Prank or earnest query, it was embarrassing either way
(Chicago Fire/Twitter)
After being treated like Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense by Manchester United, the reception Bastian Schweinsteiger received after landing in Chicago must have been a shock to his lonely, lonely system.
That was the good. As for the bad, well, that came during Schweinsteiger’s introductory press conference a bit later, when one person asked him if he will help the Chicago Fire win the World Cup.
This had to be a prank perpetrated by a local morning radio show or something. But if it wasn’t, it’s evidence of just how much of a forgotten entity the Chicago Fire and the sport itself have become over the Fire’s recent years of irrelevance.
You can really see the exact moment Schweinsteiger considers that being ignored by Man United might have been better than being subjected to questions like this.
This was supposed to be a perfect week for Cristiano Ronaldo. Bringing the Euro 2016 trophy back to his home island of Madeira as it hosts a rare Portuguese national team match before getting the incredible honor of having the local airport named after him. And on top of it all, Lionel Messi was banned four matches by FIFA for insulting a referee.
It was all going so well. Just 18 minutes into the match against Sweden, Cristiano scored to give Portugal a 1–0 lead and continue the dream-like experience. But then it all started to go wrong. Sweden scored twice in the second half to make it 2–2 and then a João Cancelo own goal in the third minute of added time gave Sweden a 3–2 win. Sure, it was only a friendly, but this was Cristiano’s friendly and it was tainted.
But no matter—surely the airport renaming ceremony would make up for the loss. How many footballers can say they have an airport named after them? Not many.
The local government even commissioned a bust of Ronaldo to be positioned just outside the airport, because if there’s one thing a island with a Cristiano Ronaldo museum, Cristiano Ronaldo statue, and Cristiano Ronaldo hotel needs is a bust of Cristiano Ronaldo outside the Cristiano Ronaldo airport. Except, there was something not quite right about the bust.
Jamie Vardy came off the bench to score the second goal in England’s 2–0 win over Lithuania on Sunday, but that doesn’t mean he was entirely happy with his performance. At one point, he headbutted the ground—and this was after he had already scored.
This is far from the first time Vardy has physically punished himself during a match, though. As we discussed on the first episode of the Dirty Tackle podcast, Vardy punched himself in the face (repeatedly) after a miss in Leicester’s Champions League win over Sevilla.
He also did it during England’s match against Turkey last year.
And during Leicester match against Hull City…
And, perhaps most bizarrely, he smashed his FIFA 16 player card over his head during a press event.
This type of behavior shouldn’t be shocking from someone who drinks Skittle infused vodka, but the man needs to be required to wear a helmet and boxing gloves. He’s going to be the first athlete to retire from self-induced concussions.
When we last left Dries Mertens, he was pretending to urinate on the corner flag like a dog after scoring a goal for Napoli. Now, on international duty with Belgium, he’s acting out a half-baked nose-pinching scheme he must have gotten from an old episode of the Three Stooges.
Mertens’ unwilling partner in this odd display was Greece defender Georgios Tzavellas. The Belgian tried to grab Tzavellas’ nose once, but the defender was able to evade his fingers, so Mertens—being the weirdo that he is—decided to give it another go. Tzavellas wasn’t having it, though. You would think that having a stranger be nice enough to make sure you don’t have anything dangling out of your nose would at least get a “thank you,” but apparently not.
Mertens was booked for this, but Tzavellas was eventually sent off in the final minutes of the match, which ended 1–1.
A qualifying match that opened up a tangent universe where anything is possible
The United States beat Honduras 6–0 to climb out of last place in CONCACAF World Cup qualifying and win the 2018 World Cup on Friday night. Clint Dempsey led the team with a hat trick in the first qualifier of Bruce Arena’s second go-around as manager after replacing Jurgen “The Human Albatross” Klinsmann.
The LA Galaxy’s Sebastian Lletget opened the goal tsunami in just the fifth minute, scoring the first of his international career for his former club manager before going off with an injury in the 17th minute. Michael Bradley then showed that he can still hurt you when you give him a free shot from distance in the 27th minute, Dempsey scored his hat trick in a span of 22 minutes, and Christian Pulisic scored his fourth international goal at the age of 18 amidst general omnipotence.
With this emphatic victory over mighty, 65th-ranked Honduras, the U.S. win their first ever World Cup title and move up to fourth in the CONCACAF qualifying table, four points behind undefeated and mostly ignored Mexico.
