I don't speak Italian (only Italian-flected pidgin English: Ay! You-a no like-a da pizza?), so I don't have an accompanying news story to go with this, but apparently the Italian national soccer team had its practice interrupted when two women stripped down to their bare essentials and tried to hug members of the Azurri.  And for the first time in recorded history, Italian soccer players didn't fall to the turf in faux-agony at the slightest contact with another human being.

Man, I just hate it when I'm trying to get through another day of work and bikini-clad hotties come running after me.  *Sigh*  My life is sad.  (Two different videos of the action after the jump.)

Priests are the closest humans to God.  As men of the cloth, they always exhibit the patience and forgiveness that WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF CALL WAS THAT?!?!? 

A footballing priest has been sent off in a church tournament for throwing his shirt at the referee, Italian media reported Sunday.

The incident, reminiscent of Antonio Cassano's red card for Sampdoria last weekend [Oh yeah, totally reminiscent -Ed.], happened in the Clericus Cup with the actions of the Burkina Faso priest leading to Paul the Apostle's College being eliminated.

To be fair to the priest in question, it's not easy being one of the few Italian men who aren't allowed to grab their junk and make kissing sounds at every woman who walks by.  He has wait for the boys' academy to have recess to do that.

[link via on 205th] 

Italy's Cagliari soccer club doesn't appear to have the best team chemistry, unless you count ordering mob attacks on your teammates as good chemistry.  The incident in question involves on-loan star Pasquale Foggia, teammate Davide Marchini, and no one with a masculine name.  Marchini's lawyer claims Foggia ordered a mobster to rough up his client:

"The two exchanged insults [at practice], with Foggia saying, 'Let's see what happens on Monday.' The following Monday… Marchini was at Caffè Agorà in Cagliari with striker Robert Acquafresca. Foggia came in and asked to sit at their table. Marchini refused, so Foggia left. But in came a [man] with a thick Neapolitan accent, who sat down next to Marchini.

"He asked why Marchini had fought with Foggia in training. Marchini got up to leave, but then the man punched him in the nose. Marchini tried to escape, only to be chased by his assailant, who was at this time wielding a chair. Marchini escaped, and the man threw the chair at a parked car as Foggia and Acquafresca stood outside."

It's a good thing Italy has something as badass as the mob to make up for all the gigantic greasy pussies in that country.  If it weren't for Cosa Nostra, I'd go on vacation in Italy and end up conquering it on a whim.  It kills me that all those sultry hot chicks and pasta are going to waste on "men" who have to hire someone to punch for them.

[100% Injury Rate] 

Gianluigi Buffon is the goalkeeper for Juventus in Serie A and also for the Italian national team.  Anyone who knows me can guess that that's three quick strikes (Italian, Italian soccer club, Italian national team) to me disliking him.  And not only is he one of the best keepers in the world and a primary reason Italy won the World Cup last summer, he also has the requisite WAG.

Pictured here is Czech model Alena Seredova, who looks better a couple months pregnant than most women ever will after two months in the gym every day.  Of course, I'm a sexual deviant who finds pregnant chicks attractive, but I think that's only because I've never actually knocked a girl up.  What can I say?  My parents found really cheap housing in the Ukraine twenty years ago.

(Wanna be extra pissed off?  Check out Alena gallivanting around naked here — NSFW.) 

This is Gianfranco Zola and Antonio Nocerino, two soccer player on Italy's under-21 team, after someone told them that John Travolta doesn't disappoint in the new Hairspray movie.

It's one of many terrific photos in this SI.com gallery that's chockful o' things to mock.  Seriously:  Brady Quinn throwing out a ceremonial first pitch, a 110-year-old man still breathing, and the always super-cool Tony LaRussa hanging with Sammy Hagar.  That's like 60% of everything I make fun of on a daily basis.  If they'd just gotten a picture of the Bengals beating up a homeless person and Pacman Jones killing a stripper, I would have had to retire immediately.  To a quiet Brazilian villa with Scarlett Johansson.

Oops, did I say rapists? I meant papists, with a "P". My mistake. Anyway, those wacky Catholics in the Vatican — a "country" not big enough for a soccer stadium — are talking about fielding an international soccer team.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Pope's No2 and an avid football fan, said: "I don't exclude the possibility that the Vatican could field a football team at the level of the most famous professional clubs."

And how the hell is a tiny little city of popes and priests and nuns gonna do that?

"If, for example we recruited all our brasilian students from the pontificial universities and the kids from the parish recreation centres," said Bertone, "we could build a magnificent team".

Well, it's good to see that the spread of Catholicism is strictly about getting the word of Christ out to other nations and saving people's souls. And if those souls can play soccer for the Vatican along the way… hey, God doesn't want heathens winning sporting events.

(Pictured: the world's greatest Brazilian Catholic.)

UPDATE: According to sassy minx Kristine, apparently it was all a "joke." Those Catholics sure are a bunch of kidders. Next thing you know, they'll be telling people that any kind of birth control is against God's plan or some nonsense.