I’ll preface this by stating that I have no European team I follow. Hell my team is a Mexican team, Santos Laguna, that gets constantly ransacked by its capitalistic owner who has his eyes set on moving his other toy, Sporting de Gijon, up a level to be in the same division as Barcelona and Madrid.

Found myself with a rare weekend off and nothing planned so I knew I wanted to watch soccer. Looked up something here on r/kansascity and came across a comment pointing the Pressed Tavern as the meeting spot for the Man City support group in KC.

Made my way there and walked inside to a match that had already begun, snow/cold can… ARE a bitch as we all know by now. Having never been to the Pressed Tavern, I had no idea what to expect but came to love the layout of place: bar area with high tables on one side (main watching area) and the other side was regular tables with plenty of TVs as well, all tuned to THE game of course.

Not really keeping up with European soccer, but being a fervent believer of “When in Rome, do as the Romans” I became a Citizen for 2 hrs. Enthralled in the emotions of the game and drinks; I cheered as City went ahead on a very cheeky and resourceful finish by Bernardo Silva. However, the excitement of the lead was quickly replaced by confusion as 2 goals were conceded in rapid sucession.

The 2nd half came and with that a resolve by City to decipher the defensive tactics presented by its adversary. Everyone cheered as Pep, the man, readied his substitutions and in doing so called upon Kevin De Bruyne to hopefully be the key/hammer to destroy the lock and lead his team to victory. And so he did, only 5 minutes in and he created magic out of thin air as he scored on a superb shot out the box with a touch of finesse that only a few are granted. High fives were had throughout the bar as the much needed goal to tie the score at 2-2 had finally come.

The remainder of the game was nerve wrecking for everyone in attendance as the goal to be break the tie was inevitable due to City’s pursuit of it and the holes doing so exposed in their backfield. The goal did come for the good guys as in the waning minutes of the match, a perfect through pass to Oscar Bobb in the box followed by his quick thinking to deceive the keeper on his finish gave City the much needed and deserved goal to win the match.

Shout out to the group of supporters who shared their group and allow strangers to join them to cheer on their team. And the staff at the Pressed Tavern for being very accommodating of the nervous walks/pacing that come with a bunch of people joining others to watch sports and put pause on our hectic lives for 90 minutes

PS Should I write about my spontaneous decision @5:45pm later that day to go see the Chiefs lol