The sudden and drastic swing in form for the U.S. will inevitably be used to validate long-simmering doubts as to whether Klinsmann is even able to tie his own shoes without an adult helping him. He was fired after losing the first two matches of this qualifying round, including a dire 4–0 loss to Costa Rica. Although, in his defense, he did not have Dempsey (who is now just two goals behind Landon Donovan’s team record) available to him, nor did he have young Christian Pulisic in his current form as a Leo Messi/Cristiano Ronaldo/P-Rex, All-Powerful God of Soccer hybrid.
But just as he celebrated when his successor with the German national team won the 2014 World Cup, he now celebrates when his successor with the U.S. national team wins the 2018 World Cup, lending credence to the theory that this is all just part of his grand plan.
6:0! Awesome result and fantastic to see @clint_dempsey being back healthy and scoring again! Way to go!
Maybe one day we’ll all be able to fully understand what has happened here, but in the meantime, stay tuned for details on the celebratory parade that Klinsmann already had planned out for the occasion.
Patrizia Panico has made history in Italian football and her players are a little confused
(FIGC)
When former Italian international Patrizia Panico was named coach of Italy’s male U-16 team, she made history as the first woman to coach a men’s national side. Her first two matches in charge were a pair of friendlies against Germany. Italy lost the first 4–1, but won the second 3–2.
Naturally, all of this has drawn more attention than a U-16 national team usually receives. In an interview with the BBC, Panico, who racked up over 200 caps for Italy in her playing days, revealed that her players call her “Mister.”
“The boys are used to addressing the coach in the male form, as ‘mister.’ To be honest, I don’t really mind. The important thing is that there is always respect on both sides.” she says.
With two losses in their first two matches of CONCACAF’s fifth round of World Cup qualifying and a new/old coach now at the helm, the U.S. desperately need a jump start ahead of their match against Honduras. And so, at a rally the night before the qualifier, Landon Donovan decided to offer a very literal jump start by nearly plunging to his death off a taco truck.
Two-time FIFA World Player of the Year Carli Lloyd scored on her Women’s Champions League debut for Manchester City, providing the only goal in the first leg of their quarterfinal against Fortuna Hjorring.
This shouldn’t be terribly surprising. What was a bit curious, however, was the shirt number Lloyd wore for the match: №55. There was good reason why she couldn’t wear her customary №10 (Daphne Corboz wore it in earlier rounds of the competition), so it seems Lloyd got a bit creative, adding two fives together to imply her preferred number.
Alex Morgan, another American on loan in Europe, also made her Champions League debut for Lyon and also had to get a bit creative with her shirt number. She opted to flip her usual №13 to №31. And during the first half against Wolfsburg, she hit the post. Blame the number.
“Most of the 1,288 packages of drugs were camouflaged as squid filets and had a label that said ‘Messi’ along with a picture of the Argentina player Lionel Messi wearing the shirt of the Spanish club Barcelona,” the news release said.
But this wasn’t the first time Messi cocaine has been seized by law enforcement. It happened in October of last year…
So what’s going on here? Is this Messi’s plan to get on Maradona’s good side? Whatever the motivation, Messi becoming a drug kingpin would explain the transformation he has undergone in recent months.
It wasn’t that long ago that Leo looked like he was perpetually 12 years old.
It was a drastic change for someone who was once so understated. But if you’re going to move large quantities of coke, you’ve gotta look the part in order to keep rivals in check. Suddenly everything makes sense.
Listen, enjoy, and VOTE (not necessarily in that order)
This is it—episode one of the Dirty Tackle podcast.
In our big debut, Ryan Bailey, Theo Messi, and myself sort through real and fake news (Manuel Pellegrini on dancing with the stars? Arsene Wenger’s parrots? Coutinho’s Mickey Mouse tattoo?) in “True Are Ya?”, offer up our Dirty Tackles of the Week as retribution for improper conduct in the football world, and give our rulings on hot button topics like plane banners, sleeve sponsors, and Cristiano Ronaldo Airport in “Life Ref” (which has an amazing theme song, by the way). Plus hear totally not made up ads for the outrageously priced Miami Clasico and new technology to get you through the international break.
So give it a listen (iTunes link), subscribe, and then tell everyone you know to do the same because this show is part of the Panoply Pilot Project, which means we only get to make more if you demand it (VOTE FOR OUR SHOW HERE to help it continue).
Thanks to our producer Dan Bloom and Jayson De Leon for making this happen. And thanks to everyone who listens. We had a great time making this show and we’d love to keep it going.
