We use the “REASONS TO HATE SOCCER” tag pretty liberally at With Leather, but this has been one of the worst-ever weeks to be a soccer fan. The embarrassment ranges from flopping shame all the way up to fans slicing open their own players’ heads with beer bottles, so it’s only fitting that Friday would feature the crown jewel of any depressing soccer week: the stadium-wide riot.

Here’s the gist: Gremio played Huachipato in a Copa Libertadores group stage match and tied up 1-1. Not something you’d think would cause a bunch of macho posturing, right? Well, apparently Gremio manager Vanderlei Luxemburgo started laughing at/antagonizing/making snide remarks to Huachipato manager Jorge Pellicier. The Huachipato players decide to kick his ass, but Luxemburgo thinks he’s in the clear and jogs away with a smile on his face. He runs into a bunch of riot cops, however, and with nowhere to go just kinda falls down and receives stage 1 of a riot ass-whomping. That causes every fan, player and ball boy within a mile radius to charge in and start fighting and it was all extremely necessary.

Luxemburgo’s explanation:

“None of this was necessary,” Luxemburgo said.

Oh, sorry.

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Even the Buffalo Bills ballboy fails spectacularly. The K on his shirt stands for “kan’t quite make it”. (via The Nosebleeds)

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Links

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ESPN put up a piece this morning analyzing Rafael Nadal’s Australian Open semifinals win over Roger Federer, attributing Federer’s 6-7 (5), 6-2, 7-6 (5), 6-4 loss to everything from inability to consolidate break lead to being bored because the fireworks went on too long. It touches on everything short of “Brooklyn Decker was supposed to stick around and watch but didn’t, and both guys were sorta sad”.

What it doesn’t touch on is that the best moment of Federer/Nadal (“Federal”?) involved neither Federer nor Nadal … at least not directly. That goes to the unnamed ball boy and his amazing Cal-Ripken-Jr.-in-his-prime snag of an errant ball in the above video, courtesy of On The Go Tennis.

The best part is either the roar of the crowd (who are used to excitement, but “tennis excitement”, which is completely different) or the fact that when he makes the catch he goes right back into the ball boy squat with zero theatrics. That’s a kid who knows how to do his job with style.

Keep your peepers on the ballboy in the upper left corner:

I don't know if it was the heat or being made to watch a boring sport that made this lad face-plant the clay, but I suspect he could hear the announcer's voice and didn't want to listen to French anymore. -KD