If you’re an American, you probably don’t like kickball that much. You probably think that a bunch of guys in short shorts barely scoring is too much like your 7th grade gym class, so you’ll quickly turn the channel. I’m here to equip you with the soccer acumen that will win you the respect of even the swarthiest, neck-bearded, Slovakian bedecked in his best tracksuit.

Now, let’s break down the groups:

Group A

Mexico: Some people (Matt Cale) think they are nothing more than a festive brown race who does nothing more than mow lawns and make anchor-babies, but nothing could be farther from the truth. They’ve made vast, rich cultural strides in recent years (the Dos Equis man and George Lopez show). Anyway, they’re a team built on speed (but that goes without saying for a people that must continuously elude the border patrol), but just because they are small and fast, doesn’t mean they are weak– these little pepper-bellies are as feisty as they come and won’t submit to intimidation.

South Africa: Most people don’t know much about this country or team except that sharks frequent the beaches (thanks to Discovery Channel’s Shark Week) and they filmed District 9 there. Fucking drug-addicted aliens with badass weapons, what an awesome movie! Anyway, the South Africans have home field advantage, because ALL the games will be played here. It’s kind of unfair, but so was Apartheid, so… yeah. They have a fantastic squad of kick-stoppers, and good height, so expect them to put up a fight against pretty much anybody (except the English or the Dutch, we all know how they fare against them historically).

France: The French are great at nuclear power, cheese, and body hair; however, in the realm of competitive sport, you get the feeling that most of the players will fall victim to that classic French ennui, and quit mid-match to write a poem about a listless summer’s evening. They have players named “Sebastian” and “Florent.” In America, you know what gets named Sebastian and Florent? Fluffy Persian cats. These war-losers are one and done. Or is this thing double elimination? I have no fucking idea.

Uruguay: This country is pronounced, in American, “You’re a Gay.” Finally, a country the homosexuals can root for! Nothing wrong with being gay. I’m all for gay marriage and gays in the military. I’ve got gay friends. I even let them use the bathroom in my house. It’s no big deal to me. Anyway, let’s get to the breakdown: this team’s rear defenses are often breached, but they are known to possess superior ball control, and often use manipulation and loud colors to persuade officials.

Group B

South Korea: A quality squad with soul, who actually have an advantage in South Africa’s hot sun, as they are already squinting, and won’t have to make the large facial adjustments the roundeye westerners will. Their best player, No Nuk Mi, is famous for running so fast he burns a line down the middle of the field, which he then dares the opposition to cross.

Argentina: They’ve got a guy on the team named Lionel Messi who is like the Michael Jordan of soccer, so I’m giving this team the edge to win it all. If MJ can get a ring with the likes of Bill Winnington, then Messi can take home the cup. I don’t care if he has to play with Stephen Hawking, Air Bud, Sinbad, and Natalee Holloway’s ghost, he’s kicking circles around the fucking world to win this thing. Argentina in six!

Nigeria: I thought they were part of South Africa or something. Didn’t they shoot Blackhawk Down here? Or Hotel Rwanda. Oh right, that was in Rwanda. Is this where they cut off kids’ hands and make them work in diamond mines? How in the world can a kid mine diamonds with no hands? That makes no sense, but I’ll keep telling my girlfriend that anyway to deter me having to buy her a ring. Point is, more Americans should learn more about Africa. I’m going to google that shit right after writing this. Anyway, I give them a good chance to win some games because genocide makes a country strong and strong countries kick the ball real hard.

Greece: The inventors of democracy… and fucking little boys. I bet if Rome played Greece in a kickball game, it would just turn out to be some giant pedo orgy. Their best player, Jesse Katsopolis, is going to miss the tournament because his band, The Rippers, have a gig that weekend at a teen club. My prediction for the first game: Greece fades in the fourth quarter to get their asses handed to them in a classic 1-0 soccer blowout.

Group C

Algeria: I know nothing about this country. Where is it? It could be next to Mongolia, You’re-Gay, or Alaska, I have no idea. The flag looks a little Communistic, so that’s cool. I bet if they lose the match, all the players will have to go back to their jobs in the pants factory, because everybody in the whole fucking country wears the same pair of pants. To each according to his needs, and they all need to dress alike. I think Trotsky wrote that. I just went to their web page and saw one of their players got amnesty from FIFA. What the fuck is FIFA, do they make wind suits, like the American knock-off of FILA? Or did they just sponsor the World Cup, in the same way Tostitos sponsors the Rose Bowl?

