It's different over here

In my ongoing quest to become a Wigan literate, I have been reading whatever I can about my new favorite side. Lately, it’s been quite eye-opening.

An amazing amount of the news generated out of the Latics Swedish training center, is about whether players like newly signed Paraguayan international Antolin Alcaraz will ride his World Cup buzz to a more lucrative contract with a bigger name team (all indications are that he won’t) or how several potential targets of Wigan played so well at the World Cup that they are no longer in the Latics’ range.

As a follower of MLS, it just strikes me as a bit odd that an EPL side has these kinds of issues. After all, we here in the States are brought up believing that just playing in Europe is a major accomplishment and that playing in the EPL is akin to debuting on Broadway.

Of course, I realized that the EPL is a world of haves and have-nots that render all talk of it in American sports leagues as utter hyperbole. Still, I was thinking that merely having access to the riches of EPL play would allow even a Wigan to basically get any non-headliner they wanted. This is obviously not the case. In addition to all of that Wigan lost another player, Mario Melchiot, to a Qatari side. This just strikes me as something that doesn’t happen to many EPL sides.

Maybe this is just as it should be, though.

Sure, Wigan is slowly turning itself into a bonafide Premiership standby (five years running, baby!), but this probably just makes following them even more fun.

I mean, any team can buy their way out of a relegation fight (I’m looking at you Manchester City), but it’s the teams that use guile, instinct and, I hope, real research to find players that other teams are overlooking. It’s this kind of stuff that I think I’m going to grow to love about Wigan.

No, we aren’t going to sign Wesley Sneijder or any other player that I’ve heard of, but we’ll hopefully play above relegation and maybe even sneak into the Europa conversation.

I am sincerely looking forward to this season, and I think this is the kind of stuff I’ll be reveling in.

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