It's a joke, it's a joke.

Grant Farred knows this was Ronaldo's very first touch of the match.

Diminutive Manchester United left back Patrice Evra has ideas on how to stop teammate Cristiano Ronaldo.

"Probably the only way to do it is to kill him.

"I have never seen anyone like him before in my life. When he runs at you, you try to grab his shirt or do whatever you can. But he just goes past you, makes fun out of you and leaves you kicking the air.

"I see him every day in training. I watch what he can do and I think 'Cristiano, no. It is a joke'."

Don Rodriguez had a very spirited email conversation the other day with a prominent, American-born Arsenal fan, and being that I was only able to peer over Sr. Rodriguez's shoulders, I will quote selectively. The conversation went as such:

Arse: I hate Ronaldo more than I hate KKKarl Rove. He is the Britney Spears of pro soccer and will eventually be exposed for the fraud he is.
DR: Hating Ronaldo is sort of like hating Brad Pitt. What's the use? Just enjoy it.
Arse: Yeah but I don’t hate Brad Pitt. I think its more like hating Colin Farrell.
DR: Colin Farrell can't do stepovers. Or act. Ronaldo's actually good at both of those things.
Arse: I consistently want to punch both Colin Farrell and Ronaldo in the face. Never Brad Pitt.

In light of Evra's observation, it seems this Arsenal fan was talking team tactics and not merely out of spite, jealousy or ill will. Or not. Perhaps we all should just watch the last three runs on this video and decide for ourselves. [Mixtape fiends will recognize that this highlight reel is set to Kanye West's "Livin' A Movie."]

So much white it'll hurt your eyes.

"Ha-ha!"

Now that's what I'm talking about.

“For the first time in the rap game history, we finna get us a street team of nothing but pretty white girls to promote this single,” group member Slick Pulla said in a statement. “The blondes, the brunettes, the green eyes, the grey eyes, the red heads, the freckles, all that man.”

Caucasian Ladies (and this is no joke): please email, ahem, whitegirl@corporatethugzent.com if you're "down."

Wow.

Just last week I was out in Italy.

Yeah, me too.

Neither Don Rodriguez nor myself are lucky enough to be planning a trip to Rome -- for pleasure or otherwise -- anytime soon, and we're certainly not the fortunate sort who have tickets to see the first-ever matchup of Manchester United and AS Roma, two teams of which we are both very fond.

Don Rodriguez played layabout for six weeks one spring, loving -- in no particular order or fondness -- Monteverde, the number 66 bus, not ever paying for the number 66 bus, gelato (early, often, and obviously), and the greater part of the Temple Tyler female art student body, some of whose nicknames actually contained the word "body." Also, tattoos of cellos, which he thought pretty, and Francesco Totti, who many also think pretty, though he is no cello, and certainly no tattoo of a cello. Me, well, I just liked Eric Cantona.

None of this wistfulness has anything to do with the letter Man U posted on its website, addressed to the sizeable contingent of English fans traveling to Rome for Wednesday night's (here, afternoon's) Champions League match. It's both hilarious and profoundly unsettling, written with classic British politesse (or would that be French?) and understatement, though in some of the blunt urging of their fans to avoid certain (HIGHLY SPECIFIC) sections of the city, might a cynic not detect a slightly more untoward sentiment? Because this is long enough, I'll save the Isn't-This-Part-Funny/Great/Weird commentary and just put which parts of which I'm an unqualified fan in itals (ha?). Enjoy.

Dear Supporter,

The following document, whilst quite lengthy, contains some very important information regarding the forthcoming match in Rome. PLEASE will you carefully read all of the information provided.

It is particularly Important that you take advantage of the public transport shuttles leaving at 5pm from the Piazzale delle Canestre. Fans of other English clubs who have made their way independently to the stadium have reported on a number of occasions problems with getting back to the City Centre after the game and there is a real danger of being attacked by the 'Ultra' fans of AS Roma. We realise that fans travelling independently may not wish to give up that independence but we ask you to consider your own safety and welfare as being of paramount importance.

We are told that you must definitely not take the metro trains to the Piazza Faminio or attempt to use the Ponte-nenni bridge as these are habitual routes taken by the 'Ultras' to the stadium.

When we visited the stadium recently we also met with representatives of The British Embassy and received some specific advise to pass on to our fans. Will you please, therefore, note the following:-

In terms of the approach to the stadium we are advised that there will be an outer ticket cordon at which full searches will take place. Please be mindful that perfume, make-up bags and bags of coins are prohibited and will be confiscated and will not be returned later.

It is customary in all areas of the stadium for spot checks to be carried out and proof of identity sought. Acceptable proof of identity documents are a passport or a photo driving licence – photocopies are not acceptable.

Whilst this game is taking place in the Olympic Stadium, fans will find some of the facilities fairly primitive. Toilets, particularly female toilets, do not contain the usual toilet pan. There are refreshment facilities but these are quite limited.

MOST IMPORTANT

PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE WILL BE A HOLD BACK AFTER THE GAME. THIS IS USUALLY FOR A PERIOD OF 90 MINUTES.

We voiced our reservations about this but the police in Rome advised us that it is necessary for the safety of supporters. There is a large video screen in the stadium and we propose to take with us some match action videos to play on the screens, however, the screens will be blank until the stadium is empty of AS Roma supporters.