England: I sure hope Jason Statham is on the team, and since he’s probably the biggest dude on the whole island, I’m guessing he is. I’m kidding myself, their best guy is most likely named Pip Shillingsworth and he’s slow, wears tube socks, and keeps his monocle tucked tightly in his bum during matches. Oh, I forgot about David Beckham. Nevermind, isn’t he always hurt? That classic frail English bone structure will never hold up over time. That’s why you’ve got about 6 million guys in London named Oliver who walk with a cane before they are 40 years old. However, our English brothers from across the pond are always clever, cheeky, and resourceful, so you can’t ever count them out. I think they’ll make it to the sweet sixteen.

Slovenia: Isn’t this where Vlade Divac is from? Great, a whole team of aging floppers who talk like Boris from Bullwinkle. You know the best thing Slovenia produces? Slutty porn actresses who do the most depraved, indecent things you will ever see (south of Germany). Plus, I’m pretty sure this team hates each other by now, they probably split into 3 separate teams based on ethnic division during the team’s continental breakfast in a Holiday Inn. The super-kickers are fighting with the infielders. The defensive backs are fighting with the wingmen. It’s probably complete chaos. I bet by the time they have their second match, ethnic cleansing has already taken place in their hotel suite, and five Serbians show up for the next game too tired to even jump for the tip-off.

United States: I, like most Americans, can tell you who is 5th on the depth chart in the Buffalo Bills receiving corps, but I can’t tell you the best soccer player on our team. All I know is we will probably win the whole fucking shit! I’m an American, that means I have confidence without reason. I think I can beat all of you up. I think my dick is the biggest here. I think I’m smarter than every person to walk the earth before me. Oh hell, I think I could probably fly a plane if left alone in one for about ten minutes. Even if we lose, we’ll probably just take another bite out of our cheeseburgers and not give a shit. That alone makes us winners. You know what happens when Ghana loses? A few buildings get burned down and the players all get beheaded. I can’t even comprehend getting that sad about soccer. It’s just kicking a ball! It’s like the oldest game ever! How is that even popular? You don’t see Atari having Pong tournaments popping up all over the world! There are way better games invented, get with it! In football, we’ve got the play action pass, the corner blitz, the double reverse…these are complex strategic plays implemented with the greatest precision by the greatest athletes in the history of the world. How could we care if a guy named Alexi kicks a ball in a net? You know what the best thing a soccer ball ever did? I’ll tell you– it was keeping Tom Hanks company on that deserted island.

And I know there are some other teams, but as a soccer expert, I feel pretty confident that I’ve covered all the relevant ones.

Now, on with the show. And the winners are…

RUTHLESS PLAYER OF THE YEAR: DARIUS VASSELL

This year, Lionel Messi was busy winning everything by redefining what can be done with a ball at your feet – alright, he basically dribbled past everyone who tried to tackle him and scored lots, but he did it really well – and Wayne Rooney dragged an ailing Manchester United team to within a point of the Premier League title, artificially inflating every gullible Englishman’s hopes for the World Cup in the process.

This year, Darius Vassell moved to Turkey. A top flight squad player for Manchester City and Aston Villa best known for putting in a couple of decent international shifts for Sven Goran Eriksson, except for that one where he shanked the penalty that led to their elimination from Euro 2004. Still, you can’t criticise English footballers for missing penalties: that’s like criticising them for being thick, racist and/or rapists. It’s just who they are.

Somehow, Vassell is still only 29. It turns out that’s when the midlife crisis alarm goes off if you’re a footballer. So, rather than start the slide into moving from one top flight relegation candidate to another during his autumn years, Vassell packed his bags and left for Ankaragücü, who no one knows anything about – him included, it turns out. They’re a Turkish side who aren’t Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray or Beşiktaş, basically. Yeah, we were surprised to remember three teams we’d actually vaguely heard of, too.

