of us are but I can't honestly say that I fit into that catagory.

It seems like an odd thing to say, especially considering there has been nothing written by our group for close to 8 months and that this has to be the unfortunate ice-breaker.

It is however true that during yet another excruciatingly long A-League off-season I have found myself bored to death and bar the Socceroos' qualification to the FIFA World Cup, football has lost my attention.

What is that I hear? What about summer transfers? Internationals? The imminent return of major European football?

Quite frankly I could not care less and never really have.

I have never followed European football at any level with the same passion as my favourite A-League team, am barley in touch with the couple of national teams I feel represent me (including the Socceroos) and my knowledge of players is largely based on my work with TBG and FIFA07 manager mode (I stopped buying FIFA after that because I couldn't decide between XBOX360 and PS3 and ended up with nothing)

I love football, I have been playing for over 9 years in an oganised outfoor setting, have a strange obsession with my local team and know the A-League back to front, but only because that all feels real to me.

I can touch the ball and go to my local stadium, I can't however, watch Crystal Palace vs Fulham at 1.30am on TV with the same level of interest.

Over the coming season I intend to immerse myself in football like I never have before and document my experiences as best I can.

I am in a way a semi-convert or as my cousin jokingly put it an anti-euro-snob.

I feel though that it is time for me to burst my own domestic bubble and start to experience and appreciate football outside of Australia.

It's going to be hard especially considering I don't have Foxtel... come to think of it, that might be the reason I'm in this situation to begin with.

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