tarheelsf4

The Final Four

Germany, France, Portugal, and Italy. Two of these teams failed to make it out of their groups at the '02 World Cup; the other two failed to get out of their groups at Euro '04. In a week, one of them is going to put that behind them and hoist the Jules Rimet trophy. A few thoughts:

1. You think homefield matters to these European sides? If that's the rule, then we might just be biding our time before the Germans with their fourth World Cup. Normally, that would faze me, but there are a couple reasons why I like this German team. First, they're coached by a leftist who lives in California and who famously tangled with Lothar Matthaus because he refused to sign "Deutchland Uber Alles" when the two of them were players. Second, up until yesterday, they had played the most exciting brand of football in the tournament. Spurred on by an American fitness coach (another reason to like the Germans), they've played a higher pressure style than anyone else. What they need to figure out is how to play that style past 90 minutes, because most of their players looked spent in extra time yesterday.

A German that a liberal Jew can appreciate.

2. My told
you sos:

a. Penalty kicks are not a lottery and they aren't luck. They reward teams that can keep their composure and field good keepers. Unless you think it's an accident that Jens Lehmann and Germany won again in penalties and England and Paul Robinson lost again in penalties, I think this is pretty unmistakable. The German reactions to their successes yesterday were telling: no big celebrations or whoops after saves or goals, but rather simple, understated happiness demonstrating that they expect to score and keep their heads about them. Contrast that with Owen Hargreaves' wild yelling after he was the only English player to score, or Paul Robinson's shouting after he dove the wrong way and Hugo Viana hit the outside of the post.

b. England will advance because they are in a weak group and are slotted to play a survivor from another weak group in the first knock-out round, then they'll lose in some sort of bizarre circumstance (probably after blowing a lead, as has been their pattern under Sven), and they'll cross back over the Channel muttering about their bad luck yet again.

c. Want a good dark horse? Meet Australia. They're coached by Guus Hiddink, who has only taken South Korea to the World Cup semis and then PSV to the Champions League semis in the past four years. (He also got the Dutch to the semis in '98, their best showing in the World Cup since losing the '74 and '78 finals.) They have a team full of players with Premiership experience, led by an in-form Harry Kewell. And most importantly, they are drawn in a group with Croatia and Japan, both of whom are eminently beatable for the Aussies. Japan are going to find life a little tougher away from home (and I bet the Germans will still be bitter about that whole Â“not opening a second front in SiberiaÂ” in late 1941). Croatia? Well, according to World Soccer, Dado Prso is their only world class player. Alrighty then.

If only Lucas Neill knew to stay on his feet in the box.

d. Ronaldinho isn't in the best form right now. As I've said over and over again, his shooting has been off-form in 2006. He also isn't quite the dribbler he was before, probably because many of his tricks have been scouted by now. His passing is still sublime and he doesn't get the credit he deserves for being a strong player who can't be knocked off the ball. Overall, he's still the best player in the world for my money, but in terms of form, he isn't the best player in the world in June 2006 (unless he picks things up after having had a little time off).

e. European World Cups tend to be form affairs: West Germany/Holland/Brazil/Sweden were the last four in '74; Italy-West Germany-Poland-France in '82; West Germany-Argentina-England-Italy in '90; and France-Brazil-Holland-Croatia in '98.

Those are almost enough to make you forget that I took the Dutch to win the whole thing (with Ukraine, Brazil, and Argentina joining them in the last four) and I thought that the US would actually win a game. Right?

Miss Cleo knows better than to pick the Dutch.