What followed was the kind of existential breakdown a normal person might read about in novels by depressed Frenchmen when they’re at university, or involuntarily suffers when they try to watch reality TV. He kept a blog, which contained such revelations as them speaking Turkish in Turkey, no one running a football club knowing what the hell they are doing and him living out of a hotel, from which he was summarily evicted after the club didn’t pay his rent. He arrived to a hero’s welcome and became a fan favourite, for those obvious but slightly demented reasons. Last time we checked he was hoping to stick around, but for a different club. Because that still beats earning £20k a week and living in the Midlands, apparently.

RUNNER UP

Michael Owen, for throwing away what little credibility he had left by signing for Liverpool’s biggest rivals, looking out of his depth in top-two side and getting injured. The footballing equivalent of holding a hand grenade in your mouth and pulling the pin, he somehow managed to make even that look boring.

THE PFA AWARD FOR BEING A CUNT EVEN BY THEIR STANDARDS: JOHN TERRY

In undoubtedly the most fiercely contested award, it takes a special kind of obliviousness and arrogance – in place of drive and determination – to take the prize. John Terry managed it by shagging his teammate’s gold digging whore baby-momma, giving her 20 grand to cheer herself up after he made her get an abortion and accepting Fabio Capello’s subsequent decision to strip him of the England captaincy with no dispute only so as not to lose his place entirely. Then lifting the Premier League and FA Cup trophies by playing in a back four with three players markedly better than him.

Granted, if you give anyone with no functioning left side brain cells millions of pounds and blow smoke up their arse for having very well co-ordinated feet their entire adult life, you’re going to end up with at least a few physically fit and very rich psychopaths on your hands. Still, Terry continues to bring a little extra to the table: accused by everyone who could lip read and everyone in the press with a pair of bollocks (that’ll be no one, then) of being sent off for racially abusing Ledley King two seasons ago, he now gets to partner King in defence for the duration of the World Cup, with everybody acting like it never happened.

His other victim, Wayne Bridge, refused to do the honourable thing and deck him, preferring not to shake his hand when he lined up against him for Man City and withdrawing from the England squad until further notice. Still, at least Terry apologised to him in writing, even if he didn’t realise it.

THE LIVERPOOL AWARD FOR SHITTING THE BED: LIVERPOOL

Following last year’s award for throwing away the title, Liverpool improved on it the only way they knew how: finishing seventh.

The trouble arguably started last year, when now-sacked manager Rafael Benitez tried to replace one half of their midfield fulcrum, crack long-ball passer and German substitute teacher lookalike Xabi Alonso, for the older and shitter Gareth Barry, on account of the fact that their narcissistic loon of a captain quite liked Barry and, well, he’s the second-best defensive English midfielder in the world right now, provided you don’t count Owen Hargreaves – easy not to, really, seeing how he’s actually Canadian – and the aforementioned Steven Gerrard, who wouldn’t do anything as uncouth as hold the line or put in a few tackles these days, now that he can race down the middle and punt shots, passes or whatever the fuck they’re supposed to be over Fernando Torres’ head and into the stands.

Anyway, Alonso was sold to Real Madrid for £30m last summer, Barry went to Manchester City and Liverpool fans spent this season implicitly empathising with Arsenal supporters by trying to delude themselves that whatever lightweight replacement trotted out in place of their talisman would come good any day now, as soon as he learned to pass, run and tackle better and gain 20lbs.

Add to the mix two clueless owners who hate each other and have saddled the club in unmanageable debt, some decent players aging past the point of effectiveness and David Ngog and you’ve got the inevitable trainwreck of this season. The low point was arguably them getting dumped out of the FA Cup by a Reading team fighting for their lives in the second tier, but in truth there were quite a few to choose from.

Still, short of getting relegated next season they probably won’t bag this award three years in a row.

THE OFFICE SPACE AWARD FOR WORKING SMART, NOT HARD: CARLO CUDICINI

A few years ago, Carlo Cudicini was one of the top three goalkeepers in the Premier League and had the Opta stats to prove it. Then Jose Mourinho took over at Chelsea, gave him and new signing Petr Cech each a blank slate and… well, it was shitty luck for Carlo that Cech turned out to be amazing, despite only being in his early 20s at the time. Typically, goalkeepers don’t peak until about 10 years after that. Or, if you’re David James… actually, we’ll get back to you on that one. Anyway, Cudicini’s response was simple: realise I’m not number one anymore, get bribed into taking millions to sit on the bench by my new billionaire boss, and stop caring or trying.

