Soccer is extremely bipolar. There’s no even, steady feeling in soccer. The spectrum goes from complete indifference (“soccer isn’t a sport”, “nobody likes soccer” etc.) to full-on passionate fury (throwing cups of vomit and urine onto opposing fans, running onto the field to commit religious hate crimes), and that’s not just for the game itself — it is a spectrum that includes fan reactions. Nobody sees a controversial soccer moment and says “oh, okay, that weird thing happened”. It’s either “meh who cares” or “THIS [racial slur] MUST BE BEHEADED AT DAWN”.

Case in point: During Sunday’s preseason exhibition game (or “friendly”) between the LA Galaxy and Machester City, star striker (and Iron Chef) Mario Balotelli was one-on-one with the goalkeeper. If he moved his leg slightly, his team would go up 2-0. Instead of kicking it, he started shuffle-stepping and tried to backheel the ball in. It dribbled out of bounds harmlessly and ended as a goal kick for the MLS side.

Now, my initial reaction is to type “lol” in lowercase and think he looked like a dummy. A second watch reveals that he thought he heard a whistle, so he was just screwing around. Neither of those reactions were shared by The Soccer Community, be they on the Internet, playing or calling the game. Their reactions were “this man is a disgrace to humanity” and “BLEARGHHH”. Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini was so enraged by Balotelli’s Tony Hawk Pro Shot that he immediately took him out and started yelling. The crowd booed. The announcers said YOU GOTTA BE KIDDIN’ ME and said fans of both teams were disappointed.

At once, one of the least important looking things I’ve ever seen became a furious debate. Should I not care, or care so much it boils my blood? I can’t pick a side, so I’m opening it up to you. If you read this and have an opinion, leave a comment. Preseason miscommunication or treason? Let me know.

[via EPL Talk]

Back in April I put up a video of Real Madrid winning the Copa del Rey, then promptly dropping and running over it with a double-decker bus. That’s the sort of mishap that mishappens once in a lifetime, right? Well, it turns out Real Madrid is really into committing vehicular manslaughter on the things they love, because now they’ve dropped a woman and run over her with a golf cart.

A rundown of events (cough) via Brooks Peck at Dirty Tackle:

While the players were being transported around the [UCLA] campus, one female fan decided to bum-rush one of the moving carts. She apparently didn’t consider the science of what happens when a person runs directly into a moving golf cart, because she got run over. The cart stopped momentarily before zooming off on its merry way.

The best part is the Hit And Run, because the guy filming just sort of goes “heh” and everyone moves on with their lives. No additional information is known about the victim at this time, but I’ve got a couple of working theories:

1. The woman was trying to commit suicide in the most uptight, Caucasian way possible (via a golf cart carrying a soccer team on a California college campus).
2. The woman was simply blind and jogging in the wrong direction.
3. The woman is Kevin James, and this is one of 800 similar jokes in his next movie.

Regardless, this is the least alert soccer team of all time. I hope you guys never crash your plane in the Andes Mountains, you’ll be dead within 20 minutes.

David Beckham is sporting a new hairstyle, and of course we wouldn’t be talking about it here if it didn’t look like ass. I can’t help but wonder if that’s a distorted image or if the LA Galaxy star just has a horrible case of dandruff. If it’s the latter, I’m sure it’s trendy, premium dandruff. Anyway:

The soccer stud premiered the new look alongside look-alike son Brooklyn, 11, while attending The Sun Military Awards at the Imperial War Museum in London earlier tonight.

–People.

I think I vomited five times while reading that sentence. I hope he gets sued by Florence Henderson. She could certainly use the money, provided that she’s still alive…is she still alive? I’d look that up, but I still need to eat lunch.

David Beckham is one of those celebrities that will probably have a target on his back for the rest of his life. Everywhere he goes, he’ll be stared at, heckled and/or dreamt about in sexually perverse ways. Uh, that’s what a friend told me anyway. That’s why I don’t understand why he’d waste his time lashing out at some jagoff heckler who waits until he’s almost out of sight to hurl some uninspired taunt about prostitutes. Yes, David, he’s wearing a Galaxy shirt. We heckle our own players over here. It’s just another great thing about being American. Read the rest of this entry »

I try to follow soccer. I really do, but some of the player movement just doesn’t make any sense to me. Transfers, I can figure that out. It’s just a stupid word for “trades.” But the concept of loaning out players–quality players that have such a finite shelf life as it as–that just boggles my GD mind. So if any of you have any insight about this David Beckham going-to-AC-Milan-and-then-five-months-later-returning business, by all means, jump in. One fan tried to do just that in Beckham’s MLS return to LA last night:

At halftime, Beckham walked toward the L.A. Riot Squad section and motioned to a fan to come closer. A man jumped down from the seats and was subdued by security before being taken away.

“One of the guys was saying things that wasn’t very nice. It was stepping over the line,” Beckham said. “I said, `You need to calm down and come shake my hand,’ and he jumped over.”

The man was arrested by Cal State Dominguez Hills police for trespassing because he left the seating area, a Home Depot Center spokeswoman said. via.

So Beckham leaves LA to play in a league where he wanted to play all along (I presume), comes back to MLS to fulfill his contract, and then gets his ass booed off the entire game. Like I said, I don’t really get it. Obviously, the Galaxy faithful are a little bent that Beckham left. I’m just amazed that fans in LA were able to get to the game before halftime. That’s more commitment than Beckham seemed to show to LA.

Noted immigrant David Beckham appears to be gone from America, at least for now. And it is good. But this isn’t an anti-soccer rant or an anti-foreigner rant, or even an anti-hey-he’s-better-looking-than-me rant, because I could do those all day. No, it’s good because he just packed up his fish and chips and got the hell out. He didn’t sit around and complain about how he was stuck with his Scientology friends every day or how all the men in California act like little girls or why there was cocaine everywhere. Contractually, he seemingly has the right to leave. He just uneventfully got on a plane and left, and frankly, I admire a man that can handle his business with a quietly firm hand.

ASYLUM POLL: Is David Beckham giving MLS the shaft?

The LA Galaxy doesn’t seem to be as eager to part. They’ve probably called him and left sad, annoying messages on his machine. You know, the kind where the person on the line was crying so hard that their nose started running. They probably told Beckham to come back and pick up his stuff and he was all, I don’t really want it, and they were all, But you have to, and he was all, No, I think I’m good. And then maybe ten or twelve years from now they’ll be facebook friends and leave “How long has it been?” sort of messages on each other’s walls, and then browse through each other’s uploaded photos, and that’s how it’ll end. And that’s okay.