Fox Gives You Their 10 Best: I Give You 10 Of The Rest!

Recently, Fox Sports published their list of the most fascinating people in world soccer.  But to be blunt, I do not find most of these people to be fascinating.  In fact most of them seem downright boring and over exposed to me.  The list per Fox Sports was:

10  Wayne Rooney – Man U and England striker

9   John W. Henry – Liverpool FC owner (and Bawston Redsawx owner too)

8   Ronaldinho Gaucho – Brazilian star and former world player of the year who has re-invented himself

7  Louisa Nacib – Lyon and French midfielder and the breakout star of last year’s Women WC

6  Leonardo – Sporting director of Paris St. Germaine

5  Michel Platini – Head of UEFA

4  Hope Solo – Goalie of US Women’s’ National team and sexy bod extraordinaire

3  Neymar –The next “Pele” – “go and stand in line behind all of the other “Next Peles””

2  Pep Guardiola – Coach of Barcelona

1  Mario Balotelli – Enfant Terrible of EPL and Italian national team,They are, for the most part, over-hyped and underwhelming in how little there actually is to them.  This list is style and no substance.  Really the only people that I really want to know more about are John W. Henry, Louisa Nacib and Leonardo. The others on this list already have way too much written about them on a daily (even hourly) basis.

 It would be far more refreshing to read about some of the people who are in the game out of love or exist behind the scenes and who might actually have something pertinent and interesting to say.  Some of them might even be rather controversial in their views or in light of how they achieved the status they now have.  My list of ten is as follows:

10  Dave Whelan – Owner of Wigan Athletic

The owner of Wigan Athletic since 1995, Dave Whelan has taken the club from the lowest professional division to the Premier League.  Every year, the club is one of the favourites to be relegated back to a lower division and yet, somehow, Dave Whelan manages to succeed in keeping Wigan as an EPL team even as other teams with far greater resources and history fall by the wayside and slide down a division. 

9  Derek Llambias – Managing Director of Newcastle United

In a country that is mad about football, perhaps no fans love their team more than Newcastle.  And these same fans hate the owner and directors of their club more than any other set of fans.  In that area you are either Geordie or you are shite and the owner and the managing director are not Geordies.  Yet somehow, this club is beginning to produce on the field even after major cost cutting measures and the purging of established star names left the fans howling in frenzy and threatening to go bat shit crazy.

8  Suleyman Kerimov – Billionaire owner of FC Anzhi Makhachkala

If there is one truly bizarre story in world soccer it is FC Anzhi Makhachkala in the Russian Super League.  The club is based in the Russian want-away region of Dagestan which basically is Chechnya without the glamour and glitz.  Suleyman Kerimov is a billionaire who was gifted the team by the former President of Dagestan.  Amongst his major signings, Samuel Eto’o stands out as the biggest when he agreed to head to the Russian Islamic want-away state from Inter Milan.   Of course the Anzhi players actually live and train in Moscow and then fly into Dagestan under extreme protection, play a game and then fly back to Moscow.  I see this as a potential solution to make playing for Blackburn more palatable……

7  Karren Brady – CFO of West Ham United and also an outspoken gossip columnist for The Sun.

For some reason, I have always found this lady to be one of the most fascinating people in English football as she is one of the few who will open up and actually talk about the mysterious pantheon of football agents and foreign dealings and money trails.  The way she explains it all, the path of the cash in world football is even more Byzantine than the Vatican (although in retrospect, the Vatican is specifically not Byzantine).  And she is right about it too.

6  Jack Warner – Former President of CONCACAF

This is the former head of the FIFA region the US is based in, and he knows where all of the FIFA bodies are buried, who has how many little fat fingers in what financially improper pies, and who prefers prosys over cash over Rolexes over Ferraris.  And best of all he feels he was hung out to dry by FIFA and its beleaguered President (for life?) Sepp Blatter.  When the FIFA train comes off the rails, this is the man who will be driving it.  You don’t think that he might possibly have something interesting to say, do you?

5  Carolina Morace – Former Italian national team player and Canadian Women’s Team coach who basically got sold out by her own federation right before the world cup.

No team failed to live up to expectations quite like the Canadian ladies did last year.  They had one of the few truly unstoppable players in the world in Christine Sinclair and she never really showed up in Germany.  But right before the world cup, there were all kinds of rumblings and rumors and innuendo of bichin’ and moaning and outright warfare between the team and the federation with the coach caught squarely in the middle.