After a few years of mysteriously being injured every time Cech was ruled out, leaving Portuguese chancer Hilario to dick about in their place, he confusingly stopped the money-grubbing on the eve of his eligibility for a testimonial and moved across town to Spurs. They’d just signed a lemon in the form of Heurelho Gomes, a man who couldn’t catch a cross if you gave him a supersized lacrosse racket and all afternoon. Needless to say, this was all the incentive history needed to repeat itself and Gomes suddenly found some form. Cudicini, meanwhile, took things to a new level by crashing his motorbike, breaking both his wrists in the process. He’s expected to make a full recovery, but in all fairness he could’ve probably been declared fit with his two broken wrists for all the actual playing he does these days.

THE SPORTSWEAR GIANT AWARD FOR WORKERS’ RIGHTS: EMMANUEL ADEBAYOR

Only rich people, the mentally disabled and the very lazy have never had a job they hated. Emmanuel Adebayor just might be all three, which makes it an extra special credit to him that he’s won this award.

‘Adey’ ditched Arsenal in the summer – the club that discovered him, nurtured his talent by playing him alongside Thierry Henry in his prime and, most importantly, saved him from playing his club football in fucking France – for the mercenary revolution going on at Manchester City. He did this not because he’s an avaricious bastard, you understand – oh, wait he did. Apparently on being told he wasn’t going to get parity with Henry’s final pay day at the club – y’know, the one he got after becoming their all-time top scorer – he cried foul and stormed out in a huff.

This led to a bad-tempered reunion when Arsenal visited Man City early in the season, where he somehow managed to come off as briefly inspirational. In addition to almost scalping former team-mate Robin van Persie – he of unproven rape allegations and glass ankles fame – by trying to tackle his frontal lobe, he inevitably scored as Arsenal capitulated and Man City granned an upset. His goal celebration was to run the length of the pitch and celebrate in front of the away support, getting himself pelted with hamburgers and mobile phones and nearly sparking a mini-riot.

It doesn’t matter that he was entirely in the wrong, totally delusional and that he’ll probably be put out to pasture by City when they sign someone better this summer: who hasn’t ever wanted to stick it to a former employer like that?

THE KRAMER VS KRAMER AWARD FOR TEAMWORK: REAL MADRID

Never ones to dodge our politically correct, quota-filling duties, the last award of the night is a concessionary trinket tossed off to someone not playing their club football in the Premier League. This year it goes to the people’s fascists’ club, if you’re a Spaniard: Real Madrid.

This season, Real took a year off from being lamentable bullies who strongarm millions of taxpayers’ money out of the local government to concentrate on spunking hundreds of millions of Euros in the transfer market instead. Kaka was the most expensive player for a few days, then they signed Cristiano Ronaldo, who was followed by Xabi Alonso for £30m and some full-back from Liverpool who us and them have already forgotten. Oh, and French striker Karim Benzema for €35m, who scored eight goals. The last player Madrid had who was so blatantly surplus to their preferred starting XI, Wesley Sneijder, this year had to settle for being the heartbeat of the Inter Milan team who won every major club competition they entered.

Anyway, back to what Real Madrid did: second in the league, no Copa del Rey and dumped out of the Champions League before the quarter finals for the sixth year in a row. Ronaldo and Gonzalo Higuaín were their two top scorers, but had combined for only three goals at the time of their Champions League elimination. The owner still picks the team, the manager has no job security and the star players have their egos overinflated by the pomp and ceremony of it all. It just goes to show that if you throw enough cash at a wall, none of it will stick. Tune in this time next year for how they fucked up having Jose Mourinho as manager.

That’s all, folks!

RUTHLESS PLAYER OF THE YEAR: STEPHEN IRELAND

He didn’t win anything or even play for anyone good, but there are plenty of reasons to crown Stephen Ireland Ruthless Player Of The Year 2009. First off, he was the best player on a Manchester City side that was somehow more shoddily and expensively assembled than last season’s, two years into their acquisition by a Sheik with too much time and money on his hands. Ireland, fittingly, cost the club nothing and has been there since he was a trainee.