All tickets are bar coded and there is a sophisticated entry system with full length turnstiles. Supporters with tickets for other sectors will not be permitted to approach those turnstiles and will not be relocated in to our sector. Fans with tickets for AS Roma sectors may be admitted but they do so most certainly at their own risk. The authorities state quite clearly that there will be no alternative.

Important points
Supporters should make sure that they have proper travel tickets (which can be purchased at newspaper stands, tobacconists and machines inside the metro stations) if they intend to use the metro or local buses. Tickets must also be stamped in the relevant machines. There is an immediate 50 euro fine for passengers who do not have a stamped ticket and if this fine is not paid immediately, it increases to 100 euros plus the cost of the ticket.

Places to avoid
Please stay far away from CAMPO DE FIORI which is the meeting point for the AS Roma fans and a place where there has been a lot of trouble in the past with `Ultra` AS Roma fans

Crime
Levels of crime are generally low but there are higher levels of petty crime in the big city centres. Take care on public transport and in crowded areas where pickpockets and bag snatchers may be operating. In Rome, take particular care around the main railway station, Termini, on the number 64 bus, which goes to and from St Peter's Square, and when unloading your baggage from airport/city coaches. Also take care in and around railway stations in other large Italian cities. Be particularly wary of groups of children who may try to distract your attention whilst trying to steal from you. Passports, credit cards, travel tickets and cash should not be carried together in handbags or pockets. Only carry with you what you need for the day. Consider making use of safety deposit facilities in hotels.

Cars, at rest stops and motorway service stations are targets for obbers. You should treat with caution offers of help if you find yourself with a flat tyre, particularly on the motorway from Naples to Salerno, as sometimes the tyre will have been punctured deliberately.

Always lock your vehicle and never leave valuables in the vehicle even if you will only be away for a short time or are nearby. There have been a number of cases of cars containing luggage, or of luggage left in cars being stolen. You should avoid leaving luggage in cars overnight or for any length of time.

Be vigilant when travelling on sleepers/night trains. Thieves sometimes operate on trains in Italy and may take the opportunity, during the night, to rob sleeping travellers. Theft can also take place on trains during the day. Do not leave bags containing valuables unattended.

Police in Europe have issued warnings that counterfeit Euro notes are in circulation on the continent. You should take reasonable precautions to ensure that any notes received from sources other than banks and legitimate Bureau de Change are genuine.

Mindful that this information can create the impression that there are serious concerns for United fans surrounding this match, we wish to make it clear that this isn’t the case. Rome is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and the officials of AS Roma have been courteous and helpful in their dealings with us. We want you to enjoy your visit and enjoy the game.

Finally…We are advised by AS Roma that the law in Italy prohibits the issue of duplicate tickets therefore, lost tickets CANNOT be replaced.

Crit Game Proper

Physically fine, but his flow's sick.

Much like John Brown beasting on the independent game, Nicolai Ourousoff has lately been beasting on the architecture crit game, where readable, eloquent, and insightful beasts are few and far between. When Don Rodriguez and I sit down to chop it up about, you know, freestyling over other dude's beats, free-kick techniques, and why we've never really liked Richard Meier's style yet credit his Westside steel-and-glass flag-planting with drawing top-shelf architects, their designs, & actual commissions to NYC again, we get excited and usually it's an N.O. piece that kick-starts the convo. The last 2 have dealt with buildings on that soon-to-be-stunning (or heartless?) stretch of West Street from Chelsea down thru the Village. Here they are for your reading pleasure.

N.O. on Jean Nouvel

N.O. on Frank Gehry

Life is Life.

La la la la la.

As you no doubt may have heard from the one person you know who obsesses over soccer [and heartfelt apologies go out to those for whom that person is me], Diego Maradona was hospitalized recently for ill health, though he is apparently recovering nicely.

"It wasn't an imbalance in his blood circulation or with his heart, but was a product of an incoherent regimen of excessive eating, drinking and smoking," his doctor, Alfredo Cahe, told reporters in the doorway of the Guemes clinic in Buenos Aires.

What, you may ask, constitutes an "incoherent regimen of excessive eating, drinking, and smoking?" Or a better question: what constitutes a coherent regimen of excessive eating, drinking, and smoking. [Insert bad comparative celebrity joke...now.]

Apparently this: "He is smoking three or four Habanos (Cuban cigars) a day. For him, who didn't smoke, it's too much," Maradona's doctor said [emphasis added].

M had supposedly decamped to Switzerland to chill back in a no-doubt sleekly-designed, though still rather heartless (sort of like the Swiss themselves) teak sweat-lodge, or some other form of intense weight-loss clinic to drop some of the pounds he'd gained back after the gastric bypass surgery that had helped him slim down a few years ago. Perhaps the Swiss treated him as the Germans did at last year's World Cup.

Ether way, he seems stable, and suitably feisty again. Some more updates from his Doctor:

"He woke up at 0230 and he insulted me, he didn't want to be there. They sedated him again and he fell asleep," Dr Cahe told a local radio station.

Perhaps we should all want the kind of relationship Diego has with a Doctor like Dr. Cahe, as perhaps HST had with an Attorney like, erm, "Dr." Gonzo.

