Turd of the Week (#78)

	Turd of the Week
12/16/00

Club of the Week: Pennsylvania Stoners. In the era of "Just say 'No!'", you have admire a team that names itself after after dope-smoking Foghat fans. The Stoners played in the American Soccer League from 1979-1983, accumulating a record of 76-22-51. The Stoners appeared in two ASL finals, winning the cup in 1980, despite an uncontrollable craving for nachos.

Slam of the Week: "Manchester United's quiet man Dwight Yorke with plastic surgery addict Jordan (three breast enhancements and counting) ... have fallen madly into bed -- sorry, make that 'fallen madly in love' -- after just three days together. We won't bother you with the sordid details, save to say that silicon guarantees these will be the biggest tits Dwight has played with since he last lined up alongside the Neville brothers." (www.Football365.com)

The new Wembley Stadium (artist's rendering)

The discarded design for England's new 'national' stadium.

Hanging in there: The Twin Towers were given a reprieve this week as development of McWembley was indefinitely delayed due to obscene cost. With beautiful new stadia recently going for £176 million (in Cardiff of all places), to a bargain £255 million in expensive Paris, to £294 million for the multipurpose Olympic©®™ facility in Sydney, the obscenity of McWembley's £660 million cost -- triple it's original estimate and not including The Cost That Dare Not Speak Its Name (interest) -- eventually became evident even to the dim bulbs at the FA. It should come as no surprise that McWembley's chief proponent was Ken Bates, who tacked extras like hotels and restaurants onto McWembley like he was tacking over-priced has-beens onto Chelsea's squad. The next design for England's next 'national' stadium will also forgo the golden arches.

Charles signs with Borussia Dortmund

Wuerzburg, Germany (SoccerTimes) -- United States Olympic©®™ team and University of Portland striker Clive Charles is on his way to the German Bundesliga after signing a four-and-a-half-year contract with Borussia Dortmund. Charles, 19, is expected to report to Dortmund early in January for the deal that runs through the 2005 season.

Borussia lost ace Heiko Herrlich to a brain tumor, but the team is already well stocked with quality non-European Union players on the first team. With Bundesliga team's only allowed to dress three none-EU players per match, Charles's only chance of seeing first team action would be if the rest of the squad contracted scurvy or if Charles's former college coach Conor Casey were appointed Borussia's coach.

Charles is the second American attacker to sign with the popular Dortmund side. Jovan Kirovski spent five years warming Borussia's bench, before a big money transfer to Sporting Lisbon, where he currently cleans boots and mows grass. "His international career has taken off," said Charles. "And I hope to follow in his footsteps."

It is likely the 6-foot, 175-pound forward will start his Dortmund career with the reserve side which currently sits last in the German third division north and desperately needs help to avoid relegation to the fourth division.

Charles's one assist led the US to a semifinal berth in the Olympics©®™. He also registered an assist in the Olympic©®™qualifying tournament -- prodigious feats which impressed Borussia chairman Otto Scheisskopf: "Our U-8 team needs Charles's sublime scoring touch"

Weekly Blotter

Algiers (Algeria): JS Kabylie supporters invaded the pitch after the home side defeated visiting Ismailia in the CAF Cup final, harassing the Egyptians and stealing their kit. The Confederation of African Football fined the Algerian FA $10,000 for the incident. CAF also fined Ismailia $5,000, after its players, understandably fearful of further problems, refused to take the podium to accept their second place medals.
Milan (Italy): AC Parma skated into the Italian Cup semifinal, defeating a shaken Inter on 6:1 aggregate. Inter's failure is understandable in light of their relief at being alive and able to play the match after their bus was torched by Molotov cocktails on the way into San Siro stadium ... by their own supporters.
Nyon (Switzerland): UEFA fluttered fines down on Europe's teams like snowflakes on the Swiss alps. Lazio got hit twice, receiving an $18,000 fine after its fans directed racial abuse at Leeds United during a Champions League match, and an $8,000 fine for player misconduct against Anderlecht; Panathinaikos and Olympiakos Piraeus were fined $9,000 for fan misbehavior; and PAOK Salonika was $56,000 for fan misbehavior at UEFA Cup matches against Udinese and PSV Eindhoven. $91,000, despite the lack of fatalities, is 40x what FIFA fined Zimbabwe for killing people.

