Hello! So before I begin, I will, of course, apologize for the my severe lack of time-awareness. It has been far too long. And I do apologize. But I am here now, and I hope to catch you up as much as possible.
And so we commence.
I was reminded today to blog actually by Juan Mata, midfielder and miracle of Chelsea Football Club, my favorite men's footy team. Every week Juan, who is just as wonderful a person as he is a player, writes up blogs, in both English and Spanish, and posts them for his fans across the globe to follow. Now, these are not normal blogs. These blogs do not seem as though they were written by professional footballers, which is probably what makes them that exciting and rewarding and great to look forward to every Monday. Juan Mata is this real person, blogging from the eyes of a dedicated college student, a resident of London, a lover of footy, an avid reader, a food-lover, a photographer, a lover of literature, an indie-music head, an ESL student, a hipster, and an explorer. Who just happens to play professional football. It is the most wonderful thing. You have to experience these weekly passages yourself to truly understand what I mean and appreciate Juan Mata. But anyway. In these blogs, Juan Mata not only talks about his footballing experiences of the week. He never fails to include recommendations of London neighborhoods he's recently explored, gorgeous photographs of them (also on his Twitter and instagram), book and poem recommendations, recounts of his non-football experiences in London (such as a Rolling Stones concert), and lastly talks of his family and friends. With many emoticons and smileys and 'hugs' to further personalize your experience. And not to mention the awesome music recommendations on his Twitter- a fan of indie and alternative rock myself, I very much enjoy these ;) But Juan Mata is just very talented in being a humble people person and connecting with his fans in this most personal way-unrelated to football. Although the majority of his posts do focus on his games and Chelsea and then how he manages to follow La Liga from London, the personal aspect is really wonderful as well. So thank you, Juan Mata :) Anyway, if you are a fan of Mata or simply want to explore this magnificent person, I suggest than within a few hours or so, check the link below. I am positive that you will enjoy. Blogs are available in both English and Spanish, simply select the tab for your designated language on the sidebar of the website. Anyway the main point of this post, other than to celebrate this awesome player, is to basically announce that I am going to try to maintain a Mata-like blog; weekly, focusing on things in and out of the soccer world (maybe). And similarly to Juan, it will focus on La Liga, Chelsea, a bit of the rest of EPL, Champions League, Europa (CHE), National football (USWNT), Women's Champions League (which I will discuss further later), etc. So now it is late and I must go and I shall leave you with a link to Juan's marvelous blog http://blogs.grada360.com/juanmata/en/ and I should be back here blogging within a few hours to tell you about this week in the EPL, La Liga, USWNT, NWSL (more to come on that), etc.
Hugs!
Me :)
P.S. Feliz aniversario, Lucas Piazon!!!
(HAPPY 19TH BIRTHDAY LUCAS PIAZON!!!)