3. Much as it pains me to watch France advance, it's a joy to watch Zidane dip into his bag of tricks and show his form from the late 90s. He dominated Brazil today, with major assistance from Patrick Viera and Claude Makelele. The three of them bossed Brazil around in the midfield, which meant that the Selecao couldn't keep possession or set their playmakers up in good positions. Ronaldinho did some nice things, especially a free kick in the first half that found Ronaldo on the back post and a nice run and header in the second half that set Robinho up, but generally, he was starved for service. Instead of having Deco, Iniesta, and Edmilson controlling midfield and spraying the ball out to him as he has at Barcelona, Ronaldinho was a peripheral figure today. Zidane was the story today. He gave Henry a finish that even I could bury (the one time Henry could be bothered to stay onside) and he generally showed perfect control and passing from start to finish. When my child is old enough to play soccer, I'll show him/her a tape of this game as the Platonic ideal for midfield play...and then the youngster will get bored and demand to watch the Wiggles and I'll get a lesson in parenting (or my own eccentricity). And let's give a mention for France's defense, which has been rock solid ever since '98 and today was no exception. They simply do not make mistakes, other than Barthez who is the luckiest guy in the world to get to play with Abidal, Sagnol, Gallas, and Thuram in front of him. He's truly the Luc Longley of this French side.

Mssr. Figo, I'll take it all back if you can expose this clown.

4. The Germany-Argentina game yesterday was a perfect illustration of why teams should get additional subs at the end of 90 minutes. How much better would that game have been if Pekerman could have thrown on Messi and Aimar and Klinsi could have thrown on Asamoah and Kehl. Did anyone really need to see Michael Ballack laboring around for the last half hour? And speaking of Ballack, kudos to him for sucking it up and burying his penalty, although I think his was the poorest shot of the four German kicks. Between his guts and his assist on the German goal, he's living up to the enormous pressure he's been under as the star player for the host nation. I look forward to Jose Mourinho chasing the life out of him in another joyless march to a Premiership title.

5. Compare Klinsmann's willingness to bench captain and icon Oliver Kahn in favor of in-form Jens Lehmann with Sven Goran Eriksson's unwillingness to do the same with David Beckham and Aaron Lennon. I know that Beckham can hit a free kick well, but England has a number of players who can do so (although maybe not quite on the same level) and there is no comparison between the threat that Lennon poses and the "threat" that the immobile Beckham poses. Lennon acquitted himself very well in this tournament for England, as did Steven Gerrard (the one England player who is worth the hype), Owen Hargreaves (who has that German workrate and ability to take a penalty), Rio Ferdinand, and Ashley Cole. Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney? Not so much.

6. Was I the only one who thought that Miguel was the man of the match today for Portugal, at least in the first 120 minutes before Ricardo put on a show in the penalty kick stage? Miguel was a defensive rock, he mostly neutralized Joe Cole, and he is incredibly fast and still in control coming forward. Also, he made the biggest play of the game for Portugal, heading away Gerrard's fine cross in extra time that looked certain to end up on Peter Crouch's head. Miguel winning a header in the six-yard box in those circumstances against a much taller player and heading the ball to safety was one of the plays of the tournament. If I had to come up with a short list of players likely to get expensive transfers after this tournament, Miguel from Valencia and Frank Ribery from Marseilles are the first two that come to mind. I was also impressed by Cristiano Ronaldo, who seemed to refrain from useless step-overs for one game and looked genuinely dangerous with the ball. The fact that Dave O'Brien was awed by a few of the meaningless step-overs from Ronaldo, well, I think we've covered that topic already.

And speaking of which, I watched the first 20 minutes of the England game on Univision and then cut over to ABC to see how the much-maligned Balboa and O'Brien were faring. Within a minute, Balboa offered the gem that the England head coaching job is the most difficult in the world because there are so many good players from which to choose and those playres are highly paid and hard to control. Gee, that couldn't possibly describe about ten other national team jobs, could it? (I would be willing to listen to an argument that the job is difficult because of the insane interest and media pressure in England, similar to the Alabama head coaching job in college football, but that wasn't Marcelo's angle.) Needless to say, I was back to Univision shortly thereafter after getting frustrated by O'Brien's desire to talk about everything except for what was going on on the field. JP Dellacamera was a welcome relief during the France-Brazil game, although I muted him at one point after he mentioned for the 687th time that this could be Zinedine Zidane's last game.

7. From Soccernet's write-up of the England game, here's what I love about the English media:

But there was nothing friendly about the way Manchester United's Portuguese winger got his club-mate sent off.

Rooney was battling to keep possession from three Portugal defenders when he raked his studs across the leg of Carvalho, who was on the floor trying to win the ball.

Chelsea defender Carvalho over-reacted and Ronaldo sprinted to the referee, apparently to demand a red card.

