I’m a writer, critic, and a PhD student in English at UC Berkeley. More importantly, I’m an Arsenal supporter and a fan of women’s soccer. My aesthetic tastes run towards well-drilled defenses, high-concept novels, and leftist politics of all shades and stripes. For totally personal reasons I admire workaday, ground-covering midfielders and players of all positions whose heart outstrips their technique. Among my most unshakable convictions: fancy offside technology is bad, fan ownership is good, and soccer—like all sports—is basically a drama, an aesthetic and narrative event, rather than a measure of skill or ability. My cat’s name is Bartleby. Find me, if Twitter still exists, @rlackey15.