Green wrist bands = game over

During these days of turmoil in Iran, six Iranian national teamers wore green wristbands during their recent World Cup qualifier against South Korea in Seoul (a 1-1 tie).  A high profile way to show support for those demonstrating against the apparently rigged election.  After all, Iranian tv had to show the qualifier, right?

Knew there’d be some payback didn’t you?  The Guardian:

According to the pro-government newspaper Iran, four players – Ali Karimi, 31, Mehdi Mahdavikia, 32, Hosein Ka’abi, 24 and Vahid Hashemian, 32 – have been “retired” from the sport after their gesture in last Wednesday’s match against South Korea in Seoul.

They were among six players who took to the field wearing wristbands in the colour of the defeated opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, which has been adopted by demonstrators who believe the 12 June election was stolen.

Most of the players obeyed instructions to remove the armwear at half-time, but Mahdavikia wore his green captain’s armband for the entire match. The four are also said to have been banned from giving media interviews.

The fate of the other two players who wore the wristbands is unknown. None of the team members were given back their passports upon returning to Tehran after the match, which ended in a 1-1 draw – a result that ended Iran’s hopes of qualifying for next year’s tournament.

I’d like to see other footballers wear green wristbands in solidarity with their courageous fellow players.  Be a great gesture at the Confederations Cup, particularly given the resonance of South Africa as an example for peaceful political evolution.

The Kun-Maradona-Riquelme situation

Otherwise known as “When life imitates Dream Team, Argentina National Team edition.”  Courtesy of Kickette:

Kun [Aguero]  was a nat’l team regular until earlier this month when he was benched for the Argentina NT loss to Ecuador.

- Instead of seeking solace with his fiancée, or spending all his free time dribbling a football, he visited a night club in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires the evening of June 10. He was wearing a black shirt and white cap. Neither of which, we suspect, were his best clothing options.

- Reports say he was accompanied by a blonde. And dancing with a blonde. And leaving – via the back door at 5 a.m. – with a blonde.

- The club PR person confirmed the baller spotting and dance floor antics.

- Kun’s gal, Giannina is definitely not blonde. Neither is their son, Benjamin or her father, Diego Maradona.

- We’re gonna say with 99.9% certainty that the Aguero family tree does not include any blondes either. 

- Rumors swirl and eventually land on Pia Martinez, a topless Argentinean model. She once dated Real Madrid’s Gago but after a video tape of them having sex popped
up, they broke it off. She claims a case of “always blaming the naked chick” and denies the stories. She says after her rendezvous, publicly and privately, with Gago, “no guys will touch” her.

First, if her pictures are accurate, I refuse to believe that “no guys will touch” Pia Martinez.  More importantly, you’d think if you would marry Maradona’s daughter, you wouldn’t mess around with her — let alone when Diego is the national team coach.  Hmm.  Though it does sound like the kind of thing Maradona would have done back in his day.  A case of do as I say, not as I did…

When Life Imitates Dream Team, Xerez edition

Boy, I’m glad that Villareal chose this team to loan out Jozy Altidore to.  Sounds like a healthy environment for a teen.  More from the Guardian:

A brothel. A gun. The dead of night. And a football club president sporting a black eye. Sex, violence, intrigue and the game (football, you understand, not the game): the perfect ingredients for a crime novel. Police have let him off without charge, but Joaquín Bilbao has resigned as president of Xerez after he was involved in a drive-by shooting. In the early hours of last Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, according to reports, Bilbao turned up at a local puticlub and wanted to sleep with a Russian girl. When he took exception to being told that the club was closed, a fight ensued. Rather than go home and cool down, he drove off and returned an hour later. Shots were fired at the door of the club with Bilbao’s gun. The chauffeur said it was him and a bruised Bilbao has walked – free from jail and away from the club. “It’s better for the institution for me to go,” he said but his nocturnal escapades have done little harm to his club: Xerez are top of the Second Division.

When Life Imitates Dream Team, Atletico edition

Ah, Atletico Madrid, a romantic mess of the Spanish League.  So stylish right now with Aguero et al, yet so easy to score upon.  And so messed up internally.  The Guardian explains how they are Harchester-worthy:

Resino might have been allowed to ditch Maniche, the pie-munching midfielder Aguirre was obliged to play, but he still has a dressing room where the players do not get on. He still has a squad that’s brilliant up front and awful at the back. He still has footballers so bad that, team-”mates” admit: “You can’t even risk giving them the ball.” He still has a right-back who dislikes football almost as much as the rest of the players dislike him. He still has a captain in a huff and a playmaker who hates his guts. Meanwhile, his best players – all four of them – still want to leave. Above all, Resino still has Cerezo and Gil Marín: a president and director general (and majority shareholder) who are destroying what should be a brilliant institution – boasting some of the noisiest and most faithful fans in Spain – but is instead among the worst in Spain.