And just as you suspected, this post is nowt but a poorly disguised excuse to post some admittedly pretty awesome YouTube clips of Numero 10, the first of which, for some reason is scored, rather appropriately, to an instrumental of that Mos Def, Pharaohe Monch & Nate Dogg tune "Oh No" off the last Lyricist Lounge album. This cut came more or less at the apex of Nate Dogg's glorious (?), ubiquitous hook-dropping stage, the veritable Akon of his era. Anyway, Maradona:


The thing to take from these clips (incl. the one up top) is how much fun it is to watch footballers warm up. The tricks and routines seen here are often more impressive than the ones actually employed during the game. Former England striker Gary Lineker thinks so, especially after watching one particular Manchester United winger recently. More on that later, perhaps.

The Double R.

Get your pipes.

Last time Don Rodriguez was lost in a rainy Paris for seven hours waiting for the TGV to take him to Milan (only then to, according to him, smoke other people's smoke in a non-smoking cabin on an Inter-city "express" to Rome Termini) he visited the Centre Pompidou. He remembers liking it, and more than he thought he would. Having assumed it would be one of those buildings that seem theoretically cool when your arch. prof. runs through the, um, theory behind its structure (it's "inside out!" "form follows function!" "service becomes externalized!" "look at the pretty colors!") it's actually quite pleasing to be inside, especially the tube-scalators. And you might not think it, but if you approach it from the right (i.e. wrong) angle, it can sneak up on you, though that might be due to Don's dampened memory of the (un-)airiness of Paris streets.

That's not even Don Rodriguez's best story about architecture, or even about architecture in France. On a more-than-random day-trip to Bordeaux that ended back on a beach in Biarritz, with newly purchased bottles of wine and the openers to open them and the ingredients of some never-written Hemingway short story you remember liking as a teenager then feel really embarrassed about liking when you come back to it with years behind you all-too-obviously present, Don and Friend "found" the law courts. They were deserted -- just completed, actually -- and thanks to the laissez-faire (ha!) attitude of French gendarmes there was not a guard in sight. So Don and Friend proceeded to walk in and out of these pods-that-were-courtrooms, sit on the judge's bench, voir dire the witnesses, and object strenuously to that line of questioning. And this was all before the wine, apparently.

This is Don Rodriguez's roundabout way of big-upping Richard Rogers on winning a Pritzker. Rogers deserves Pritzker props not merely because he's made it to his early 70s and found much success along the way without having found it necessary to resort to wearing a pair of Corbus for 'tect respect. For instance, there's rarely been a bad -- or maybe I should just say uninteresting -- photo taken of his Lloyds Building in London, where one of the more iconic, futuristic exterior staircases on the planet hangs as fodder for flash photogs everywhere. But it's more his consistency, and consistently intriguing designs that prove his worth as this year's laureate.

The 2007 Pritzker Laureate Photo Kit is really worth taking a look at, if just to see something called his "Shanghai Masterplan" and "London as it could be, 1986." There will be some Rogers coming NYC way "soon" too.

You ain't even in *mi clase*

But it does look like a class picture, non?

ZZ = Famous Cancerian

Why do you want to sign Zidane when we have Tim Sherwood?

Mogwai, "I Do Have Weapons," found in a clip from Zidane, un portrait du 21e siècle [a 90-minute film detailed fantastically well here.]

DOME PIECE!!!

Not Jerome's niece.

Honestly, what more can I say to you?

I was a hiphop shorty-wop.

Known for rockin' microphones & twistin' off 40 tops.

It may surprise no one that there are pictures -- just like the above left -- of a lil' Don Rodriguez still floating around his moms' crib which may or may not involve an afro, an Ocean Pacific hat, and a can of Dos Equis. The operative word is, "Word."

Ghostwriter, No. 1, Part II

If only this was the picture you got Google Earthing Chile-Brazil. [It's Chile.]

Welcome to what will hopefully become a semi-regular offering by Don Rodriguez -- that is, if friends and colleagues are as generous with their time and their words as is today's guest. We are lucky to have an actual Ghost, or Gosfais, a.k.a. Daniel Corry, as Ghostwriter today. Being that Brazil plays Chile in a friendly match this Saturday, Don asked his good friend, who lived in Chile in 2000-2001 and now lives in Brazil, to share some of his thoughts on the matter. Enjoy!

Why Chile could win (more old information)

Also during the year I was in Chile, the Olympics were in Australia, and Chile there made an extraordinary run to the semifinals or finals. The games were broadcast at 4 in the morning and I remember my drinking train ran right through their win over Nigeria -- I actually couldn’t see the TV and later vomited on a wall -- it was Jota, red wine and Coca Cola. If I am the first person to name Jota as perhaps the metaphor for Chilean geopolitics, you can just mail me the diploma.

An Olympic squad is an under-23 team with only two golden oldies allowed, so that showing should bode well for the current Chilean squad, though they of course didn’t qualify for the last World Cup. That bronze medal team had old Zamorano, who around then began the standard Latin American retirement procedure by moving from Milan to Mexico, and whose place in the high-middle of world soccer strikers no Chilean has assumed since. I think that Chile might have some 17 year-old who was bought by an AC Milan or something and who is probably on their youth team still, maybe he will play. Who knows?

Why Brazil could lose

Their coach was ‘disappeared’ after the cup. I read the paper the day the new one was hired and several prominent and agéd members of Brazil’s football pantheon expressed supreme befuddlement at the choice of Dunga, a player to be seen in ’94 highlights and whose ears gave him his ‘nick,’ as Snow White’s Dopey [= Dunga (dubbed)]. Worse, recently Brazil lost to Portugal which is annoying and incestuous thanks to the fact that the best coach in the world is a different Brazilian, Filipão, maestro behind the 2002 win and several Brazilian club dream seasons and who has permanently lifted Portugal up above their own level.

