Our Troubled Team

It is so hard to feel a positive vibe about our football club when so many challenges have been thrown at us. The Atlanta Silverbacks is our club, but what started out this year as promise of a challenge for a first ever league title, is turning into a fight for survival. Not just for the playoffs but for existence.

Now maybe I am overstating the point, but what I mean by survival is the way the team is at the moment. Think back to the championship game last year. We were all united as a team, the players and fans. We played together, supported together and won and loss together. It seemed we all had a common purpose. But something has happened to our team (spirit) maybe midway through the season this year. The moral of both the team and fans seems to have been damaged.

What has been the reason?
*Perhaps the credit crunch has reached into the pockets of our owners;
*Maybe the prospect of MLS is damaging plans for a Silverback future,
*Perhaps the failures of the international friendlies to bring in an influx of cash
*Maybe a combination of all of the above.
Whatever it is, it is well and truly awful.

I have often told my wife that I am in the wrong country to follow my favorite sport. Football is not ingrained into the fabric of our culture, but it is ingrained in me. I have been hopelessly in love with the sport since I was a wee young lad and as I spent time in Sweden and again back here in Atlanta. The Silverbacks are my club and until they tell me to go away or they are no more, I will be a Atlanta Silverback supporter.

So what is one to do when there is such negativity surrounding something that you love and cherish. Very simple, you keep supporting your team. Nothing the owners, management or outside influences can do can separate us from our team. When at the park watching the team, shout out encouragement at games to the ones that count the most to us, the players and coaches. If we show support for each other, we can get through this and even prove to management that the players and the fans are the one that really make the team work. Everything else is an illusion.....

cheers!