between a rock and orlando pace

Remember about two years back, when that kid blocked Michigan's last-second field goal and carved Appalachian State's name resoundly into the esteemed tablets of The Unlikeliests, and unleashed a pox that year upon college football's upper crust to nearly all fall to spry inferiors as forcefully as they had risen, like African despots? Titles are only truly only won because the structure necessitated a conclusion, but never was a champion more the victim of sweet circumstance than LSU was in '07, hence the two losses in that team's woodshed. Now, real football's water broke a fraction of a fraction of time ago, but this week's certainly had its share of doozies, which when lassoed together are definitely of some congruence with the aforementioned beginning of the Wolverines' fall from gridiron grace.

Burnley have the socialites toasting their shirazs, and rightfully so, for they've managed the trick twice in a week's time against both of last year's champs -- Big Four and then E'rryone Else. Wolves and Birmingham too have already procured victories; all of this coincides swimmingly with Spurs sitting tabletop, a combination known to commonly and copiously produce gadflynip. I mean, they do play Birmingham next. I'm not saying, I'm just saying. And it's not just the English either, toots. AS Bari, familiar to this scribe thanks to mass-managerial feefing (or playing FIFA; tell yer amigos!) and dual holders of the Best Crest In Italy (with Sampdoria), managed to last the bell against Inter with horns still locked, sure to fill Jose's diary with scribbles on omens and forlorn mixtape marinations to maybe one day put in Ibra's locker.


But the upset that's earned my tool-belted double-take, the one at once overlooked and (thus) most-underlyingly intriguing, naturally occurred in the Bundesliga, which is indeed still living and breathing and too still will often provide glorious soccer. Mainz, or 1. FSV Mainz 05 if you're the club's mother scolding it, earned higher regards with their defeat of Bayern for a silo of reasons, starting with what will but really shouldn't be the focus, Munich themselves. There's injuries, yes -- which would float, if Soccernet hadn't already run a post concerning the alarming amount of integrals injured to begin this season. (I'm lazy, find it for yourself.) It also doesn't address the fact that the homegrown youth at Bayern, for whatever reason, kinda saunter around the field like they've already got their own window office, like the crest alone is going to compensate for them. Not entirely, not even mostly, but just a bit, and it becomes something of an issue when it breeds via your keeper and/or center back. But I mean, Bayern, United, and Inter -- when reversing the scope from Goliath's to David's, the hairs become woefully split, and so to the victor go my super-significant spoils.

So Mainz, eh? Why cozier than Bari or Burnley or the like? Well, for one, Serie A just kicked off, and the initial game of the season is always a contestant to be a uniquely odd affair; plus, for real, San Siro or not, they only played 'em even, and I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure three points is, like, three times more than one point, which seems enough weight in itself. As for Burnley, well -- better's probably not the proper choice of vernacular, but again, they've already made the water cooler their bitch, and the preferred inclination here is towards the remote; plus they've seen two league titles in their time. And now the sauce: the Bundesliga just completed its third week; Mainz's summer promotion meant they're playing just their fourth ever year with heads above water, the other three coming only earlier this decade. Them besting Bayern, then -- that's fuckin' romantic. (Yanks just may -- and I mean just may -- remember the side as Conor Casey's employer before Colorado, and should be rather bemused to learn the club can be located in Mainz on, no shit, Dr. Martin Luther King Way [zoom 'er in]).

And the actual auteurs, bringing the fold to the masses? The formative fad this season seems to be the diamond, followed by the one named after the magazine, followed by a few other back-four variations, with the rear brought up by the forgottens, a group withholding the ever-lean Christmas Tree. Now this isn't exactly a depressant -- not unlike the other populars mentioned, the innovation must come from the men on the field, which at this level takes a hellish amount of acumen to create the gulf needed. Thankfully, when 35-goin'-on-22 chieftain Thomas Tuchel decided on Friday or Thursday or Saturday morning even that the Bayern game would be the day for trimming, he had (insufferable metaphor warning) a sterling pair of ornaments of which to adorn the tree's top regions. Two goals later -- one from the southpaw Austrian Beckham (not mine), the other to the blonde Burkinabé Balotelli (mine -- though it's less style of play and more the brooding), each from the run of play, though one more so than the other -- and Munich's looking up the table at a baker's dozen teams and the perennial second divisioners find themselves in a European slot after perhaps their all-time greatest triumph. Isn't that what the early doors are all about, the beauty of potential, of premonitions, of minnows' pregnant dreams? It'll be interesting to see if this world-beating movement can find any legs and then a pace, with a best-case scenario of an FC Sheriff CL run all the way to the Bernabeu in May.