After Filipão beat the Brazilians he was asked about Dunga, and said, ‘Dunga is doing what he has to, trying out new players and giving everyone a chance.’ I assume this is the truth. More importantly, imagine being the new coach and losing to a guy who is so made, who carries his steak-belly like a trophy, who was offered your job but declined, and then reading in the paper his evaluation of your coaching. I am sure nobody asked Dunga what he thought of the job Filipão is doing with Portugal -- why would they? That seems to sum up where Brazil is right now -- a low point in the cycle of empire, overshadowed by the feats the past.

A player:

Maybe this guy Sobis will play forward. He made his fame just as I arrived here, scoring twice to win the Copa Libertadores finals and subsequently moving to Betis in Spain. He is a little wiry blonde guy with a Latin mullet never to be mistaken for the prancing gel-job of a Swede, and I have the feeling that he is the medieval type of player who is playing on the Selecão right now but will be lucky to be on the renaissanced bench of the next World Cup.

In his scrubby way he reminds me of a Chilean. Right now in Brazil a gente não ta nem ae. Not even caring. We will let the team get better on its own and come back to us when it’s presentable.

Ghostwriter, No. 1

Chili? C'mon!

Welcome to what will hopefully become a semi-regular offering by Don Rodriguez -- that is, if friends and colleagues are as generous with their time and their words as is today's guest. We are lucky to have an actual Ghost, or Gosfais, a.k.a. Daniel Corry, as Ghostwriter today. Being that Brazil plays Chile in a friendly match this Saturday, Don asked his good friend, who lived in Chile in 2000-2001 and now lives in Brazil, to share some of his thoughts on the matter. Enjoy!

Part II, coming soon!

Why Chile could win

The last time Chile beat Brazil, I suppose, was when I was there, meaning Chile, in 2000. Nobody watched it on TV since it was the first game in the qualifying round of the 2002 World Cup that no one thought they would make, and ultimately didn’t. I have a small memory of the slow motion 1-0 winner and the Chilean announcer screaming that they had beaten the best in the world. But the wild hope that was subsequently sparked and fueled by few good results over lesser countries had already died out when Argentina came to town months later. I watched from the bleachers and the Chileans looked like Cocker Spaniels nipping at the heels of German Shepherds. There was one bald striker in sky blue and white that was almost certainly the spawn of fled war criminals, and he scored to end it 3-0. Of course, there was constant threatening of the fully armored police, this in the form of teenagers shaking and climbing to the top of the fence around the field where on the other side cops waited with machine guns.

• Policeman = Carbinero
• Cop/pig = Paco, and they are an army designed to beat down the protesters who get together dozens of times a year to commemorate and unwittingly recreate the defeat of the Chilean left.
  

Why Brazil could lose

Here in Brazil, violence is less ritualized and more, um, violent. The people I know only go to the unimportant games of their favorite teams so to avoid the rampant hooliganism. I imagine a national team game would be calmer, but no one in Brazil is really thinking about the national team right now, a little like no one is thinking about Michael Phelps or whoever that guy was, but more like the way an extremely hungover person who hit the bottle hard after losing his job and catching his wife with the gas-man is now in bed in the morning thinking about how much it will hurt to get up and take a piss. We are absently contemplating the smallest of logistics: the non-happening of the gold shirts again lifting the gold trophy that seems to literally depict them rising out of poverty to take up Nas’ question, “Who’s world is this?”

A player:

I would like to see Valdivia, a number 10 playing for Palmeiras -- a struggling but traditionally strong São Paulo club which happens to be mine by marriage. That guy illustrates the difference between southern cone (wannabe Italian) and Brazilian (café com leite) soccer players in that he alone adjusts a tempestuous mane of he-ness after each desperate run. These [runs] inevitably consist of receiving the ball and immediately lowering himself cartoon-style into a dervish of leg and elbow a meter off the ground and raging until someone hits him thigh to thigh and he tumbles.

Sitting on the ground, adjusting hair = finding the will to go on among the less fabulous.

Look at my Fashionista.

Got Benjy lookin' all googly-eyed and silly.

It is a poorly disguised internet secret that posting pictures of Cristiano Ronaldo on your blog rockets up hit counts significantly. [A brief shout to all the ladies out there Google-image-checking for "the Boy" as Sir Alex so often calls him: Hello, ladies.] Internet, your spot is blown.

It is also poorly disguised secret amongst fans of Manchester United that their own decrying of the sartorial excesses and fortunate bone-structure of its current and fleet-of-foot Portuguese Number Seven are desperate attempts to deflect attention from the childlike (okay, girlish) pride they feel when dude runs 70 yards past everyone on the other team and then scores. Or does this. Gary Neville, your spot is blown.

B/T/W, "cheers" to C.R., whose English -- while not great enough to avoid the awkwardness of of recently referring to oneself in the third person in a language one is still unfamiliar with -- was good enough for this bit of dry humor [taken from the Vogue article where the pictures above appeared]:

"According to the newspapers I have 20 girlfriends, but I have only met two or three of them."

Even so, its things like this that make people want to do this.

Vai, Baixinho

We don't give a fruck it's not your birthday.

I'm rushing to write this because Romario might score his 1,000th career goal any minute now.

Or not, depending on who you believe.