Rooney turned to his Manchester United team-mate and pushed him away.

Referee Horatio Elizondo then reached for the red card and sent Rooney off.

Elizondo, from Argentina, sent Beckham off in the World Club Championships in 1999.

For historians writing about the game hundreds of years from now, note that the write-up conveniently omits the fact that Carvalho was "overreact[ing]" to being stamped in the crotch. England was only forced to bravely fight on because their star forward is a Scouser who can't control himself. This wasn't an asteroid falling to earth; this was Rooney being Rooney.

If Wayne Rooney were a Corleone...

Dirty Laundry Redux

I was debating whether or not to do this, but since the column was being discussed in the comments of the last post anyway, I figured why not. Let's take another look at that column. I have nothing else to do right now. CHB appears to be on vacation and has not published any crap for awhile. It's probably going to be re-analyzed everywhere else anyway, now that we have new information. So, in honor of a frequent CHB technique...regurgitation, ladies and gentlemen!

The first few paragraphs consist of vague ballwasheries (look, a neologism!) and some fluff about the Bible that doesn't seem to make me recall any biblical stories I know, but perhaps I'm just forgetting one. Skip all that. It's not worth your time. Here's where the bullshit starts:

Larry taught Theo too well and now he is looking in the mirror as he tries to hammer out a deal with the GM he made in his own image. Both are merely doing what they are trained to do. In Theo's case, he's doing what Larry trained him to do.
"Made in his own image." I know where that is in the Bible. Genesis! Larry is God. Theo is Adam. Who is Eve in all this? Who caused Theo to sin and fall out of favor? I'll arbitrarily attach the label to, um....okay, never mind. This whole thing is bunk anyway. CHB is acting like Theo is some toddler who needs his personality formed by his parents, like both of them are the result of some Pavlovian conditioning experiment in which they're "trained to act" in a certain way. That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

What is alarming -- for the future of the Sox franchise -- is Theo's sudden need to distance himself from those who helped him rise to his position of power. Lucchino and Dr. Charles Steinberg are a pair of Red Sox executives who ''discovered" Theo when he was a student at Yale. They picked him out of thousands of wannabe interns. They hired him in Baltimore and then took him to San Diego with them. They held his hand and drove him places during his Wonder Years. They urged him to get his law degree. And when they set up stakes at Fenway Park, they fought vigorously to bring him home. A year later, when Billy Beane got cold feet, Lucchino turned to 28-year-old Theo and made him the (then) youngest GM in the history of baseball.This absolutely has Steinberg and Lucchino written all over it. It's so badly done that all you can do is laugh at how crude the parrot job is. I'm fairly sure that this is the first thing that set Theo off, the second thing coming shortly after. "Held his hand?" "Wonder Years?" Again, let's please not commit the logical fallacy of making him seem like a precocious toddler, Dan, because everybody and their brother absolutely knows that's not true. If you want to do a rip job, you have to at least make it seem believable.

And now Theo ''bristles at the notion of Steinberg and Lucchino taking credit for his success."
The problem with this is? Why do they get to take credit for it? If somebody took the credit for my success, I'd be pretty pissed off. It wasn't their success, it was his. Astonishing.

That was in March. And now we are in October. And a considerable amount of misinformation has been spilled."And I'm going to add to the cesspool."

Let's start with Theo being a ''baseball guy" while Larry is a lawyer with a lofty title (CEO). Granted, Epstein is a student of the game, but it's a mistake to say he knows more about baseball than Lucchino or anyone else in the Red Sox baseball operation. Theo is 31 years old and did not play baseball past high school. He spent four years at Yale and three years at law school. That hardly leaves time for much more than rotisserie league scouting.Let's start with this being a pile of absolute horseshit. What is Lucchino's background in player evaluation? Oh, that's right, he doesn't have any. Yes, actually, Dan, Theo does know more about baseball than Lucchino. Maybe not the business side, but the playing side? Sure he does. Being born in 1973 does not logically lead to the conclusion that he doesn't know anything. You can know a lot at 31. Also, those 3 years in law school? Ran concurrently with a full-time BASEBALL OPERATIONS job with the Padres. You wrote that in your own goddamned book, you moron.

