Here's to you, Bienvenu

Most Sundays in high school I would grab my last bit of homework, head downstairs and watch the soccer review show with my dad (if the Redskins weren't playing). If they were and my mom was watching ice skating upstairs, it was a battle I almost always lost.

Lionel Bienvenu was the host. He was charming, funny, excitable, nerdy, quirky, and clearly loved the sport and his job. The show was well made. It offered a weekly glimpse to some of the best soccer in the world to an audience who didn't have access to it otherwise. Yet imo, Lionel made the show.

As I remember it, the show took on the personality of the host. When he talked about rivalries, I'm sure it was with a good deal of humor and that's probably why I honestly can't say I hate any of the teams I should (Tottenham, Man. U, Chelsea, etc.).

• I don't recall the Spurs v. Arsenal games being described as anything but a fierce London derby. At 16, I thought ok, whatever, cool, maybe it'll be the game they show for 30 min.
• Man U? They had Scholesie and to this day, I heart that small, scrappy, creative midfielder who could get off a shot just as quick and hard as anyone else. And I still find it hard not to respect the club's history and SAF.
• As for Chelsea, I loooved watching highlights from their games because they, more often than not, featured Zola.*

The show made me believe people who only connected English soccer to hooligans were beyond crazy, who described the EPL as boring, crazy, who said there were leagues that even compared to it, crazy. I mean what other league** is set up so the worst teams get nearly as much attention as the best due to the possibility of 3 heading down to some nightmare league without a weekly review show.

So yeah, I love the EPL because of that show and in a lot of ways, it shaped my soccer fandom.

*Chelsea quickly did become my least favorite team once that Russian just bought the most expensive players in the world and destroyed whatever charm the club once had. And of course, the fiasco in London when Mark and I were given absurd advice from Chelsea-ites as to whether they had a game (they didn't), where the stadium was located (no one seemed to agree), and how to get there (depended on where said person thought the stadium was).

**Apparently a lot of Euro leagues are.