Strikers in football keep multiple goal tallies. There's the league total, the goals scored in cup competitions, then the goals scored in all competitions number (Elite forwards in 2007 are expected -- though they might rarely fulfill those wishes -- to score 40-50 goals in all competitions in a season). Then, there is The Romario Number, a.k.a. all goals in all competitions in every competitive endeavor since toddlerhood.

This is the issue: Romario, aged 41, nicknamed "Shorty," is currently on 998 goals for his career. By his count. 70-100 or so of those goals were scored either as a teenager, an amateur player, and some even in scrimmages and unofficial matches, some against weekend-league level competition. (Though I hate the American-writing-about-soccer-tic to equate everything with baseball or whatever, just think whether or not you'd have a problem with Barry Bonds including all the homers he hit for touchdowns in the third period, down 40-love, when he was in Little League and at Sunday Beer League Softball). Here are some facts, almost all of them are funny:

• He admitted 71 goals came before he turned pro and that 15 were scored before his 16th birthday.
• Nine goals he swore he scored for PSV Eindhoven were in matches the Dutch club insist they didn't play.
• Romario says he scored twice against Barcelona in a friendly in 1992 but PSV and the Spaniards insist no such match took place.
• He counted two goals scored against Parma in 1993 but the match ended 0-0.
• Several goals were racked up in bounce games against amateur sides, many of whom fielded players aged over 50.
  

Here is the other thing: WHO CARES? Sure, Pele does, since he's the only other Brazilian to have scored more than 1,000 goals (And honestly, he scored 1,281 officially recorded goals in 1,363 matches, scoring his 1,000th goal at the Maracana stadium against Vasco in 1969 at the age of 29, still in his prime -- so he does have a right to at least be a bit peeved). And this guy [Daaaamn!].

But still: just think of how awesome our world would be if everyone kept life tallies of the things we do, or the things we love to do, every day. Obviously Romario's scored more than 1,000 goals in his lifetime. He may be scoring goal number 20,000 for all we know. One-a-day for 41 years, give or take, is a shade under 15,000. I would love to see, for instance, a count of how many exclamation points one of my favorite writers has used since he discovered punctuation. It's the idea that he's been counting, and admittedly the shamelessness in doing so, that's so interesting to me.

I urge you to read the rest of this fine Financial Times profile by Simon Kuper -- and to listen to an even finer (and rather appropriate!) Jorge Ben song -- as I've made part and whole available below. My favorite bit of the FT piece:

Born in a Rio slum, Romario is the supreme Carioca, who expresses his patriotism partly by buying the city's real estate. Outside Rio his oddities are less appreciated. "In Sao Paulo," growls a Paulista, "he is regarded practically as an Argentinian." Romario is that characteristic Rio type, the malandro: a chancer, a fun-lover, a rule-breaker.

At 22 he left home to join PSV Eindhoven. A malandro and the Dutch workplace were not an ideal combination. Here was a man whose hobby was sleeping (14 hours a day); who said his team-mates could not play; who flew home to Rio at will, fixtures or not; who liked nightlife so much he intended "to keep going out until I am 90 years old". In games he rarely moved, yet averaged nearly a goal a game.

He treated his European years as an exile, a strictly money-making exercise: "In Holland I work; I live in Rio." He failed to comprehend the Dutch habit of turning up for appointments or the way they expected great footballers to obey rules, though he did appreciate Dutch girls.

But he always scored, and eventually Barcelona signed him. Even at the giant club he remained blase. Guus Hiddink, once his manager at PSV, remembers visiting Barcelona as coach of Valencia. Romario was about to kick off the match in front of 100,000 spectators when he suddenly told the referee to hang on, jogged to Valencia's bench and kissed Hiddink on both cheeks. To Romario, the match was just decor, with him the only character. In an increasingly corporate sport, his selfishness was almost heroic.

And don't forget, Jorge Ben, "Se Segura, Malandro"

Finally, I suppose I'd be remiss if I didn't put something from YouTube up -- since that seems to be the fallback steez these days.

WATCH: Romario, "O Rei do Gol" [Seriously one of the best-made YouTube highlight reels I've seen, forreals.]

Oh, and right. I couldn't find audio of this to sendspace so you'll have to do with this YouTube clip, but HERE IS A RAP SONG WITH ROMARIO AND HIS FELLOW BRAZILIAN NATIONAL EDMUNDO, RAPPING. IT IS CALLED "SOMOS BAD BOYS." [I WILL NOT TRANSLATE THAT.]



It's super-clumsy while altogether irresistible, and if you put one of them in a dress, it's not ten steps away from Bonde do Role. [Whom, by the way, Brazilians I have spoken to think it's funny and cute that out of all the bands in Brazil, they're making it here.] Enjoy (the fact that I resisted making the "ten stepovers" joke).

Actually, Jack...

No más.

The NY Times deigns to cover soccer in a half-page or so, buried deep within the Sports section every Tuesday thereabouts; this interview with Barcelona and Cameroon striker Samuel Eto'o was a weekend rarity.

