Why soccer is the best

Well coming from a northern climate and all, and living in Canada after all, myself saying soccer is the best is quite sac religious to be perfectly honest. I do realize I live in hockey country and I will admit hockey is a great sport and invokes passion in all of us, myself included. The thing is though it's a different passion, if Canada sucked at hockey and lost the series in 72, things would be mighty different (I swear Joe I never read that anywhere). But in fact we won that series and continue to flex our muscles in the NHL with close to 50% players coming from Canada, but not winning the gold medal very much at the Olympics. Actually we are the Brazil of hockey or I might dare say the Netherlands but since they never won I can't say we are like them. Mind you tiny yet mighty, but that is for a different discussion.

This discussion is to attempt to illustrate why soccer is better in my mind, I will not say better athletes, though some could argue, but then again that is comparing apples and oranges, all athletes are great, all sports are great, yes even figure skating and synchronize swimming takes a lot of skill. So we can already discard fighting about that theory.

Now let's look at the referees in the both games.... well the only good part is that their are no judges to irrational rate you based on the country you come from, and pull out marks that make no sense (diving, figure skating). Both games have at times terrible refereeing that decide games; hockey anytime the Maple Leafs are playing and in soccer I remind myself once daily about the Dutch versus Portugal game of this past world cup campaign. Again perfectly even.

So really, what it comes down to is soccer is the best purely on two aspects, the fact that soccer players are able to get themselves in a ton of trouble all the time in the most silly of ways, and secondly the fans have more passion and more lust for their team then any redneck who watches and follows NASCAR every week.

To illustrate this fact I will go over my top 10 moments of 2007 so far.

10. Fan rushes onto the pitch after Chelsea and Tottenham play in a FA Cup game on March 19. In this attempt to fan who is a Tottenham supporter attempts to take on the Chelsea team, specifically John Terry the captain of Chelsea. Not that I condone running onto the field to punch a rival team's star player, but well it's all about the passion of cheering for the home side. (on a side note; great job Sens fans, keep up the good work on Crosby)

9. Great goal celebration... I came across this a few weeks back, wait it was posted on deadspin, thank you deadspin without you soccer would not be seen by most USA web people and Jim Rome would have won the battle against soccer. But seriously does any other league have as good as celebrations as these guys do. (I will admit the CFL celebrations are great, and sometimes the NFL).



Personal favorite celebration is when the Celtic player dives to the ground, and then two parts it by getting up and walking around like a zombie. Honorable mentions: The Snorting of the touch line and the golf swing.

8. Well sure we have seen glass fall down during a game, or a rim break, but has anyone seen the stadium billboards get torn off onto the field and whack a few players. Again on in soccer and only in South Africa does this happen. This happened in January of this year. Suffice to say no one got seriously injured thankfully.


7.

Need I really say more here, a sculptor of Ronaldihno (Brazilian superstar) was made in the shape of a horse with his face inplanted into it. Then attempted to be sold on ebay for the cool price of 25000 dollars. Yes I'm waiting for the Sidney Crosby Titanic sculptor to come so, so I can start bidding.



6. Fans support is always looked for, and sometimes that fan goes the extra mile to get the job done. Take for example this fan named Isaac Juma from Kenya, who paints his body before every match into a traditional witch doctor look. While that isn't cool enough he even goes the extra mile as he is quoted telling the BBC as follows

"After being painted I stop talking to anybody, abstain from sex and do nothing to compromise my concentration until after the match
First of all, I have to buy my own paint, then pay the person to decorate me all over my body.

That is not to mention the barber who shaves me before I go to the field."

Yes that's right folks, he gets a barber to shave him before every match, he pays for everything himself to do it, and he also has no sex after getting painted until the match is over. I will always salute fans that go the extra mile to help ones team out... that being Kenya's national team that hasn't really done much lately alas.

5. Never get in the way of drunken soccer fans... especially when they are rival soccer fans and are looking for some reason to fight. You just may lose a body part of two. Or that's what happened to a poor bartender who tried to break up a fight between Bulgarian fans throwing pro-Turkish remarks to a bunch of Greek fans.

