I think the Youtube user who uploaded this clip did it a great service by removing the sound, removing the context and playing it on loop. It helps the viewer detach from any distractions or personal prejudices and clearly focus on what might sincerely be the worst soccer dive I’ve ever seen.

Daniele De Rossi is a 29-year old Italian footballer and midfielder for Serie A club Roma who believes that if you shove someone, it hurts your own ankle. Watch is slack-jawed amazement as De Rossi waits for the referee to turn his head before lightly pushing his opponent, then collapsing to the ground as though Chong Li just stomped through his tibia. The ref isn’t impressed, and the guy who supposedly broke his ankle just kinda stands there shrugging, because what the f**k are you supposed to do?

Anyway, as pathetic and obvious as it is, YouTube commenters are quick to justify it as legit, because of course they are, and of course it was:

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Meet Sporting Kansas City’s Jimmy Nielsen. He’s lying on the ground because a soccer ball touched him. In soccer. The sport where he’s a goalkeeper. The guy who stands in front of soccer balls and lets them hit him.

Juninho of the New York Red Bulls decided for whatever reason to kick a dead ball at Nielsen. It hit Jimmy in the chest, so of course he went totally limp, collapsed to the ground and pretended it hit him in the face. Maybe stopping a soccer ball is a “nails on a chalkboard” thing, or smelling your own farts. When you’re in control of it, it’s fine. When somebody else does it, it’s the end of the world, and all you can do is lie motionless until everyone involved has been removed.

Soccer, everybody. Video is after the jump.

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I left on all the watermarks in the hope that you'd believe I didn't make this.

What’s better than reading about soccer on the Internet? Reading what happens when a soccer player signs up for Twitter expecting a circle jerk and gets nothing but vulgar insults in return. That’s what happened to Manchester United midfielder Darron Gibson, who started networking socially @dgibbo28 and deleted his account in a Miley Cyrus style personal nightmare no more than two hours later.

Some of the choice Tweets include:

Darron Gibson @dgibbo28 is on Twitter, a traitor to his country and a s**** footballer.

@dgibbo28 You are a abysmal excuse for a footballer. You’re a one trick pony – a s*** one at that. What Fergie sees in you I do not know…

@dgibbo28 hasn’t tweeted yet. Seems somewhat fitting after the countless anonymous performances we’ve seen the “footballer”.

@dgibbo28 your performance on saturday was one of the worst I’ve ever seen of any utd player. scared of the ball much?

@dgibbo28 team do all hard work keeping possession then u hit row Z every f**** time!!

@dgibbo28 the biggest compliment i can give you is that you are better than Carrick

The final straw was a Tweet that read “nothing would make me happier than if we sold you this summer.” Not even a Team Bring It-style “show him some love” from teammate Rio Ferdinand could turn the tide, and now Gibson’s big memory of soccer fans on the Internet is that they’re extremely angry and passionate about soccer, to the point of hate and mania. You know, like soccer fans in real life.

I’m a little disappointed that Gibson didn’t leave his account active, but post “I’m leaving forever, goodbye!” so he could keep refreshing and see who begged him to stay.

Jim Calhoun learned that he’ll have none of the nun support that followed him and his Huskies to Final Four appearances in 1999 and 2004. Mother Shaun Vergauwan and Sister Mary Richards won’t be making this week’s trip to Detriot, and just when we thought they were getting into a habit. From NBC Connecticut:

The sisters gave Calhoun a jar of bubblegum almost 10 years ago. As a thank you for the gift, he offered them a trip to the Final Four whenever UConn made it.

But despite being invited again by Coach Calhoun, the Meriden nuns won’t be making the trip to Detroit this year.[...]

The pair are a part of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, and they will be receiving a special visitor from the Vatican this weekend, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, according to the Meriden Record Journal.

The nuns admitted that the team lost a couple of games that they had attended earlier in the year, but it was in a real wink-wink, CIA sort of God really does care about sports sort of way. Everyone knows that God hated the Buffalo Bills, loves the Patriots, and ALWAYS bets the over. They call it a Hail Mary for a reason…but I don’t know what that reason is.

[Editor's note: Every now and again something from the weekend needs to be re-posted on Monday to make sure the awesomeness gets around.  This is one such case.] 

…Well, tougher than the players at the other positions. Are there other positions in soccer? Because to the untrained and whiskey-tinged eye, it looks just like a bunch of foreigners running around kicking a ball. Anyway, watch this:

That was a pretty hard hit I guess, but it's as good as you're gonna get on You Tube since the NFL removed all the videos of the Sean Taylor/Brian Moorman hit. Thanks to handsome weekend tipster Derek, who says the forward (non-goalie) is a senior and the goalie is a freshman. I experienced similar hard-hitting action when I was a freshman in high school, except the "senior" involved was a senior citizen. She was a nun who could swing a yard stick like Vlad Guerrero. -KD