Atlético are a complete shambles; in debt and embargoed, torn apart by petty battles between the two men who should be running the place but are forever seeking to get one over on each other and what they can out of the club. The son of Jesús Gil and his former right-hand man. The same men who complete signings independently of each other, argue over whose turn it is to choose a coach and told players that they would rid them of Javier Aguirre at the end of the season and then wondered why, his authority on the floor, results collapsed. The same men who have already told their players that Resino won’t be there next year. Some things never change. And, however hard Resino is, for as long as Atlético Madrid remain in the same hands maybe some things never will.

DCU: Back to the Future!

The MLS season nears and DC United has unveiled the big off-season signing — Christian Gomez!  With Gallardo, the Gonzalos, and Wells all gone, it’s as if the team has decided to largely wish away a frustrating ‘08 season.  Let’s put the band back together!  It’s hard to believe that an attack featuring Gomez, Emilio, Moreno, and Fred will be all that much better than they were a couple of years ago, given the years and the miles on some of them.  But it’s not implausible to think they’ll be better than last year’s offense, even if we can’t count on Olsen for much this time around.  Well, when they’re healthy, which is another issue.

This looks to me like a holding action.  Let’s get another play-off team together, one the fans will like, and hope lightning strikes next fall once we reach the play-offs.  (Alas, it did strike in the ‘06 and ‘07 play-offs but took out United.)  And then get more serious about rebuilding in ‘10, hoping that a few of the kids (Jacobson?  Pontius?  Wallace?) show potential as building blocks when they have to step up to replace over-30 vets.

Over at the Fullback Files, Michael is “refining the roster,” following the Goffster’s updates on who is in and who is gone etc etc.  He seems to be mildly optimistic, like me: 

I’m generally a bit more optimistic than I was just a week ago, and I think we’ve assembled enough good pieces to make the playoffs, but will we be able to do damage once there?

My answer to that, aside from the inevitable health or lack thereof issue, is…Dejan Jakovic, the mysterious Croation/Canadian by way of Red Star Belgrade we just signed to play in the center of the defense.  The backline was a mess all of last year, like a chronic wound always weakening and worrying the team.  We need a Ryan Nelsen or Eddie Pope back there.  Or at least a Bobby Boswell, version 1.0.  Maybe McTavish or Janicki will grow into that.  Or Crayton will organize the kids in front of him.  But just as our problems last season had much to do with the Gonzalos not providing what was hoped for, I think a lot of this year rides on young Dejan, the big off-season signing that no one expected and no one really knows. 

So saddle up the horses for what may be the last hurrah of Gomez and Moreno and Olsen (and Emilio?) — but keep an eye on Dejan.  He may be the difference maker.

Life Imitates Dream Team, Scary Manchester edition

Police are investigating whether an armed gang of robbers is targeting the homes of top footballers after the fiancee and mother-in-law of the Manchester United midfielder Darren Fletcher had knives held to their throats by raiders who forced their way into the family home hours after he had left the country for a Champions League match.

Yikes!  Now if this were actually on Dream Team, the mastermind of the “armed gang” would eventually be revealed as a disgruntled ex-teammate or spurned lover of a WAG now with a team member.  Alas, in the real world, it’s likely to be just a bunch of thugs.  At least, this time there was no physical harm done.  Just this: The men escaped with jewellery and watches.

So if Beckham = Brad Pitt…

So the New York Times Goal blog has identified a pop culture equivalent of the Galaxy/Beckham/AC Milan situation.  Beckham = Brad Pitt.  The Galaxy = Jennifer Aniston.  AC Milan = Angelina Jolie.

It reads like the tabloid coverage of a celebrity relationship breakup. Think Jennifer Aniston-Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie. And now, the lawyers are involved.

Representatives of David Beckham (Pitt in this scenario) are reportedly in talks with the L.A. Galaxy (Aniston) to extend the midfielder’s loan deal at A.C. Milan (the sexy and sultry Jolie, for the purposes of this metaphor). So says Ms. Jolie, er, Milan’s vice president, Adriano Galliani.