I tried to split them up and ended up on the floor with one of the Bulgarians biting one ear and another one chewing the other ear off," Tsibibakis told state television on Wednesday from hospital. "I need to have plastic surgery. Doctors told me they cannot just stitch them back on," Tsibibakis said. "At least I still have the pieces that were bitten off.

Ah yes, the thought of Mike Tyson being there would have made this story so much more perfect, but alas maybe Dracula does live on in all of us after all.

4. Well you know what they say, always check to make sure your tattoo artist is a fan of your team before going to him to put your team's logo on your back. Maybe it would have been better if he branded himself somewhere else. You ask what happened. Well nothing like going to Argentina and attempting to get the Boca Juniors (big club in Argentina) tattooed into your back.













I'll let the news excerpt quote what happened exactly

A tattoo artist from Argentina is facing a lawsuit after drawing a penis on the back of an Argentinean football fan instead of his favorite team's official logo. Reports said the teenager approached the tattoo artist and asked him to tattoo the logo of the Boca Junior football team on his back. However, the tattooist was an avid supporter of the rival team (River Plate) and decided to play a prank on his young customer. After reaching home, the victim proudly showed his parents his new tattoo and was surprised to learn that a penis was tattooed on his back.

Ah the wonderful feeling of walking around with a tattoo of a penis in your back.

3. I've always hated the Czechs, mostly because Holland usually had to play them to qualify for the world cup, or euro, or play in the same group of them, but that doesn't mean I don't read up on the cool hip happenings. Well in this case after a loss in Euro 2008 qualifying game, Tomas Rosicky and some of his Czech teammates decided to rent a few whores... err hugging companions for the night, sadly one of them was a reporter.

Arsenal star Tomas Rosicky and five of his Czech Republic team-mates landed the whole squad a £25,000 fine from the Czech FA after spending a night in a hotel with six prostitutes. A female Czech journalist broke the story after she had visited the hotel room herself as an autograph hunter. Players 'drank and hugged prostitutes' while she spoke to Jan Polak at the room door.

Rosicky apologised for his actions at a press conference. He said: 'We have been correctly punished. We are very sorry.' However, he said he had a 'clear conscience' when asked about the presence of the prostitutes.

Nothing says having a banging good time in Prague like a bunch of whores in a hotel room, maybe it was their attempt at slump busting.

2. Ah yes, being a soccer player you would suspect you make lots of money and have an easy time buying home accessories, or so one would think. Well not in the case of Glen Thomson (English Defender) and Ben May (Millwall Striker. Who both decided that the best idea to do would be to go ahead and steal a toilet seat. Now yes I did say a toilet seat, shared between the two of them I suppose (I have no idea what two soccer players would be buying a toilet seat together) but it gets better, they attempted to steal it by placing the toilet seat that was more expensive in a cheaper ones box until a 74 year old security guard caught them. Ah well the security guard is more shifted then two fleet footed soccer players.
Alas may a poor sap one day make a public service announcement that says the following:"Don't steal toilet seats cause you are only going to go in the shitter" Ah yes youth is served!

1. Ah time for the feel good story of the year, the one that puts soccer on top for the clear fact that no where else would this story ever get spilled out into the public for why a player got suspended. Marco Borriello a pretty much unused Striker for AC Milan, got suspended for 6 months because he tested positive for a performing enhancing drug. Now this sounds pretty standard, until you find out why he failed the test. Apparently and according to his wife, Marco used his wife's cortisone cream to get rid of an STD after having sex with her. So yes wife gets infected, uses cream, Marco catches infection, has wife give cream, places cream down there, gets drug tested, tests positive, has wife tell the media what happened. Yup I think this could have gone alot better for poor Marco if he had just shut up and enjoyed the 2 year ban he would have gotten which would have alloted more time for him to bang his supermodel wife. Yes I forgot to state the part where all soccer players get young supermodel wives. Yes Mr. Yashin you can take that up your pipe and smoke it.












I figured a picture of her would suffice as well.

There you have it, the top 10 moments of this year, and it's only almost 1/3 of the way through, I can't wait for the next 2/3. And again, I don't hate hockey I just think there is more passion and more amusement in following soccer and the silly things that they seem to do. On that note, Go Sens Go.