Secondly, this was the first season Ireland consistently grabbed headlines for being a midfield dynamo and not lying about the death of both grandmothers, one after the other, to avoid international duty for reasons probably unknown to even himself. He’s a mad bastard prone to driving around in a pimped out 4×4 with neon pink rims and a matching My Little Pony dangling from the rear view mirror, when he’s not showing his skilful shirker of a team-mate Robinho what it means to turn up and play every week.

Thirdly, he’s due an award but hasn’t had one. He lost out on the PFA Young Player Of The Year Award to Aston Villa’s Ashley Young, who had a great season but didn’t really do anything better than Ireland other than be English and not have a terrible tattoo of a pair of wings covering his entire back.

Finally, just like Ruthless Reviews 3.0, Ireland has shown that rebirths are possible, even when the man behind it is as brilliant as he is, well, let’s be polite and say ‘flawed’. So for that, Stephen, we salute you.

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AWARD FOR ARROGANCE: DIDIER DROGBA

Drogba’s outburst after his team, Chelsea, were robbed of at least two penalties and promptly dumped out of Europe by a last minute goal from Barcelona has been documented everywhere, with everyone seemingly missing the point as to why it was offensive.

In a nutshell, football fans hate Chelsea. They hated them for being racist thugs with dirty players before their shady Russian owner showed up and bought two league titles; they hated them afterwards for doing it. The sense of bewildering entitlement that their players carry around with them has, inevitably, become their undoing as managers rarely last more than a season.

When Drogba lost the plot and started swearing into a TV camera that he went and found about how fucking disgraceful their elimination was, he handily glossed over the fact that half his team had, as usual, been screaming in the face of the bollock-free referee during the game in a manner that would’ve resulted in a flurry of red cards, had the official decided to grow a pair. Also, given the 120 minutes of tedious anti-football Chelsea had consigned themselves to in an effort to beat the best passing side in the world, everyone watching should have been allowed to scream in the faces of Drogba and his fellow excuses for footballers that night.

The most surprising thing about it was that a player who’s pissed and moaned about his big money move that granted him fame, fortune, and medals every season since joining Chelsea from French nobodies Marseille actually looked like he gave a shit after the final whistle for once.

THE DEPENDS AWARD FOR SHITTING THE BED: LIVERPOOL

It was bound to happen, really. Liverpool, previously the most successful English team of all time, haven’t won a league title for two decades. In Rafael Benitez, they’ve got a manager skilled in picking his way through and punching above his weight in European club competition, but when Liverpool bossed the first half of the season all right-minded football fans watched through their fingers.

With only two match-winners in their whole squad, Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard, they struggle to be taken seriously as a major footballing force at the best of times these days, having to settle for a mild sense of injustice following them around when a team with donkeys like Djimi Traore and Igor Biscan can win Europe’s highest club competition, as they did when they smashed and grabbed the Champions League in 2005.

Topping the table and never having slipped below third place halfway through the season at Christmas, they kicked off 2009 by drawing nil-nil with freshly promoted Stoke, who tend to play human Battleship rather than any recognizable form of football when they’re out on the pitch. It was the latest of a string of easy matches they should’ve won, which allowed Manchester United to finally nip past them and stay there for the remainder of the season.

Just as it was all about to go gloriously tits-up, Benitez appeared at a news conference with his now-famous dossier of evidence, showing how, in his mind, Man United had an unfair advantage in the league when they weren’t faking the moon landing, assassinating JFK and inventing Swine Flu. Looking on as a still-talented manager completed his transformation into another clichéd, paranoid Scouser – presumably by osmosis – it was all a bit like watching this guy talk about wrestling:

THE JS MILL AWARD FOR SERVICES TO THE COMMON GOOD: NEWCASTLE UNITED

Unlike Liverpool fans, Newcastle supporters know that their team has been a joke for years. To illustrate this point, I shall quote a perfect explanation of a team who’ve won nothing for over 50 years but persist in calling themselves a ‘big club’ from one of their supporters, who posts in the hallowed Ruthless Kickball Forum.

