April. It has to be the universal ‘crunch time’ month for most sport seasons. The National Basketball Association (NBA) teams are jockeying for playoff seeding where every game counts in a shortened season, its madness in March in the world of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball, and the English Premiere League (EPL), Serie A and La Liga are at the critical stage of the season. To make things even better, Tiger Woods may be sparking a comeback.
This has been one wild season in the EPL, I guess you can say that for a lot of seasons, but this one seems quite sporadic. By early November last year, everyone thought Manchester City was a certified lock to win the EPL title, go deep in the Champions League and most likely win the FA Cup. Today? This Super Fantasy All Star team with a million-dollar bench is fighting for the number one spot with friendly neighbor Manchester United…the masters of playing in crunch time. How did City lose its way? Maybe they thought they could coast the season, got bored or just tired because every team was gunning for them, the Stokes and Wolves of the league brought their ‘A’ game all the time!
No matter what happened I think for all of us, as football fans, should thank City for making this next month one intriguing ride, culminating into the Manchester derby on April 30th which is coined to be an epic match but may be redundant the way City are choking away their title hopes. Arsenal’s miraculous turnaround has also been fun to watch, they are pretty much the hottest team in the league right now with future AC Milan/Barcelona/Real Madrid striker Robin Van Persie (shots fired!!).
These next four weeks are going to be brilliant. We will see the best football and possibly some grinding ones like the 0-0 result between Tottenham and Chelsea similar to the battle of attrition between AC Milan and Barcelona in the Champions League. We will see what the old guard of Chelsea has in store, whether they will go out swinging and get that number four spot or quit on their coach…again. We may possibly see the first time a coach plays himself out of being manager of England AND a local club in Harry Redknap. I wont even get into what we will see in Liverpool, all I know is that the club is in search of an identity and it is way too late to find one…back to the drawing board for them. We will eventually see United run away with the title with a very underwhelming squad and that will literally make my head explode because I will have to bare the sight of Nani with a trophy…yes I am a certified hater. Four weeks of high octane and dramatic football…the most important question is where to watch it all?
For the next few weeks I will be on a quest to find out which venue in Dar es Salaam is the best place to watch football. Each weekend I will watch the match of the weekend. Most likely the main fixture of that particular weekend and choose a restaurant/bar/lounge that I think will be interesting to watch at. I will come up with a short review of the place, the atmosphere and, of course, the fans. This is important because as much as we love watching football we enjoy talking about the games more than anything. We love overanalyzing and dissecting no-calls, tough challenges, unfair red cards, dives, you name it! And let’s face it we love trash talking. So let me see if I can find the best place where you should watch football in Dar.
Let’s get started.
Cool project! I hope “restaurant/bar/lounge” includes street venues as well because the loudest roars I hear during a game are from places outside, not inside 🙂 Sometimes there is no TV or projector either, just some seniors huddled around a handheld radio with a loooong antenna. Interesting how audio plays a bigger role there than visuals…
Thanks, no that is very true and I am not going to limit myself to just the conventional spots, Dar will be my oyster! Audio can definitely be more fun than visuals.
Dude, dont forget to pass by Samaki Samaki @ Mlimani City. Pale kasheshe tupu!!