BELLEVUE — Closely following the Riverhounds since their return to play, local “sports addict” Jack Mosley believes he has finally started to understand soccer except the game’s strategies, positions, most basic rules, and the name of Pittsburgh’s USL franchise, sources with two beers yelling “tackle him” report.
“I’ve come a long way,” said Mosley. “At first, I didn’t even know obvious stuff, like that there were two goals or the whole no-hands thing unless you yell to the ref, ‘Hey chief, gonna use my hands on this one. That cool?’ Now I’m hooked; you’ve got a Sea Dogs, or whatever, fan for life here.”
“Go Dogs, go!” he added.
The newly established “soccer fanatic” shared the mixed results of his recent efforts to accelerate his understanding.
“Went to a few pick-up games, and I’ll tell you, these soccer jags are hard to win over,” he said. “They put me at fullback, so of course I went out there and leveled every son of a bitch that tried to get near our guy with the ball — like a champ, might I add — but instead of high-fives, they throw me on the bench. Also did anyone tell me ‘nice tackle,’ when I trucked that dude staring down a pass near midfield? Nope. They just demand my personal information in case the guy wants to press charges. Some bullshit right there, but it won’t stop me from trying to learn.”
Mosley’s wife Sarah had mixed feelings regarding her husband’s sudden interest in soccer.
“I appreciate the enthusiasm he has for little Jack’s U8 practices now,” she said, firmly rejecting Mr. Mosley’s suggestion to bring a large cardboard ‘D’ and piece of fencing to their son’s next training session. “I just hope he respects boundaries: he’s already gotten bold enough to call the coach ‘Tomlin Jr.’ and the last thing we need is him calling the fast kid a ‘locker room cancer’ in the parents’ group text again.”
As of press time, Mosley was reportedly watching English Premier League highlights, arbitrarily shouting “Heath” at the television “when something good happens.”