Another one bites the dust: Paul Tierney resigned his chairmanship of DC United, making American soccer's flagship team a ward of the MLS state. If no new investor could be found for a club which has accumulated eight trophies in only five years, what hope is there for Major Laughing Stock's other league operated teams in Tampa, Dallas and pitiful San Jose? (The ClashQuakes are a team so consistently awful that even the cheese pimps from Taxachusetts are bailing on it in favor of NE Revolution, their 'successful' franchise.) "I'm very disappointed to see my investment deteriorate this way," Tierney said. "I've never liked the single-entity structure." Unfortunately, Paul, you are not a US District Court judge. An anonymous source told the Associated Press that the shift in the control of the franchise has had little effect on the daily operations of the team, "since the Moonies bought our training ground and the league allocated, drafted, traded or dispersed all our players to Tampa Bay, Miami, or English pub league sides." In addition to losing investors, the Great Satan -- Nike -- will provide kit to two fewer teams, and ESPN-parent ABC may not broadcast any matches at all after seeing the picoscopic ratings produced by MLS product like "ExtraTime". (If the intent of MLS shortening it's season was to have fewer weekday matches, then what could have possibly possessed them to schedule both of United's home derbys against the MetroStars for the Wednesday night attendance and ratings crematorium?) "These are times MLS is glad it has the longest offseason in professional sports," ESPN.com's Jeff Bradley wrote. "This year, it seems they're going to need all that time to get things sorted out."

"The 1st Rule of Homerism:
Be a fan, but don't be an idiot."
(Steve 'the Homer' True,
Milwaukee sports broadcaster)

At least they got this one right: FIFA named Michelle Akers its women's Player of the Century. Akers received her award in Rome, where Pele and Maradona were last seen at the Colisseum, getting stuck in with pitchforks and swords (but more on that later). Akers list of international accomplishments takes quite awhile to repeat: 153 caps; 105 goals; three World Cup appearances (twice a winner); Golden Boot at World Cup'91 with 10 goals, including two in the final; Bronze Ball at World Cup'99; and an Olympic©®™ gold medal at Atlanta'96 -- all despite spending the last decade ravaged by disease and injury. With big time women's soccer less than two decades old, FIFA had a rather thin field from which to choose, but by any standard Akers is one of football's all-time greats. Still, 1991 appears to beyond the Alzheimer's addled memories of the average sports fan. (That or some Chinese hackers used a bot to run up the vote.) What else could explain Sun Wen, who otherwise has won nothing, emerging triumphant in FIFA's internet poll, with 45% of the vote -- four times the 12% of Akers, who finished third. You people are idiots.

Maradona accepts Asshole of the Century award

"You deserve the award more than I do."
"No, you deserve it. I insist."

Asshole of the Century: You are forgiven if you missed the women's Player of the Century award in the maelstrom that followed the announcement of the men's Player of the Century. Pele won the FIFA voting with a whopping 73%, to only 10% for Alfredo DiStefano and 6% for Maradona. (The only shock there being that DiStefano -- the best player on the most dominant club in soccer history, Real Madrid -- did not get more votes.) Pele's award, wrote Scotland's Daily Record, was indeed the triumph of "Style Over Substances".

As with the women's internet results, the voters must have been doing lines with Diego: they gave Maradona the nod(off) with 54%, to only 18% for Pele.

Prior to his pre-ordained triumph, Maradona was asked who he would have voted for. Confirming he has a long way to go before he's kicked coke, Maradona's rambling response included Michael Owen.

Because Pele's award was announced after Maradona's, and Maradona's supposedly impending victory had been forecast by the media (the same cretins who sway elections by forecasting political votes before the polls are closed), they and their allies in Argentina and Naples, squawked that the election had been rigged. If it was rigged anywhere it was rigged from Buenos Aires. As Mario Zagallo, a World Cup winner for Brazil as both a player and coach, said: "To choose the best in the world by keyboard is a joke."

Displaying all the class of their idol, Napoli's supporters displayed a banner that "Pele isn't fit to be one of Maradona's testicles". For his part, Maradona left the stage after receiving his award, refusing to stick around for Pele's ceremony.

Without any objective criteria by which to judge something, what these 'greatest' and 'best' votes boil down to is a beauty contest without big titties. (Except in Maradona's case.)

Maradona began the year with a snoot full of toot and a non-functional cardiovascular system, and ended it in a different way altogether. TotW is a firm believer that past performance is the best predictor of future performance: Do not be surprised if sometime soon Maradona is found face down in a mound of pink Peruvian flake like Al Pacino in "Scarface". So, though Maradona's year did not end the way it began, our's does:

Diego Maradona

Turd of the Week

p.s. - Has Diego showed up yet for his coaching gig at Almagro?

TotW
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