For decades now I’ve thought about following soccer, but had no idea what team to root for. I thought about Tottenham for awhile because I really liked Steve Nash and he supported them. I didn’t want to choose a team that is the equivalent of the Yankees or the Lakers.
I sort of forgot about this for a while.
But today I saw this picture:

And here’s the thing, I love those colors and that windbreaker. And it’s hilarious that it says “Hollywood” on it (followed by the word “bets” but I can’t read that). So I googled who it was and it’s a team called Brentford. The warmup jackets are available for purchase (although they don’t have the Hollywood Bets sponsorship on them).
And ah, synchronicity! I’m going to be in London next week, and my hotel is only 1 mile away from the Brentford home stadium (and thus, their merch store).
This is a pretty shallow reason to root for a team, but aren’t they all, in a way? I asked ChatGPT to tell me what NBA team Brentford is most similar to and it said they are a smaller club that only recently got to the Premier League, so they are most similar to the Memphis Grizzlies and the Toronto Raptors, two teams I don’t love but I do like, and they seem like scrappy clubs to cheer on and so yeah, if I can find a nice piece of Brentford merch while I’m there, I’m going to get some.
Then all I have to do is learn the names of the players, coaches, history, lore, and develop an interest in watching soccer!