Reviewing the time Jeff Larentowicz blessed Atlanta United Twitter for 17 minutes

Off weeks are the mother of content. With no game on the horizon, the focus of social media’s omnipresent eye turns away from the pitch. In these moments, content rises from new and often unexpected places. On Thursday, August 9 in the year of our lord 2018, Jeff Larentowicz, long shy of embracing social media was forced against his will bribed outright convinced to embark on a Twitter journey where he would bare his soul to the public. If you missed the initial content, we’re here to turn other people’s content in to our own content for the sake of content. Life is tapestry. This Q&A is fulfillment. Let’s dive in to each and every tweet.

The first thing you notice: This is a man who wants to be here.

The second thing you notice: Chris McCann in the background doing weird Chris McCann things.

Chris and Jeff are one of the more prevalent bromances on the team. They’re a relatively known commodity at this point (more on that later) but what you may not know is that McCann relishes absolutely nothing in life more than doing weird things in the background. This is par for the course honestly. I once stood in a press scrum in the locker room as the media interviewed Brad Guzan and, all of the sudden, noticed that things felt...cramped. I looked to my right and there was Chris McCann in all of his Chris McCann-ness save for a towel around the waist and shower shoes, patiently waiting for Guzan to notice him. These instances have me wondering: How often is Chris McCann in the background of things just being Chris McCann? Those two particular instances lacked subtlety but who’s to say there aren’t millions of other times where McCann has just been there.

Be right back, checking through my family photos to count how many times Chris McCann has covertly placed himself in them annnndddddd yep, it’s all of them. Every single one.

The goal comes at the 1:38 mark of this (incredibly sound tracked) video and how the ball just didn’t go ahead and explode on impact is beyond me.

“Hey. Hey Dan. Dan. Hey Dan. Heyyyyyyy Dan. Dan. Dan. Daaaaaaannnnn. DAN.”

“.......what Jeff.”

“Remeber that time wh—”

“With the Christmas tree, yeah, I do, stop bringing it up every time I see you.”

Jeff playing the long-con to bump up his contract price when ATLUTD offers him the co-manager job with Tata the second Jeff retires. Savvy as always. Establishing a winning culture doesn’t happen overnight, y’all.

A running theme in this Q&A is Jeff answering only the first question/comment and ignoring the much more intriguing and pertinent second one. We already knew in our hearts that Jeff wouldn’t rock a beard. It would take away from his boyish charm. But we needed to know if he would change the goal song to “Africa”. He didn’t lie to us but he didn’t tell the truth either, and sometimes that’s much worse.

Anyway, great work Harrison. Personally, I think it’s a wonderful idea.

Selfless. Team player. Classic Larentowicz answer. The most Big 10 soccer player of all-time. Of course he loves the game played on a frozen tundra where the half the battle is not having your pinky finger chip clean off your hand. Scoring was a little too high for his personal tastes but it made the team happy. That makes Jeff happy. And when Jeff’s happy, the team is happy.

Anyway, he’s totally wrong, it’s this:

I won’t wax poetic too long about this goal but my god is it stunningly gritty. Only a champion scores a goal so cluttered and with such a strange part of his body that the people in the crowd just a few rows away (Hi!) are genuinely confused on whether or not you touched the ball at all and are still somewhat unconvinced after multiple replays.

Hey, remember that time NYCFC out-shot us 25-5 to five and completely dominated every aspect of the game in a manner that definitely wasn’t extremely concerning regarding a potential playoff matchup, nope, not one bit, wait what were we doing here?

Buffalo.

Real. American. 100% the spiciest thing Jeff has ever eaten.

Did I listen to this entire album? Of course I did.

Did I kinda sorta enjoy it? Uhhh...yep. Yeah I did. Like really enjoyed it.

Wire are are a Brit-punk band who released their debut album ‘Pink Flag’ in 1978. It’s an experimental kind of punk and it really kind of bangs. Like any good punk record, it has 21 songs and they’re all like a minute and a half long. R.E.M. counts them as an influence, and covered a few of their songs. You can imagine these songs running through Jeff’s mind each time he steps on the pitch. I set out fully expecting to make fun of this. I have nothing. It’s great. I picked up some new music today. To break character for like three seconds, Jeff is way cooler in real life than I make him out to be. I even have confirmed reports of him at an Animal Collective show at The Tabernacle a few weeks back.

Alright, back into character now. I have to make up for that momentary break so.....

LOL LOOKIT THE OLD MAN SOCCER PLAYER LIKING THE OLD BAND HAHAHAHA I BET HE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A CELL PHONE I BET HE JUST CARRIES A ROTARY AROUND WITH HIM AND I BET HE LISTENS TO RECORDS IN A NON-IRONIC WAY BECAUSE THAT’S JUST THE ONLY WAY HE KNOWS HOW TO PLAY MUSIC BECAUSE HE’S OLD OR SOMETHING YEAH GOT HIM.

Hey remember that time Red Bulls torched us 3-1 on our home field and completely dominated every aspect of the game in a manner that definitely wasn’t extremely concerning regarding a potential playoff matchup and oh no I’ve forgotten what we’re doing here again.

Jeff is the only smart human. Be more like Jeff and stop @’ing me. Leave entirely.

At first I thought this was just a friendly jab from Gaynor about the an American spelling in the same vein as “colour” and “aluminium.” I was fully prepared to take Jeff’s side. What I discovered next shook me to my core.

Say you are sitting down for a nice meal at some weird hipster halfway house restaurant where you have to write out your orders for the sake of lazy premises in blogs. One person orders lasagna while the other orders lasagne. The person who ordered “lasagna” should technically be given a single sheet of pasta. The “lasagne” orderee will be given the collection of pasta sheets we commonly refer to incorrectly as “lasagna.” Garfield is bad for many reasons but encouraging the misuse of the singular versus the plural might be Jim Davis’ greatest fault. Unless it is in fact true of Garfield that he’s asking for a singular sheet of pasta with sauce rather than an entire set of lasagne. That prospect is highly doubtful and it’s likely that, in this case, Jeff and Garfield are quite clearly in the wrong.

Take: The beach sucks. I spent formative years and non-formative years living in beach areas. The only people who go to the beach are people who only get to do it once every three years and can take the appropriate time necessary to forget all the horrible things about the beach. A perfect day at the beach — And I mean an absolutely perfect day where horrible things like jelly fish stings, corral stepping on, sunburn and drowning are all avoided entirely — still results with you getting sand on freaking everything. And sand doesn’t leave. Ever. I haven’t been to the beach in years and still find sand in my car. The water is just a bigger, saltier pool/lake except everything in an ocean is actively trying to kill you. Yes, even the dolphins.

I hope it does rain, Jeff. That way you can stay inside at the beach house or hotel and actually enjoy your vacation.

We need to take the time to truly appreciate the Chris, Jeff bromance. McCanntowicz is, just like Jeff’s playing style, quietly one of the best in the league. They have lockers next to each other, their families go to the beach together, and they celebrate birthdays together.

Jeff is obviously the bad boy of the two but it seems to work anyway. They balance each other well. Jeff, wild and free. Chris, calm and quiet. It’s a perfect match and deserves your respect.

We began this adventure at 11:04. We wrapped up at 11:21. 17 minutes. Probably the most excruciating 17 minutes of Jeff’s life. I hope Jeff knows, that at least to one blogger, they were worth it.