A shout-out to hard-working Allison over at Soccer City USA/The Timber Mill for the links as well as the always-reliable match reports and fantastic photos, and to Bob who juggles the Oregonian's Timbers weblog with his duties at the World Cup blog. You'll find those links on the side as well.
Now, I said (offline) I was done talking online about the Champions League final and the subsequent unbecoming whinging from the Gunners' camp, but one remark has been bugging me more and more with each passing day and I guess I can't let this one go without comment.
Thierry Henry: "...maybe next time I have to dive. But I am not a woman, so I stayed on my feet."
Now, it's not like I expect soccer players to be walking around flashing women's studies degree--that, frankly, would be weird and unsettling--but seriously, given the success and popularity of women's teams in the sport, that's...actually, it leaves me speechless. I'm sure that, oh, say, Tiffeny Millbrett, Mia Hamm, Portland's own champion Pilots squad, or the Arsenal women's squad (who just lifted the Women's FA Cup) were delighted to hear that they were all cheating divers on account of their genital configurations.
Thierry Henry, up until three days ago you were one of my favorite players in the Premiership this year. I beg of you, please just stop talking so I can try to like you again.
No-logo types can cheer at the news that Barca has not only abandoned plans to use their kits for advertising space, but intends to finance humanitarian projects instead.
Meanwhile, over in Italy, after insisting that the widening football scandal there will have no effect on Italy's World Cup hopes, Italian coach Marcello Lippi was questioned for three and a half hours yesterday by police in Rome. And even the Vatican has weighed in!
And last night on FSC news, the ordinarily mild-mannered Bobby McMahon expressed in his thick Dundee brogue his wish for disgraced Juve ex-manager Luciano Moggi, if guilty, to rot away in jail for his "crime against humanity."
Really, I couldn't have said it better myself.
4 comments:
I'm sure they dismissed Henry's post-match comments as frustration. I'm surprised anyone would read anything more into it than that.
Me=too damn long-winded.
The short version: I, too, thought it was said in the heat of the moment, but that doesn't make it any more okay than racist comments shouted by fans in the heat of the moment. It's particularly ironic given that Henry's been a player who's really come out against that type of thing.
Bottom line: it's no more excusable for him to say "I don't dive because I'm not a woman" than it would be for a player to say, "I don't dive because I'm not black."
Not that they're the last word in football authority or anything, but I was happy today to see that the BBC agrees with me, because nobody else seems to have remarked on it.
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