Lucchino was a good high school baseball player and made it to the NCAA Final Four with Princeton's basketball team. He came to baseball as an executive in 1979, when Theo was 5 years old. That doesn't make him George Digby or Ray Boone, but he's not Les Otten, either.This makes absolutely no sense. He bashes Theo for not playing baseball past high school, and then he never mentions that Lucchino didn't, either! A "good high school baseball player." And then he played BASKETBALL in college. Which has absolutely no relationship whatsoever to baseball except that the words have some of the same letters. Good God. And there's the whole, "Larry is older than Theo" angle. So are you, Dan. It doesn't make you any less of a shit.

Lucchino-bashers, and they are legion, maintain that he repeatedly has undermined Theo and on occasion killed deals made by Epstein and the minions. There was one, for sure. When Theo's assistant Josh Byrnes (hired by Arizona as GM Friday) made a deal with Colorado, Epstein thought he had a better deal with another club and requested that Lucchino fall on the sword and invoke the ownership approval clause to kill the Rockies deal. Accustomed to people hating him, Lucchino took the fall, killing the deal and saving Epstein.I would guess this is the paragraph that pushed Theo over the edge. There's only one place CHB could have gotten that info. And, FWIW, it's wrong. John Henry killed that deal. He wanted to send money instead of prospects and wasn't aware that Colorado had made a deal in anticipation of that one being rubber-stamped. Why he then let Josh Byrnes and Theo take the blame, I have no clue. But the above version is wrong And it probably came from Steinberg. And if CHB had stopped to think about it, he would realize that it makes no sense. Read the quotes after the trade, Dan. Lucchino didn't fall on his sword for anybody, and doing so would be completely out of character. Instead, he threw Josh Byrnes under the bus, forcing Theo to come out and accept blame for something he probably didn't have much to do with, given all the Manny shit at the time. Have we forgotten this? And if the Epstein-Lucchino relationship was in as bad shape as Mnookin claims it to be, it is absolutely unfathomable that Theo would ask Lucchino to do such a thing. That, and he's not a weasel.

It was charged last week that Sox management conducted a ''smear campaign" against Epstein. How? Where's the campaign?Right here, retard.

Summer solstice

Ok, here's another one that's been sitting in the "Draft" box for weeks. Sorry so late.

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It's officially summer, and what better way to celebrate than with another meme. I know, two back to back... is this improper blogging etiquette? Well. Propriety was never my metiér. Besides, Ji-in called upon all summer birthday celebrators to participate in these "10 simple pleasures" meme, and it is not in my nature to ignore the call of duty.

1. Summer daylight hours.
2. Summer birthdays.

3. Summer afternoon naps.
4. Summer places, like the beach.
5. Summer days, driftin' away, but ah-- oh those summer niiights!
6. Summer social, outdoor assemblies that revolve around food, e.g. picnics and barbeques.
7. Summer flora.
8. Summer noises of nature, like those of crickets, morning doves, bullfrogs, and loons.
9. Summer skin tone.
10. Summer Pride celebrations!

Speaking of which, I haven't been to NYC Pride since my first time, six years ago. Not so great associations with that, so I'm hoping to create some better ones. I have been deliberating about whether or not it's a good idea (fiscally) to go, but honestly, I need to be around gay people. Different kinds of gay people, not just the homogeneous community of upper-middle class lesbians parading their adopted Benetton babies around the streets of Smalltown, MA. Sometimes I feel like I'm suffocating at my job; I'm weary of all the damn Brokeback jokes and other cracks about queer people in general. I was recently at a pretentious marketing social and one of the straight, white male bankers with a crooked tie and sparkling white teeth decided to break the ice with some of the cute girls from our company by describing his apparently harrowing experience of walking into a club one night, not knowing it was "Ghetto Gay Night." The theme of the evening at the club was not officially called "Ghetto Gay Night," by the way; that epithet was a homegrown original. One of the girls responded, "Ghetto Gay Night... isn't that, like, a contradiction?"

Wow. On so many levels.