4  Nicholas Anelka – Formerly of Chelsea and now playing for Shanghai Shenhua in the Chinese Super League

Asia is rapidly becoming the vast frontier of world football.  Korea and Japan have very solid leagues now and Australia joined the federation some years back and their league is about eight years behind the MLS:  but it is improving rapidly.  The next league to shift up a few gears is going to be the Chinese Premier League.  This winter Chinese clubs have started to look to buy outdated European players to help bring the league up.  A bid was tabled for Didier Drogba and there are persistent rumours that John Terry might go to China as well.  But the first player to take the plunge was Nicholas Anelka who went to Shanghai Shenhua.  This could be interesting stuff given that though enormously talented, Anelka has a mercurial disposition (to say the least) and so could struggle to adapt to life in China.

3  Yaya Toure – The real best player in the world!

Box to box, this man is the real best player in the world.  He marries sublime attacking skills with an amazing physicality on defense (without being a dirty player). He is big, fast, clever and humble.  As an athlete, he reminds me most of Bo Jackson.  It should be illegal to pack that much talent in a body that big and muscled.  He started off playing with Lionel Messi at Barcelona and was the first player that Manchester City bought when the Emirates money gusher started flowing.

2  Stuart Holden – the most talented, but snake bitten, player on the US Men’s National team.

If there was ever a player who deserves so much more than his career has served up to him it is Stuart Holden.  He should be basking in the glory of being the creative attacking fulcrum of the US Men’s team but it seems that every time his career is looking to peak, he gets a major injury.  He broke his leg before the last world cup, and then broke he leg again last spring when he was playing some of the best football in the EPL.  Bolton has not been the same club since he went down and the US team has also struggled to do play anything even close to resembling attacking football.

1  Dean Howell – Crawley Town journeyman lower league left side defender.

Really this could be any one of a myriad of players who play their football in complete anonymity in the lower professional divisions and semi-pro conference.  His name became known this weekend as he played a man’s game against Bristol City in the FA Cup and was rewarded with a place in ESPN’s team of the week.  I would love hear what has kept him playing for so long in the bottom professional league in the UK.  How does his life compare to someone from the top of the Premier League such as Rio Ferdinand who makes as much in a week as I do in five years.

These are the sorts of people that I want to read about in the months ahead.  I am fining myself more and more fascinated by the business of football on the global scale and less and less interested in the players themselves.  The players, for the most part seem to be turning into cartoon characters or, better yet, the equivalent of professional wrestlers (or should I say “sports entertainers”) with heel and face characters that are played up by the media and played to by the referees…

Of course though, as I peruse the football pages of my beloved Sun, I will find myself regaled by tales of Wayne and Colleen, Youtube videos of the latest amazing trick shot by Ronaldinho and the sordid details of the latest Mario (Why Me?) Ballotelli stupidity – and oh yes, Mario, I saw you stamp on the head of one of my favourite Spurs players this morning and get away with it as the (supposed) best referee in the EPL  either had his hair blowing in his eyes or was scooping the poop of his seeing eye dog!

Remember Folks

When Life deals you the Enchanted Bunny card

Kick it in the balls and play your Carrot of Power Card!

I sent out just three resumes and I have a new job already.

The Meaning Of Everything; Yet This Is About Nothing

So I have had several weeks of free and unfettered time to use up with the only thing to do each day being to ponder the relevancy of why and the meaning of 42.  Of course I had been practicing prior to that since there was also a vast drum of spare time to dip into the last month that I “worked”.  The official mantra was “come in late and leave early to make up for it”.  After all, since I do yoga now, there must be mantras. 

There was literally nothing left to do in the areas that I either worked in or wandered into to help out.  And of course there was also my nemesis who really tried to make my life there miserable and who I would not stop to piss on if she caught fire and needed to be put out (no bitterness here – no siree).  Basically I just left her alone to sink or swim as best as she could.  After all, that seemed to be what she wanted to do anyway. 

As the great production conga line that I had made to dance for me the previous twenty one months first slowed to a crawl, and then to a full stop:  that is if my boss ever learnt the word “No!”) I found myself with more and more time on my hands that touring the building endlessly failed to fill.  This was especially true at the end as the people that were fun to visit exited stage left continually. 

Finally there was only one great mystery left for me to ponder.  That was wondering who exactly will be doing what in the physical closing process since, after the Final Diaspora of December 20 when all QC and warehouse people are scattered to the winds, there will only be four managers and a supervisor left.  

And none of these individuals exactly ooze blue-collar productivity.  It will be like the Emerald City Army, minus the solitary private, in the stage version of the Wizard of Oz.   Each one will have “the grand plan”, the “idea of all ideas” and expect the others to act upon it accordingly. 

