I didn’t see it, I’m sorry to say, but from what I can gather, yesterday’s Carling Cup final between Arsenal and Chelsea was kind of a humdinger. First, John Terry nearly fucking died. He was kicked in the head as he dove at a header off a corner kick… maybe “almost died” is an overstatement, but he swallowed his tongue and needed oxygen on the field. I’d mention the stretcher, but you get a stretcher ride in soccer if someone gives you a wet willy.

It’s not only bad news for Terry, as he’s battled injury problems all year long (edit: Terry seems to be okay, and will likely play the next game)… but it’s bad news for soccer, because now everytime someone takes a dive, they’re going to demand the oxygen and a neck brace, or no one’s going to buy it.

There was also a bit of a fight. Observe:

I guess that qualifies as a fight. Toure hits the guy, followed by the briefest of pauses as both men think to themselves, “Holy fuck, we’re fighting… so we really wanna do this?” And it continues from there, with some very serious pushing, jostling, and calling each other “bloody wankers.”

Chelsea won, I’m sorry to say. Two Drogba goals did it for them.

I know we’ve beaten this thing to death, but just one more time … Zinedine Zidane is a pussy. Marco Materazzi revealed yesterday what it was that set Zidane off at the World Cup, and if you believe Materazzi… yeah, Zidane’s a pussy. Even if you don’t believe Materazzi, Zidane’s a pussy. Here’s what Marco said:

In Tuesday’s interview with the Gazzetta dello Sport, Materazzi disclosed that after he held his opponent’s shirt, Zidane said: “If you want, I’ll give you the jersey later.”

“I responded that I preferred his sister, it’s true,” Materazzi said. “It wasn’t something nice, true. But luckily there have been dozens of players who have confirmed that a lot worse things are said on the field.”

Well, here’s hoping that Zidane never ends up sitting in the front row at an Andrew Dice Clay performance.

I just can’t imagine that Zidane hasn’t heard worse than that. Either Materazzi is lying, guys just don’t talk trash to Zidane, or he was just overwhelmed with the pressure of playing in the World Cup, and the flipped out. I’d really be shocked if Zidane hadn’t heard worse than that before, but at the same time … that would be pretty consistent with everything that both Zidane and Materazzi said about the incident.

If he’s going to head butt someone’s chest because of this, then I don’t think the guy could even have a conversation with me. About 20 minutes ago, I accused a very close friend of mine of giving a handjob to a dead elk, for no good reason (as if there could be a good reason for something like that). Let’s just hope these two crazy kids can make up.

“He has not apologized to me and I certainly don’t have to apologize to him. If anything, I owe apologies to his sister, although I swear, before all this mess I didn’t even know Zidane had a sister,” he said.

Materazzi said that he thought the two could put the incident behind them.

“If peace can be made after terrible wars can Zidane and I not make peace? A peace between men, without much publicity, certainly yes.

“The door of my house will always be open to him and if he wants, Zidane knows how to find out my address,” said Materazzi.

The perfect way for this to end, obviously, is for Materazzi to put his Italian sausage down on Zidane’s sister.

Landon Donovan and his LA Galaxy were playing on the road at DC United this weeked, and someone help up a big banner that said, “Landon in Germany: Worthless.” And that’s a fairly accurate assessment.

So Landon went out, and he scored two goals, and he shut the crowd up, and he brazenly waved his arms encouraging them to boo some more. And that’s great, he took the heckling, and he bounced back, hooray for him. Really.

But here’s my problem. The criticism of Donovan is that he can’t do it on the big stage. He was borderline invisible in the World Cup, and he did bomb in Europe before deciding to come back home to the MLS where he feels more comfortable. The knock on the guy is that he won’t accept the challenge and play against better competition. He won’t leave his comfort zone to make himself better.

So his answer to that is what … to score more goals in an MLS game? Well, congratufuckinglations, pal, you did it. That stopped being a challenge for Donovan a long time ago. He’s the best player in the MLS. But that’s never really been the question, has it?

From an EA Sports press release concerning the upcoming release of FIFA ’07:

FIFA Soccer 07allows players to recognize their favorite athletes by the way they move. The human biomechanics of each athlete are taken into account and replicated in the game because the new engine is data-driven — the player motion is driven by individual attributes, physical characteristics and for the first time, traits.

“The FIFA Soccer 07 engine unlocks ultra realistic player motion and delivers complete responsiveness due to its ability to branch animations and the real-time calculation of real human biomechanics. Essentially our software engineers are writing human decision-making code,” said Hugues Ricour, Producer for FIFA Soccer 07on the Xbox 360.

