This is the Match Preview I wrote for the BigFooty Port Adelaide Community. There are times in which the best we can do is to laugh of ourselves...









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PROLOGUE: PARADIGMATIC WILLPOWER





I hadn’t no mood whatsoever of any kind to write this preview. Still, I had put my name on the list of previews for this game. Since I am a man of my words, I used my advanced method of self-control-and-imposing-composure to get the job done. I will share my technique with you all. This week, the story went as follows:





[GremioPower] There is nothing that is going to make me write the game preview.

[Mrs. Power] You have committed yourself to it; now you must do it.

[GP] But the commitment was done ages ago. I was full of hope then. I thought I would be reviewing a great season, talking about Finals, making fun of the Bombers; not this crap!

[MP] It doesn’t matter. It is your turn to write the game preview. It is responsibility! [USER=152580]AusHorrorStory[/USER] has even called already to know when you will be posting it.

[GP] Can you tell him to do it for me, instead? His name is perfect for it! Or tell him to ask [USER=175211]G3TWOTYAD3S3RV[/USER] whose name is also fitting…

[MP] No! They are counting on you, and you can do it. You are good in helping people lift their moods up. They need you more now than if everything were fine.

[GP] Yeah… Maybe you’re right.

[MP] I am always right.

[GP] I know, but I won’t tell the world that! Still, I did spend the entire season defending the team, the coaches, the club officials. I have my share of “mea culpa” to make.

[MP] Do you need to Catholicize everything now?

[GP] I am not Catholicizing anything. Everything is already Catholic.

[MP] OK. If you believe that…

[GP] I do. I am just saying that I need to understand what I have gotten wrong, which the people at the club must do as well. But, nothing says that we cannot have fun and share some laughs while doing that. You have convinced me. I am writing the preview. Let me contact Aus to give him the “Good News.”

[MP] (sigh) I will pretend you didn’t say that. I knew I would convince you. Good luck! Love you.





And that, folks, is how my willpower always prevails!









LAST ROUND: THE BOMBING OF ALBERTON

Power (9) v. (11) Bombers, AO – Friday, 7:20pm (ACST)





The last act of the 2018 Minor Round is finally upon us.





Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon) The people working at AFL headquarters deserve lot of criticism, but they know how to set the last round fixture, as I have recognized it past season . This year, as good guys as they all are over there, they took inspiration from a famous quote by Karl Marx: “” (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon)





In February 1945, there was tragedy: the Allies have sent Bombers to destroy the city of Dresden when the World War II was practically over. In August 2018, there is farce: AFL has sent the Bombers to destroy the club of Port Adelaide, when the season is practically over.





When asked on this “act of bullying” against one of its members, the AFL refused to make any statement.









At Port Adelaide, however, the club official who has attended us was confident that they were prepared for this all along.





That’s not an actual quote from Churchill; but his other one above probably isn't either. Poetic license...









OUR SIDE: PERHAPS WE SHOULD CHANGE N.T.U.A. FOR SOME MORE APPROPRIATED





Earlier this season, Port was cruising through the rounds like a transatlantic on a calm weather. Effortless, the club won five games in a row, and held a respectable 11-4 record. Still, the overall impression was that our best footy was yet to come. Within the confines of Alberton, conversations were going like this:





– So you've not yet lit the entire four quarters?

– No, I don't see the need. We are making excellent record.

– The press knows the strength of our defense. Now I want them to marvel at our dominance, too. We must give them something new to print. This maiden season of our gameplan must make headlines!





That feeling of being the King of the World, hein?





Now, after losing five of the past six games, getting soundly beaten by Collingwood, and on the brink of elimination, the talks go more like this:





– The Friday Night slot will buy us time, but a day only. From this moment, no matter what we do, Port’s season will founder.

– But this team can't sink!

– It is made of spuds, sir. I assure you, it can. And it will. It is a mathematical certainty.

– How much time?

– Eighteen hours, at most.

– And how many aboard, at Adelaide Oval?

– 2,200 souls in the Oval, sir.

– Well, I believe we may get our headlines, after all.

Apparently, Ken has signed for three more years, because the captain always sinks with his ship…





OUR OPPONENTS: WHO?





Essendon is also on vacation, and their players are getting ready for the Summer:

Allegedly, this picture was taken at True Value Solar Centre after Essendon’s last practice.





Do you all remember the good old days, those when Carlton was playing on Friday nights? We were happy, but we didn’t know it…





EPILOGUE: PORT’S SEASON WAS A COMEDY IN HELL





magnum opus “The Divine Comedy.” The Italian writer traveled by ship – As the worldly-famous legendary parody that I've just invented teaches us, Dante Alighieri visited Australia, where he got the inspiration to write his“The Divine Comedy.” The Italian writer traveled by ship – as Alberto Santos-Dumont had not invented the aeroplane yet at that time





Dante landed in Port Adelaide, where he met Ken Hinkley – who was waiting for him already. From there, Dante followed Hinkley to the gate of Hellberton; where, after having read the dreadful words that are written thereon, they both entered. As he understood from Hinkley, those who had passed their time in a state of apathy and indifference both to good and evil would go there to be punished. In his journal, Dante wrote an account of his experience in verses (translated into English):





“THROUGH me you pass into the field of woe: Through me you pass into eternal pain: Through me among the people lost for aye. Justice the founder of my fabric moved: To rear me was the task of Power divine, Supremest Wisdom, and primeval Love. Before me things create were none, save things Eternal, and eternal I endure. All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”

Such characters, in color dim, I mark’d Over a portal’s lofty arch inscribed. Whereat I thus: “ Coach , these words import Hard meaning.” He as one prepared replied: “Here thou must all distrust behind thee leave; Here be vile fear extinguish’d. We are come Where I have told thee we shall see the souls To misery doom’d, who every football good Have lost.” And when his hand he had stretch’d forth To mine, with pleasant looks, whence I was cheer’d, Into that secret place he led me on. Here sighs, with lamentations and loud moans, Resounded through the air pierced by no star, That e’en I wept at entering. Various tongues, Horrible languages, outcries of woe, Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse, With hands together smote that swell’d the sounds, Made up a tumult, that forever whirls Round through that air with solid darkness stain’d, Like to the sand that in the whirlwind flies.







Eternal Hinkley endures; and Port people has, indeed, abandoned all hope…







HAPPY NEW YEAR, FOLKS!