Eto'o is a fantastic player, and one with principles. As the interview mentions, Eto'o was subjected to racist chanting throughout a match in Zaragoza last year, and threatened to -- and almost did -- walk off the pitch before the end of the match (The congenial Ronaldinho helped convince him to finish it out). I'm still rather torn as to whether he should have continued or not. One one hand, I would have liked to have seen the effect the walkout would have had on the match, the league, and the country -- which doesn't have the best reputation for tolerance -- (it's quite poor, actually -- Wikipedia writes the following sentence with a straight face: "Referee Fernando Carmona Mendez did not mention the incidents in his match report, commenting only that the behaviour of the crowd was 'normal'."). Yet, I'm also glad that, in a way, he didn't allow the racists in attendance to have the final say and force him out of the stadium.

You can see Eto'o near the end of this video pointing at the skin of the Zaragoza player Alvaro -- who I believe is Brazilian -- while gesturing at the crowd, seemingly urging them to acknowledge that, "Yes, you have a black man playing for your side as well."

This has always meant little to racist fans. What first fascinated me about this subject was the fact that some teams' fans will throw bananas and the like not merely at the opposing side's black players, but sometimes their own. Which offends in every possible conception.

But back to the interview. I'm all for Jack Bell making minor-to-colossal errors in all future interviews, because that was certainly the most entertaining answer in what was generally a rather dry Q & A. Not hating. Just saying.

Unorthodox.

"I am the Ooh Child."

There are few people who I'm happier about getting press and success these days than Tracy Morgan.

I hate for this to be one of those "I remember when dude was...[insert self-aggrandizing story about how you recognized current star's genius as a bit player on some short-lived TV show]" posts, but...

I remember grammar school weekends of staying up late to watch Saturday Night Live in its entirety so that I'd still be awake for Uptown Comedy Club, which played right after SNL -- opposite "Showtime at the Apollo" -- on Fox (which I think was still just Channel 5 or WNEW or something in NYC). The Big Thing then was kids who wanted to entertain at the lunch table the next week would competitively memorize as much of the sketches as possible, then when recounting them got beat, just use the funniest bits as code/cool/buzz words to exclude/belittle those who hadn't watched that weekend, and were thus doubly not in on the joke. Real terrible-type kid shit.

So sure, I watched for Hartman, Farley, Myers, Rock, and Sandler (this was early 90's, decadent-crest-before-precipitous-crash era) to pass with all the white kids, etc., etc. Suppose it's hard to hate on "Matt Foley" really.

But me and my boy Lu (who, despite the theme of this post, was not Dominican, but Colombian) would commiserate outside during after-lunch recess, obviously after throwing the ol' foil ball around a bit, and talk "Biscuit."

Biscuit was one of the characters Morgan used to play (allegedly because he was "a biscuit away from 300 pounds") in sketches, and occasionally during the concluding segment, which was a round of the dozens (a.k.a that Wilmer Valderrama show, but funny) featuring some of the cast. This was also when "snapping" was huge; like the writing-about-the-Arcade-Fire of its day.

In character, Tracy Morgan used to wear a beanie with a propeller.

WATCH: Tracy Morgan on Uptown Comedy Club (though he actually loses this battle, which was very rare.)

So Lu and I would snap on each other's mothers pretending that we weren't using the same ish we just heard the weekend previous, and still go buckwild when one of us busted out the A-game lines.

Suffice it to say I was geeked when TM finally made SNL, since it sort of felt like we -- me and Tracy, that is -- made the big time after toiling "together" in the dregs of Saturday late-nite TV. And dude killed it, all the while somehow still on the low.

WATCH: Tracy Morgan, as Brian Fellow, threaten to kill a parrot

Somewhere between SNL and now, Morgan did a few hilarious spots for ESPN video games, the best of which featured Ben Wallace and Jeremy Roenick (which brings me back as well since Roenick-as-gaming-entity was too a huge part of my grammar school youth)

WATCH: Tracy Morgan achieve the iso-motion on Ben Wallace
WATCH: Tracy Morgan melt this ice

And now that he's the livest wire on 30 Rock and blowing up the spot on every late-nite talk show (and some early-morning ones too if you check the link roll to your right), I think the boy deserves his due.

WATCH: Tracy Morgan on Letterman
WATCH: Tracy Morgan in "Blackass" (parodying Jackass for The Jimmy Kimmel Show)

Just to bring the whole self-aggrandizement theme home as well, this clip from the '06 VH1 film Totally Awesome -- which I have not seen, though if Morgan is as good in every scene as he is here, I just may have to -- is hilarious not just for the karate-chop-beatbox-scale (you'll see), or even for the coining of the term "sweatpants money," (!!!) but also b/c TM namechecks the Decepticons, an infamous gang about which anyone who grew up 'round NYC in the 80s would have undoubtedly heard.

[Additionally, there's probably about 30-40 minutes worth of dude's stand-up on YouTube that I'm not about to post. Yet. In the meantime, just looking at the list of people he's impersonated is funny]

P.S. This was undoubtedly my most Tom Breihan post ever. It's all love, T-Bone.

"The Third Rail of German Politics"

"...its crashes are singularly horrific."

In honor of the impending arrival of one German whom I suspect may brag about how fast he can get from Hamburg to Berlin (in his mutter's Porsche, no less), I direct your attention to this Times piece from today.

Okay, and maybe for this obvious, but obviously irresistible line:

"Car connoisseurs from around the world flock to Pfaffenhausen, a one-horse town where the local company, Ruf Automobile, makes cars with many horses."

Sounds like a variant on a soon-to-be written Juelz Santana lyric.

WATCH: Juelz Santana namecheck Baraka [sic] Obama. Still, it's great he knows who dude is.