Firstly, nice macking technique. That pick-up conversation would get me into bed in seconds. And he was not even my type.

Secondly, something about this gent's swagger and $3,000 BriteSmile made it difficult for me to believe that he's ever been anywhere near a ghetto. Further, from the way he was describing his night of terror, it didn't sound like he chose the company of gays very often. So, how he could recognize a true "Ghetto Gay" from his suburban Connecticut frame of reference must have been quite a feat. Maybe he should start watching something besides MTV Jams all day. Like, the... news.... um, wait.

As far as the "contradiction" of ghetto and gay-- well, it's interesting that she would find dissonance in the juxtaposition of those two concepts. I wasn't sure if she was doubtful of such a possibility because she thought that people in ghettos could not be homosexual, or, more likely, if she was referring to the rampant homophobia in hip-hop culture. I would have loved to have seen her explore that some more, but she changed the topic. She seemed disdainful of his opening lines, at the very least. It would be nice, however, to see straight "allies" act as such, even in the absence of their queer friends and family.

Maybe I'll see some of you at Pride. We probably won't recognize each other, but know that I'm really glad that you made it out there, too. Happy summer!

The Final Four

Germany, France, Portugal, and Italy. Two of these teams failed to make it out of their groups at the '02 World Cup; the other two failed to get out of their groups at Euro '04. In a week, one of them is going to put that behind them and hoist the Jules Rimet trophy. A few thoughts:

1. You think homefield matters to these European sides? If that's the rule, then we might just be biding our time before the Germans with their fourth World Cup. Normally, that would faze me, but there are a couple reasons why I like this German team. First, they're coached by a leftist who lives in California and who famously tangled with Lothar Matthaus because he refused to sign "Deutchland Uber Alles" when the two of them were players. Second, up until yesterday, they had played the most exciting brand of football in the tournament. Spurred on by an American fitness coach (another reason to like the Germans), they've played a higher pressure style than anyone else. What they need to figure out is how to play that style past 90 minutes, because most of their players looked spent in extra time yesterday.

A German that a liberal Jew can appreciate.

2. My told
you sos:

a. Penalty kicks are not a lottery and they aren't luck. They reward teams that can keep their composure and field good keepers. Unless you think it's an accident that Jens Lehmann and Germany won again in penalties and England and Paul Robinson lost again in penalties, I think this is pretty unmistakable. The German reactions to their successes yesterday were telling: no big celebrations or whoops after saves or goals, but rather simple, understated happiness demonstrating that they expect to score and keep their heads about them. Contrast that with Owen Hargreaves' wild yelling after he was the only English player to score, or Paul Robinson's shouting after he dove the wrong way and Hugo Viana hit the outside of the post.

b. England will advance because they are in a weak group and are slotted to play a survivor from another weak group in the first knock-out round, then they'll lose in some sort of bizarre circumstance (probably after blowing a lead, as has been their pattern under Sven), and they'll cross back over the Channel muttering about their bad luck yet again.

c. Want a good dark horse? Meet Australia. They're coached by Guus Hiddink, who has only taken South Korea to the World Cup semis and then PSV to the Champions League semis in the past four years. (He also got the Dutch to the semis in '98, their best showing in the World Cup since losing the '74 and '78 finals.) They have a team full of players with Premiership experience, led by an in-form Harry Kewell. And most importantly, they are drawn in a group with Croatia and Japan, both of whom are eminently beatable for the Aussies. Japan are going to find life a little tougher away from home (and I bet the Germans will still be bitter about that whole Ânot opening a second front in SiberiaÂ in late 1941). Croatia? Well, according to World Soccer, Dado Prso is their only world class player. Alrighty then.

If only Lucas Neill knew to stay on his feet in the box.

d. Ronaldinho isn't in the best form right now. As I've said over and over again, his shooting has been off-form in 2006. He also isn't quite the dribbler he was before, probably because many of his tricks have been scouted by now. His passing is still sublime and he doesn't get the credit he deserves for being a strong player who can't be knocked off the ball. Overall, he's still the best player in the world for my money, but in terms of form, he isn't the best player in the world in June 2006 (unless he picks things up after having had a little time off).

e. European World Cups tend to be form affairs: West Germany/Holland/Brazil/Sweden were the last four in '74; Italy-West Germany-Poland-France in '82; West Germany-Argentina-England-Italy in '90; and France-Brazil-Holland-Croatia in '98.