Perhaps there will be spreadsheets and meetings with decision trees (and a catered lunch) but what there will not be is a group of people who actually “do stuff” for a living.  I do not think that my boss, and one of the stellar members of the “Gang of Four”, has actually had a cogent thought in the twenty-one months that I have worked here:  so why would he suddenly start now. 

All I know is that there will be all of this work that Numbers 1 thru 4 had absolutely no idea would need to be done since they never really saw fit to mix with the proles and trogs who were the spine of the place.  I was regaled by one of my friends telling me that my former boss did ask her, on her last day, to teach him to close work orders if she had a spare five minutes.  

Five minutes does not even cover Step 1 of up to 20 steps.  And the boss-type person does not even know how the program that opens and closes the work orders functions.  He is probably still just sitting there, all bundled up in the cardigan of shame, sucking his thumb and trying to close down his first order.  Aaah but one can only hope …

Happy Birthday, Champ

“I AM America. I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me. “

To this day, he is the enduring and endearing figure of my childhood.  I loved watching Muhammad Ali fights.  I remember exactly where I saw many of his biggest fights in the ‘70s much the same way as I remember where I was when the Challenger exploded and when the towers fell.

In October 1974 I was eleven, I watched the “Rumble in the Jungle” in my granny’s front room on her POS 13” black and white television with my Uncle Robin and some of his friends.  It was the first time that I had ever really watched a fight after experiencing all of the pre-fight build up and I was hooked: and I was completely hooked on Muhammad Ali. 

I watched the “Thrilla in Manila” in the front room of my boxing coach who lived just down the street.  He was the British amateur champion at the time and he could really fight.  He could break down a fight and what was going on for us.  He never said a word during the fight.  He just watched in awe at what both fighters did to each other and to them themselves.  We all did:  we felt every heavy punch, every jab that was thrown.

All of my friends at school talked about him and we tried to talk like him.  For the weeks leading into the fight it was all about George Foreman and Muhammad Ali at school:  who would win, who would do what to whom, how would Muhammad Ali win.  What we wanted was a Muhammad Ali win.  What we needed was a Muhammad Ali win.

You see, even though we were white kids living in the rural wilds of Northamptonshire, he was our champ.  We loved him.  And even now when I talk to Keith and Michael and Wayne and Simon and all my other friends who I grew up with, Muhammad Ali is still our champ.  And, seemingly, on his 70^th birthday, just about everyone else in the world feels the same way.

Much, much, more importantly, Muhammad Ali broke the myth of America that we all had.  All we knew about the US was what we learned from watching John Wayne movies and Elvis movies and that the good guys always wore a white hat.  The Greatest introduced us to the politics of protest, of dignity in the face of bigotry, from him we learned that the streets were not paved with gold in America. 

I learned about the Vietnam War from observing his struggles.  From studying him, I learned about Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz and Dr. King.  I went from there to studying Caesar Chavez, Gandhi and the Dalai Lama.  Muhammad Ali was my gateway to developing a social conscience.  That is why, thirty years after his in-ring career ended, Muhammad Ali is still relevant:  and he is, and always will be, The Greatest.

“I’m not scared to die. God gave me Parkinson’s to show me I’m just a man like everyone else. To show I’ve got human frailties like everyone else. Because that’s all I am — a man.”

Like I Said ….

Pythagoras is so tiny.

And it is hard to believe that the other three were this size just a year ago.

Bringing Home The New Baby!

So it had been a long time since my daughter and I had wandered over to the other side of town.  In particular we wanted to look around on E Burnside and SE Hawthorne as this contains some of her favourite vintage clothing stores.  The plan was to also go to The Screen Door (her absolute favourite restaurant) for breakfast if we could put up with all of the Portland Hipsters that were standing in line to get breakfast while managing to look aloofly cool. 

After a good breakfast and some shopping at Hippo Hardware for light fixtures and three or four hours spend wandering along Hathorne in the rain, it was time to head over to The Wet Spot (not a strip club) to eyeball their discus fish stock.  And we found us a new friend  there – he is a Red Marlboro Discus and his name is Pythagoras. 

In the words of my daughter, “Oh my God he is so tiny!”  Compared to Aristotle, he is diminutive.  It is really amazing to see how much Aristotle has grown in a year.  I would say that he is eight to ten times the size of Pythagoras: and is a good six inches in diameter now.  But one day, Pythagoras will be all grown up and as big as the others.  I can probably add one or two more discus fish to the tank yet.