Maybe Juelz is just psyched to see Charlie from The West Wing hit on a white girl in The Dutchman. Aren't we all?

Pursed Lips

Where all the work at.

There is a rather elastic term of which I'm particularly fond that the English use to describe the occasional disagreement, tiff, to-do, row, etc. (Note: While I'm at it, I'm also a fan of "rowing," which sounds like "outing" -- the gerund verb form of "row" often used by The Streets and assorted other louts).

That term is "handbags."

It gets applied rather liberally. For instance, you can describe two gents facing up against one another as "a bit of handbags," you might descibe their punch-feints themselves as "handbags," or, "Oh, and now the ref's got to sort through these handbags." (Okay, maybe that last one's a lie.) Often employed by commentators in those (quite common) instances after a mistimed tackle where the offended player has something extra to say to the forehead of his offender, the term seems particularly well-suited for footballers, who seem to prefer Eskimo-kissing to swinging on each other.

Except for Valencia's David Navarro. But that's another story.

(WATCH: David Navarro break a man's nose, then run like a bitch.)

There might not be a better word than handbags -- unless we consult our French-English Slang Dictionary -- to describe the latest verbal joust in which Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has chosen to engage himself.

A few days earlier, Wenger had this to say about the injury woes of his and France's star striker, Thierry Henry:

“I feel Thierry has been badly managed by the French national team. The World Cup Final was on the July 9, and I gave him a holiday until August 4. Then he came back and we prepared him. I left him out of the Champions League qualifier against Dinamo Zagreb. They [France] called him up for a game on August 16 - less than 14 days after he came back [from Germany] - and they played him for a whole game against Bosnia. After the World Cup final, why did they need to do that?”

Today, France coach Raymond Domenech (whose Wiki is both interesting and hilarious) responded:

“I’m seriously starting to get tired of Mr. Wenger. [Wenger] does not know everything and is not the only one with the right to exist in football. Even [UEFA president] Michel Platini has noted that his remarks were stupid. [Wenger] is saying that a match in August can explain an injury in March. But it has to be known that every time Henry has played for France, he was playing for Arsenal three days later.”

My interest is piqued not merely because they're French, and when I hear "handbags" I may or may not envision two Enlightenment philosophes wielding handbags, intelligently bruising each other, leaving puffs of wig powder in their wake. Such a situation would surely require each man to slap the other gently, yet firmly about each cheek with an elbow-length velvet glove before the succeeding event could take place. This clearly has not transpired between Wenger and Domenech.

But oh, how we love Domenech's response. Not only did he take pains to establish that Wenger, who has a rather professorial reputation amongst his coaching peers, is not a know-it-all, but Domenech apparently felt the need to go all "Mirror Phase" upside Wenger, in effect affirming our existence -- yours, mine, his, everyone's -- and dooming Arsene to narcissistic toddler-hood.

Sonned by Lacan. Ouch. Yet somehow fitting. We can only await Wenger's almost certainly entertaining response.

After all, this is a man who, when Sir Alex Ferguson claimed his team had the better run of form at one point during a season past -- an assertion not supported by the evidence -- replied, "Everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home."

UPDATE: Baby girl, why you don't call me no more?

Good to see you, good to see you, good to see you.

Don't call it one.

Could it be I've stayed away too long?

I've missed so many things over the past few, but this most especially. Not promising drops on the daily, but certainly with more regularity. Apologies to those who've put up with proto-blog-posts-as-group-emails, which were only occasionally funny, possibly offensive, surely annoying. All football-related obsessiveness has once again found a home, albeit with a new name.

Topics you may encounter here, perhaps with photo accompaniment:

• Football, futebol, fútbol, calcio, a little bit of Fußball, maybe some voetbal and le foot, and now that Beckham's gone Hollywood, some soccer, however grudgingly.
• Music. Rapping. Rappers. Rap words. Rap deeds. And those of R. Kelly, which defy categorization.
  
• Film. Books. Maybe People Who Build Buildings and the Buildings Themselves.
• Language(s), spoken, written, garbled, translated, interpreted.
• Espresso. It's fantastic.

Welcome. You will probably learn something about something you don't particularly care about. Enjoy.

The Re-Up

Scoundrels + last refuge for one

Step To, Step To
Nigh time to remove "Coup de Boule" from your empeethree device, it is. Weltmeisterschafts, Mundials, Copas -- all over. Weeks have past. Legacies have been brutally burnished. Children have been apologized to. Frenchmen have unashamedly reinforced their nation's greatest musical cliches. (Marco Materazzi: Not dead...yet.) Cristiano Ronaldo had sex with the Queen of England, winked at the bitch, then got her sent off. Gary Neville was disappointed with him. Italy got relegated. Jose Mourinho got a haircut (more on that...later).

Most importantly, lovers got married.


But you're right...It's been a long time. We shouldn't have left you.

Without a dope link to Zidane's homepage. Still feelin ya, homie.

On Zidane

Dear Zizou,

I'll be forever fascinated by this moment. As a matter of fact, I can't stop watching it. The moment, the movement, is breathtaking, and not simply because I feel emptiness in my chest every single time I see it.