I don’t know if this should frighten or excite me, but I do know that I am not about to apologize for my erection. According to the EA people, the game engine for FIFA is going to be completely reworked. They’ve started from scratch and built something new. They’ve spent two years on this thing. And the game was already, in my opinion, damn good. I liked the FIFA Series before I even liked soccer.

If you’re in the market for a beer bottle opener, you really can’t do any better than this new item that comes to us from Brazil. It’s the Ronaldinho bottle opener. That is marketing creativity at its finest. The design takes advantage of Ronaldinho’s unusually-shaped teeth and helps you crack open a beer in celebration of the next FC Barcelona victory.

If anyone knows how I can get my hands on one of these, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me.

There’s a song in France right now that celebrates the Zidane’s World Cup headbutt of Marco Materazzi. I don’t feel like it’s something to be particularly celebrated, and I’d be willing to chalk it up to just a few French idiots who wanted to write a dumb song, however… the song is the #1 song in France right now. Soccer fans of France, you are skirtbags.

Check out the translated lyrics, courtesy of SI.com.

Watch out, it’s the head-butt dance!
(Head-butt, head-butt)
Head-butt to the right
(Head-butt, head-butt)
Head-butt to the left
(Head-butt, head-butt)

Go, Bleus, Go!
Zidane, he hit [him], Zidane, he slapped (him)
(Head-butt, head-butt. Head-butt, head-butt)

The guido, he was hurt
Zidane hit (him)
The Italian is not doing well
Zidane slapped (him)
The referee saw it on TV
Zidane hit (him)
But we lost the World Cup
We had a good laugh anyway

Well, that’s the best fucking song I’ve heard since Mambo No. 5. Just inspired, Frenchy. Brilliant in its simplicity. It’s good to see that we’re not the only nation prone to falling in love with terrible songs.

What a tremendous thing to celebrate. Hey, we lost, but at least the best player in our nation’s history failed to keep his shit together for long enough to help us out in a penalty shootout. Italy has the World Cup, but at least Zinedine Zidane’s mother doesn’t have to be offended by an insult she never would have heard, anyway. Pat yourselves on the back for that one.

So, after a little bit of deliberation on the subject of my favorite Premiership team, I’ve ended up right back where I started… with Manchester City. I sorta rooted for them last season, but didn’t make the firm commitment. And I’m still not sure I’m giving them the firm commitment, but I’m at least going with them on a trial basis.

And for those of you who could care less about soccer and/or my rooting interests for any sport, you can skip this post. I certainly wouldn’t blame you.

In addition to Man City, I briefly flirted with Tottenham and West Ham. I liked West Ham for a few reasons… the movie Green Street Hooligans not insignificant among them. If you haven’t seen it, rent it sometime. And then just stop the movie as soon as Elijah Wood gets back to America and pretend that’s the end. It’s better that way, trust me.

I also liked the “Forever Blowing Bubbles” song, but it occurred to me that I’d never ever have anyone to sing it with. If West Ham wins a big game, and I take to the streets singing “Forever Blowing Bubbles” at the top of my lungs, all it’s going to do is confuse people and excite men named “Bubbles.” So that was a bit of a downer.

The other thing that attracted me to West Ham was the fact that Clint Dempsey could soon be a transfer target of theirs, and I think Clint Dempsey is the man. But you can’t choose a favorite team based on a favorite player. It doesn’t last.

Once upon a time, I like the New York Rangers because Wayne Gretzky played there… and when Gretzky retired, I found that I hadn’t really grown fond of any of the other Rangers, mainly because, at the time, they were an extremely poorly run organization who employed players who had many vaginalistic qualities. Mistake on my part. And rather than “pick another favorite team,” which you just can’t do, I had to give up the sport all together.

I was really intrigued with Spurs, too, but to be perfectly honest, Bill Simmons selecting them kinda turned me in the other direction. Not that I don’t like Simmons, I do, but I just didn’t want to go the same route. It’s a shame, too, because having a logo comprised of a “cock and ball” would’ve made me positively giddy. But it felt like that badwagon was getting a little crowded.

Which brings us back to Man City. The two biggest factors: the uniforms, and the fact that they’re called “Man City,” which lends itself to a nearly endless stream of jokes about my own sexuality, and I didn’t want to pass that up. I’ve already got nearly a year of experience with them, too, so… it’s probably a bad idea to just throw that away.

But again, this isn’t yet set in stone. I’m certainly leaning that way, and I can’t really predict when it will cement itself. Sometimes, you just have to let a favorite team choose you. So I’m adopting Manchester City right now on a trial basis. We’re dating right now. Manchester City and I are seeing each other exclusively, but we’ve decided to hold off on the physical part of our relationship for the time being. But I hope to be putting the wood to Man City a few weeks into the season. We’ll see how it goes.