Those are almost enough to make you forget that I took the Dutch to win the whole thing (with Ukraine, Brazil, and Argentina joining them in the last four) and I thought that the US would actually win a game. Right?

Miss Cleo knows better than to pick the Dutch.

3. Much as it pains me to watch France advance, it's a joy to watch Zidane dip into his bag of tricks and show his form from the late 90s. He dominated Brazil today, with major assistance from Patrick Viera and Claude Makelele. The three of them bossed Brazil around in the midfield, which meant that the Selecao couldn't keep possession or set their playmakers up in good positions. Ronaldinho did some nice things, especially a free kick in the first half that found Ronaldo on the back post and a nice run and header in the second half that set Robinho up, but generally, he was starved for service. Instead of having Deco, Iniesta, and Edmilson controlling midfield and spraying the ball out to him as he has at Barcelona, Ronaldinho was a peripheral figure today. Zidane was the story today. He gave Henry a finish that even I could bury (the one time Henry could be bothered to stay onside) and he generally showed perfect control and passing from start to finish. When my child is old enough to play soccer, I'll show him/her a tape of this game as the Platonic ideal for midfield play...and then the youngster will get bored and demand to watch the Wiggles and I'll get a lesson in parenting (or my own eccentricity). And let's give a mention for France's defense, which has been rock solid ever since '98 and today was no exception. They simply do not make mistakes, other than Barthez who is the luckiest guy in the world to get to play with Abidal, Sagnol, Gallas, and Thuram in front of him. He's truly the Luc Longley of this French side.

Mssr. Figo, I'll take it all back if you can expose this clown.

4. The Germany-Argentina game yesterday was a perfect illustration of why teams should get additional subs at the end of 90 minutes. How much better would that game have been if Pekerman could have thrown on Messi and Aimar and Klinsi could have thrown on Asamoah and Kehl. Did anyone really need to see Michael Ballack laboring around for the last half hour? And speaking of Ballack, kudos to him for sucking it up and burying his penalty, although I think his was the poorest shot of the four German kicks. Between his guts and his assist on the German goal, he's living up to the enormous pressure he's been under as the star player for the host nation. I look forward to Jose Mourinho chasing the life out of him in another joyless march to a Premiership title.

5. Compare Klinsmann's willingness to bench captain and icon Oliver Kahn in favor of in-form Jens Lehmann with Sven Goran Eriksson's unwillingness to do the same with David Beckham and Aaron Lennon. I know that Beckham can hit a free kick well, but England has a number of players who can do so (although maybe not quite on the same level) and there is no comparison between the threat that Lennon poses and the "threat" that the immobile Beckham poses. Lennon acquitted himself very well in this tournament for England, as did Steven Gerrard (the one England player who is worth the hype), Owen Hargreaves (who has that German workrate and ability to take a penalty), Rio Ferdinand, and Ashley Cole. Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney? Not so much.

6. Was I the only one who thought that Miguel was the man of the match today for Portugal, at least in the first 120 minutes before Ricardo put on a show in the penalty kick stage? Miguel was a defensive rock, he mostly neutralized Joe Cole, and he is incredibly fast and still in control coming forward. Also, he made the biggest play of the game for Portugal, heading away Gerrard's fine cross in extra time that looked certain to end up on Peter Crouch's head. Miguel winning a header in the six-yard box in those circumstances against a much taller player and heading the ball to safety was one of the plays of the tournament. If I had to come up with a short list of players likely to get expensive transfers after this tournament, Miguel from Valencia and Frank Ribery from Marseilles are the first two that come to mind. I was also impressed by Cristiano Ronaldo, who seemed to refrain from useless step-overs for one game and looked genuinely dangerous with the ball. The fact that Dave O'Brien was awed by a few of the meaningless step-overs from Ronaldo, well, I think we've covered that topic already.