You made a choice. You chose tragedy, or something like it, over glory. A conscious, rational, and direct choice -- I believe that. And I have to believe there's a reason for that, and one that you are free to share or keep for yourself. There was venom in that blow, but also conviction; no doubt to your savage motion. Which is why I respect your choice like I respect any other. This does not excuse your action -- nor explain it fully (and, like your reasons for playing your last World Cup, we may never truly know, "Why?") -- but defines it as something freely elected, and not the "moment of madness" that many have deemed it. You may regret the chance to finish your career with your hands wrapped around Jules Rimet's trophy, perhaps also the sorrow of your fellow players at having lost a chance to celebrate as champions, but I suspect that you do not regret what you did.

(By the way, have you read A Happy Death? You may know its author.)

And what did you do? Only the most cold-blooded thing I've ever seen, either in football or elsewhere. A head-butt to the chest. Excuse me? On the world's biggest stage, with billions watching, and watching you -- the most famous man on the pitch and the best player this generation has ever seen -- in a World Cup Final that was yours (and your alone) to win. This was no Figo-esque forehead bump. Those are exchanged all the time, with no ill effect. No, you lowered your head and sprang forward with what seemed like incredible force into the chest of another man. The execution was flawless -- as expert as your free kick to Henry against Brazil, your chipped penalty to go up 1-0, even that supernatural Champions League volley against Bayer Leverkusen in 2002 -- could anyone have imagined a headbutt delivered more correctly, with more power, and with more accuracy, than that? I say again, who else, who else could have done that?

And you laughed a little before you did it.

Luis Felipe Scolari said an incredible thing about you. Something to the effect of: "[And I'm paraphrasing wildly... - Ed.] Zidane has a certain capacity to mesmerize all who watch him, fans and players alike. This quality is so unique and so magical that even those opposing players who are beaten by him with the ball still can take a kind of pleasure from it. The ball never cries when it is at is feet [100%, Scolari said that last sentence, no joke - Ed]."

And you can see it here too. Materazzi, whatever he said or did, was trying to provoke a reaction (And whenever we find out, of course it will not be enough to justify it in our minds...maybe). But who could have expected that? Lulled to sleep after slipping in perhaps the first or the tenth of unspeakable slurs, Marco walked right into that one. Pow. Delivered correctly, that kind of blow can kill a man. And I suspect that some part of you just may have been trying to kill Signore Materazzi. (How is he still alive, b/t/w?) Who knows, it may still happen. Sorcery, especially yours, works in mysterious ways. Don't be surprised if M.M. doesn't wake up tomorrow.

What amazes me most of all, however, is that you have managed, even in infamy, to do something so totally unexpected, so otherworldy, so incredible (in every sense of the word) that it makes the mystique that surrounds you even greater. This was absolutely stunning. Bizarrely glamorous in the same way as Cantona's famous Kung-Fu kick, you've somehow made the brutal beautiful. Violence and vengeance are and have always been sexy, but that move --- it's much, much more important than that.

Unless you tell us, one can never be sure exactly what was said, though it would be difficult to believe it had nothing to do with your parents and their nation of origin (No men of any deeper shades that I know think differently). It certainly wasn't the first time you'd heard something similar, and similarly reprehensible. Public figures from "France" have nearly said the same. If so, then was this you striking a blow for all those slurred against? For the Samuel Eto'os and Thierry Henrys of the world? I'd like to believe that, but perhaps I'm a bit overzealous here. You tell me (Please?) Or was it something more personal? Maybe you just didn't want to trade jerseys with anybody after the match. Ensure that your final jersey was yours and no one else's. It's a joke, it's a joke.

But a sacrifice, maybe? A point made with the crown of the head at the expense of a world championship? Is that worth more to you than any Golden Ball? Was that pure emotion, distilled into one unforgettable motion, more satisfying than lifting some weirdly shaped metal objet? Should we prize that instead? Even if it's rage? Who knows? Whatever was waiting for you down in that tunnel, past the Jules Rimet (in the saddest shot ever captured on sport cameras) is yours, and not for me nor anyone to judge.

Here are things that I hope do not happen, but are surely being thought and written in these next days, weeks, and years. That the "mean-streets-of-Marseilles/wrong-side-of-the-tracks" talk will be used as pretext to define you as a lost cause, a failed hero, a tarnished star. That it is in the nature of those who grew up as you did to revert to their upbringing. One can say this any number of ways: 'Once from the projects, always from the projects.' Which is another way to say even more despicable things. These ideas are even more insidious, more dangerous than any headbutt you could ever deliver.

But in a strange way, I think you've won. And I think you know this. What is it that people will remember about this World Cup, about this game? That Italy won? Maybe. Italians will certainly remember that. But the world will remember you. And that Italy won only because you were not there. That's a certain type of genius. Maybe evil, but genius. And the fact that you would never become a Maradona, a Beckenbauer, even a Platini -- an "ambassador for the game" as they are wont to say, only makes your decision, your action, stand further in relief: perhaps the last, forceful statement from the shyest wizard in the world. A retreat into legend and La Castellane. After all, you're 45th generation Carthaginian. Who did those guys play against again?

You have always been the most unknowable of footballers, of people even. You defined elegance and all synonyms thereof, as much as you did the word 'inscrutable'. I started out by saying that you made a choice, and I think I'm right. People, including me, have thought of you as having alien qualities. Here I think I'm wrong. Maybe you just chose to be human. Who could be mad at that?

Sincerely,

PLO

P.S.- This guy is an idiot. A blithering idiot. "Dumb, dumb, dumb." You can tell him I said so, but apparently he's heard it already. But I'm sure he's never heard what you have.

UPDATE: See? "Impeccable."