Turd of the Week (#24)

	Turd of the Week
7/31/99

Hero of the Week: Miami Fusion defender Edwin Gorter for his 83rd minute free kick goal that gave the Fusion a 1-0 victory over the RotMasters, and delivered us from yet another godawful MLS crapshoot.

How low can the RotMasters go? UEFA Cup holders Parma warmed up for their impending Serie A campaign with a 31-0 victory (that is not a typo) over local side Morgex. Leading scorer was Croatian forward Mario Stanic, who almost had a hat trick of hat tricks, with eight goals. (Major Italian sides traditionally train in the cool Italian Alps during July and August, where matches against local sides form an important but not always representative part of their training.) There is no truth to the rumor Juventus are seeking to spend Summer 2000 in the Catskills, regularly running up basketball scores against the RotMasters.

Best slam TotW didn't write this week: "Having been linked with more footballers than Dani Behr - a joke for all you Anglophiles out there - the transfer maestro that is Bryan Robson finally landed his first capture of the summer when he got Christian Ziege. The signing of Paul Ince from Liverpool is still possible, enabling Middlesbrough to field a midfield graveyard of Ince, Gazza and Andy Townsend. The site of that trio, pension books and ancient war stories flailing in their wake as they stumble through the midfield marshes in January should be a thrilling sight. They should live that long." (Matchday USA analysis of Middlesboro's impending Premier League season.)

TotW Reader Q&A
Reader #1:	What would you get if you combined (Doug) Logan and (Steve) Sampson in the same room?
TotW Answer:	Milorganite.

Reader #2:	Maybe Logan could begin the paperwork for Turd Emeritus?
Reader #3:	Logan has a ways to go to be Turd Emeritus over Sampson.
Reader #4:	Emeritus just means that you have achieved a certain level, and are now being put out to pasture, not expected to produce any more, but are recognized for everything done in the past. So, Logan's not ready for Turd Emeritus yet, as was Sampson, since Logan can easily produce much more fodder (actually fodder by-products?) for [TotW] comments.

I have to get this off my chest: The Milwaukee Rampage, who last Friday, met up with the team that had knocked them out of the US Open Cup two months ago, the Tennessee Rhythm. One would expect the Rampage to be out for blood. The Rhythm coach also coaches a youth team on which the son of the boss of the captain of my O-30 team plays. So my captain, Dan, is shmoozing the Rhythm coach before the game and finds out the Rhythm, a first year team, are basically semi-pros, making $25 a game. So Dan and another guy in our group (all us Rampage supporters), Paulie, are thinking the Rhythm will be easy pickings, especially since the Rhythm captain got sent off in just the 5th minute. And indeed the Rampage laid fruitless siege to the Rhythm goal for the next 35 minutes -- until the Rampage had a player sent off. Score 0:0 at the break. The second half saw the increasingly inept Rampage give up three goals to lose 0:3, seriously damaging the Rampage's chances of extending their streak of making the playoffs every year of the team's existence. The Milwaukee supporters applauded, but for Tennessee, not the Rampage. The Milwaukee coach, Cacho Cordoba (last seen in MLS giving up the Miami Fusion reins to Ivo Wortman), didn't have much to offer the team in terms of tactics during the game, but nonetheless had them paying the price Monday afternoon, running endless sprints in the heat & humidity of Milwaukee's latest heatwave.

Milwaukee Rampage

Dingleberries of the Week

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1999 Archive