Well, I suppose Beckham is the only soccer player who is featured in US Weekly.  But I wonder what this means if it holds true in the future.  Will AC Milan and Beckham go on to bring in a rag-tag group of young footballing orphans from around the globe?  Will the Galaxy go through a series of high-profile failed “designate player” replacements for Beckham?  Does this make Cobi Jones the equivalent of a former Friends cast member like Matthew Perry?

Sponsor of the Year

Those broad-minded Danes.  Porn for points! 

Former Old Firm stars get interesting win bonus.. porno films

Nov 21 2008 By Mark McGivern

FORMER Old Firm stars Libor Sionko and Ulrik Laursen have been offered a win bonus of two porn videos.

Ex-Rangers midfielder Sionko and former Hibs and Celtic defender Laursen now play in Denmark for FC Copenhagen.

One of the club’s sponsors, sex movie distributors BN Agentur, have promised the squad two porn movies every time they win.

Laursen, Sionko and team mates have risen to the challenge – winning nine of their first 13 games to go one point behind leaders Odense.

Copenhagen, known locally as FCK, screen the films at their training ground – although they refuse to reveal who gets to keep them afterwards.

Club chairman Flemming Ostergaard said: “As far as I am concerned, there is nothing wrong with it.”

Czech Republic international Sionko, 31, spent the 2006-7 season at Ibrox before signing a two-year deal with Copenhagen.

Meanwhile Laursen, 32, ended a three-year spell at Celtic in 2005, having previously spent two seasons with Hibs.

He is currently Copenhagen’s captain.

Their squad also includes ex-Chelsea winger Jesper Gronkjaer and former Manchester City and Fulham midfielder Niclas Jensen.

Everton playing Championship Manager

When I’m playing Championship Manager, I always enjoy scouting — asking my scouts to go find interesting players, often in leagues I know nothing about.  Leaving aside the benefits to my virtual team of finding a cheap gem, I often later see semi-familiar names running about my t.v. screen a year or two later.  “Hey, wasn’t the Polish guy I scouted…”

So I shouldn’t be surprised if real football teams are tapping into the actual CM database:

On Friday, it was announced that Everton have signed an exclusive deal with Sports Interactive, the game’s developers, to give the club special access to the full database. At a stroke, David Moyes’s scouting team gained details of more than 370,000 players and staff at 20,000 teams in 50 countries. Why Everton, when other clubs had approached the makers about a similar tie-up? It helped, no doubt, that Paul and Oliver Collyer, those brothers, are diehard Evertonians.

As amusing as this is, what it really represents is the triumph of the open source model.  Every year, hundreds of people volunteer to offer ratings of players around the world, in the hopes of making the game more accurate.  (I’m currently playing a DC United game which accurately considers Luciano Emilio to be a pretty good striker — though how the raters thought Rod Dyachenko was useful on the field is beyond me.)  Everton is tapping into this “wisdom of the crowd” in a way that covers so much more ground than their traditional scouts, aided and abetted by tapes of games, can ever do. 

Given the global popularity of the game, this has particular potential — so many leagues, so many players, so many games.  The Five Billion Person Party gone virtual comes back to help the real world!

Life imitates Dream Team, African edition

Zimbabwe is a land with many problems — aging dictator, insane inflation, civil strife etc.  The people are getting no help from their soccer team, which has just failed to advance in World Cup qualifying, losing out to Guinea and Kenya for a berth in the final round of African qualifying for the first African-hosted World Cup.  The last straw was a 4-2 loss to Namibia, which must have been worse than it sounds, given that Namibia was up 4-0 50 minutes into the game.

So let the recriminations begin!  Round up the usual suspects!  European stars failing to come home to play?  Actually, no.  Witchcraft?  Hmm.  No.  What could it be?

How about a sex scandal?

Chief Executive Officer of the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) Henrietta Rushwaya reportedly taking care of sexual needs of a high profile premier league striker spelling the demise of the nation’s hopes of qualifying for international soccer tourneys.

Oh, dear.  What are they talking about?

“Rushwaya and the player have left the senior team in a state of shock. When he comes home especially on a siesta from his overseas club, he camps at Rushwaya’s residence where they live literary like husband and wife…”

Sounds like quite the lady.  Perhaps she could run Harchester United!

Rushwaya herself is known for being generous with her body and numerous scribes have had a go. She is a very kind boss whose generosity has won her friends especially in the media as most of her scandals are deliberately swept under the carpet,” said the source on condition of anonymity.

Yeah, that’s one way to keep the press on your side, uh-huh.  She could certainly fit right in at Harchester United.