Right now, Pythagoras is hiding in amongst all of the tall Amazon Swords that I have in the back of the tank.  When he stats assimilating himself into the general population, I will post a picture showing the amazing size difference.  When he is all grown up, he will look like this.

Try To Find This Movie – It Is The Anti-Twilight!!!

Ron:  “Well, ‘ere, lads, you’ve discovered a species hitherto unknown to science, quite possibly non-terrestrial in origin, and you kicked its fuckin’ head in! “

After having been less than blown away by Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows this Christmas and not been the least bit intrigued about even seeing Mission Impossible 24:  Ghost Protocol, it was great to find a film that, finally, had some originality instead of being just a more spectacular repetition of an earlier story; even if this movie is already out on Blu-Ray. 

Attack The Block is the best film that I have seen in ages.  How can one explain it: a South London gangstas versus aliens, perhaps?   It could be an R rated episode of Doctor Who but truth be told the effects, as well as the music, are so much better and the story is genuinely fantastic.  Even the aliens have an original look to them:  and they are brilliant – literally.

The story even manages to inject politics and social issues into the plot and have it work as an additional layer to the story and to the mood as opposed to beating the audience over the head to make a statement.  All through the film, I found that I really cared about what happened to Moses (the main protagonist).  And even after the en ding, I want to know what happens next.

Now I am not expecting that this film will be a surprise inclusion in any Oscar (registered trademark, if you please) categories.  But it will be interesting to see if this garners any nominations for Independent Spirit Awards.  And I am sure that there will be the $200,000,000 remake with ten times the stars and none of the heart and soul of this film.  If the story is left alone, it would still do big box-office.  It is very unfortunate that Attack The Block never garnered a major release in this country:  I would have been fascinated to see how it would have done.

I did see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo when it came out, and that was a very good film too – a bit tough to stomach in places – but a very good film.  And it does amaze me that there were people there with younger and youngish kids.  I would say the youngest that we saw at the film was 10 or so and there were a lot between that age and 14. 

My only question to their parents is “don’t you ever research what the movie is about?”  Of course there were a lot of older people who hadn’t done the research either and who were horrified by some of the scenes.  On the other hand, my daughter cannot wait for the next film and already is looking to see if there is going to be an unrated director’s cut released for this film.

Just Waiting For An Epiphany …

Which of course is the twelfth night of Christmas and the day the three wise men arrived at the stable after taking a wrong turn at Babylon and getting caught up in Jerusalem traffic. (“Did you ever see so many chariots in all your life?”)  And my youngest daughter stated, with just the right sniff of feminist disdain, that if it had been the three wise women, Epihany would be on the sixth night of Christmas as they would have planned ahead and stopped and asked for directions as needed. (“If you come to some pyramids, love, you went to far”).

Anyway, Christmas was good – no Christmas this year was great.  My original plan was to head back to the UK for Christmas but that trip has been put off to next September.  Both of my daughters were here with me as well as my oldest daughter’s fiance.  It seemed that this year the emphasis was on quality (in terms of what people really wanted) rather than quantity.  I got a Rose City Portland Timbers shirt (the uber-cool red model).

So here, in short is a summary of my Christmas Day

O’er the twelve hours of Christmas, my daughters gave to me …

Twelve year old scotch whiskey (12 year old is good – but 20 year old is gooderer)

Eleven hours of cooking (“You plonker, you complete fuckin’ plonker”)

Ten pound braided fish line (gonna git me the big wun this year)

Nine cardinal tetras (because the 27 I have is just not enough)

Eight new video games (man down – carpal tunnel, I repeat, carpal tunnel)

Seven different cheeses (never ever gonna shit again)

Six repeats of A Christmas Story (“Fra-gee-lay. That must be Italian.”)

Five fugly sweaters (thanks mum, I really, really, like it)

Four bags of garbage (“has anyone seen my $200 bracelet” said the youngest daughter)

Three loads of dishes (look at my pruney hands)   

           

Two mystery stains (I don’t think it’s blood, but …)

And a hangover that makes me want to die. (“Someone get Dad a fuckin’ Bloody Mary —NOW!”)

Now that Christmas is done and the New Year is over, all of the decorations (and for a single guy there is a lot of stuff) have been put away in the various nooks and crannies that they inhabit for the bulk of the year.  I have purchased more ornaments for next year (75% off is really good).  The tree has been collapsed and folded and coaxed and teased and, finally, brute foreced back in to its teensy weensy box and the place seems very empty now.  It is great.  Now onto the business at hand …………….. and finding gainful employment.