And speaking of which, I watched the first 20 minutes of the England game on Univision and then cut over to ABC to see how the much-maligned Balboa and O'Brien were faring. Within a minute, Balboa offered the gem that the England head coaching job is the most difficult in the world because there are so many good players from which to choose and those playres are highly paid and hard to control. Gee, that couldn't possibly describe about ten other national team jobs, could it? (I would be willing to listen to an argument that the job is difficult because of the insane interest and media pressure in England, similar to the Alabama head coaching job in college football, but that wasn't Marcelo's angle.) Needless to say, I was back to Univision shortly thereafter after getting frustrated by O'Brien's desire to talk about everything except for what was going on on the field. JP Dellacamera was a welcome relief during the France-Brazil game, although I muted him at one point after he mentioned for the 687th time that this could be Zinedine Zidane's last game.

7. From Soccernet's write-up of the England game, here's what I love about the English media:

But there was nothing friendly about the way Manchester United's Portuguese winger got his club-mate sent off.

Rooney was battling to keep possession from three Portugal defenders when he raked his studs across the leg of Carvalho, who was on the floor trying to win the ball.

Chelsea defender Carvalho over-reacted and Ronaldo sprinted to the referee, apparently to demand a red card.

Rooney turned to his Manchester United team-mate and pushed him away.

Referee Horatio Elizondo then reached for the red card and sent Rooney off.

Elizondo, from Argentina, sent Beckham off in the World Club Championships in 1999.

For historians writing about the game hundreds of years from now, note that the write-up conveniently omits the fact that Carvalho was "overreact[ing]" to being stamped in the crotch. England was only forced to bravely fight on because their star forward is a Scouser who can't control himself. This wasn't an asteroid falling to earth; this was Rooney being Rooney.

If Wayne Rooney were a Corleone...

Brazil and Spain share FIFA Fair Play Award

Brazil and Spain have been chosen by the FIFA Technical Study Group (TSG) as the joint winners of the FIFA Fair Play Award for the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™, after picking up a total of 886 points from the 1,000 available.

The FIFA Fair Play Award is given to the team with the best record of Fair Play, sportsmanship and good conduct both on and off the pitch, according to a points system and criteria established by the FIFA Committee for Ethics and Fair Play.

Every single game at the tournament is evaluated according to these criteria, but only teams who reach the Round of 16 are considered eligible for the prize. The squads will share the prestigious FIFA Fair Play Trophy as well as receiving medals for each member of their playing and coaching staff, a certificate, and a voucher for 50,000 US dollars worth of sporting material to be used in youth development. The evaluation is carried out according to six criteria which place an emphasis on the positive rather than the negative aspects of a team’s performance.

The number of cards a team receives is the only way that points can be deducted. The other criteria taken into consideration are: positive play, with points awarded for an attractive, offensive-minded playing style; respect for opponents; respect for the officials; behaviour of the coaching staff and the behaviour of supporters.

Third success for Brazil
For the third time in the history of the award, the Brazilian national team can take pride in having won the FIFA Fair Play Award. That said, the Auriverde's fanatical supporters would have clearly preferred their team to repeat their magnificent double from USA 94, when the Seleção took home both the FIFA Fair Play Award and the FIFA World Cup Trophy.

While Brazil may have shown only rare glimpses of their renowned jogo bonito here on German soil, they cannot be accused of not playing fair. Leading by example was defender Lucio, who went more than four games without conceding a single free-kick. The Bayern Munich centre-back committed his first foul in his side's quarter-final defeat against France.

Spain leave their Furia at home
Luis Aragones’s Spain side may have ended up heading home earlier than expected after their flying start to this summer's showpiece tournament, but at least they can take some consolation from winning the FIFA Fair Play Award for the very first time. Known in some circles as La Furia Roja (The Red Fury), Xavi and Co channelled their aggression into playing an open, expansive style of football, teamed with the very highest standards of sportsmanship.

La Selección received just six cards in their four games here at Germany 2006. Strangely enough, three of these cards were shown to members of Aragones's second-string side deployed in the final group game against Saudi Arabia.

Previous winners
Korea/Japan 2002: Belgium
France 1998: England and France
USA 1994: Brazil
Italy 1990: England
Mexico 1986: Brazil