Otaku Joe says:

My team, Newcastle Utd, is the team to support for the following reasons:

1. Never ever boring as something is always going on at the club.
2. That something is seen by everyone else as a major crisis.
3. Our last chairman [Freddie Shepherd] had a thing for big titted-blonde Spanish lesbians and he told the whole world about it [in a sting by one of the British tabloids]. Howz that for chutzpah?!
4. Last chairman [Shepherd, again] was a thieving cunt who paid for his brothel trips with my fucking season ticket money.
5. We have a new manager on average every six months.
6. Masochistic? We are definitely the club for you. See our recent games versus any of the top four scum [Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea].
7. We are the northernmost English Premier League club [not anymore, keep reading] therefore we have a “them and the rest are just wankers” mentality.
8. You can never, ever be accused of being a glory-hunter.
9. The women who support the club have the sexual voracity of Rottweilers – or so I’ve been told.
10. We are managed by a foul-mouthed cunt [Joe Kinnear] from his hospital bed [sadly not anymore, as he's sacked/better now].
11. Fact: We have the best football strip on the planet.
12. Fact: We are a band of brothers descended from Norse rapists.
13. Due to the nature of the club you will always be on the verge of being a very pissed drunkard.
14. If you are a manic depressive -welcome home.
15. Any homosexual tendencies? We always take it up the arse, so you’ll fit right it.
16. The media hate us as they think it’s too far to come up north to watch the game.
17. The media are always talking about us.
18. Now owned by a chairman [Mike Ashley] who just lost 2 billion on the bingo.
19. You can sing “If you see a glory-hunter, clap your hands!” with gusto.
20. No matter how bad you think it can get, you’re always wrong. It gets worse.

If that sounds like a soap opera it’s, well, you get the idea…

In a new era of irresponsible spending and terrible business decisions, Newcastle led the pack in the top flight this season. A club stocked with overpaid rejects from across the globe was dragged down by a self-made man who clearly got lucky making his riches, only for it to run out in drastic fashion.

With the likeable characters and flashy, attacking football of Kevin Keegan’s (first) reign as manager in the ’90s long gone, Newcastle United stopped being everyone’s second favourite club and turned into the oikish, obnoxious problem child of the Premier League a while ago. Unsurprisingly, hiring their recently retired all-time top goalscorer, management novice and all round arrogant prick Alan Shearer, didn’t cut it and this year, every neutral football fan got one of their permanent wishes granted: to see an established top flight club get relegated. As for a ‘fire sale’ of Newcastle’s best players, it’ll probably end up resembling a jumble being flogged out of a car boot.

THE ZACK DE LA ROCHA AWARD FOR SPEAKING YOUR MIND: CARLOS TEVEZ

Carlos Tevez looks like a werewolf, runs around like he needs his shots and just might be a world class second striker. After a dodgy deal initially sent him to play for mid-table wideboys West Ham, Tevez looked to have finally got a fair shot with his move to Manchester United on loan two years ago. Problem was, they already had Wayne Rooney; a player in the same mould who is slightly younger, slightly better and a lot more English.

Having finally gotten sick of being shunted out the team by chances like Anderson and inconsistent performers like Dimitar Berbatov, towards the end of this season Tevez finally had enough. He kept quiet, stayed professional, ignored his bleating, parasitic agent and made every effort to keep working hard and sign a permanent deal at the club for the start of next season.

Man Utd responded with typical big team arrogance: no sustained starts on the pitch and dicking around and postponing new contract talks off it, in a transparent bid to run down his transfer price, something the player has no control over.

So now he’s politely told them to fuck off and is going to sign for their crosstown rivals, the newly mega-rich Manchester City. City are a shit team with an imbalanced squad and have egregious owners who won’t let the manager do his job. Still, they’ll pay Tevez £140k a week after tax and hopefully he’ll land somewhere they appreciate him as much as the blue side of Manchester will do when the shit eventually hits the fan.

THE T4 AWARD FOR AN INFERIOR SEQUEL: JOSE MOURINHO

This wouldn’t be a football article written by an English football fan if it didn’t handily ignore every other major league in the world game, so here’s a concessionary closer: Jose Mourinho transformed Chelsea into a team that pissed the league title, working for another bored billionaire owner whose ignorance and interference ultimately made his life a living hell, not least when he sided with overrated, egocentric cunts like John Terry and forced Mourinho out two years ago. This season he resurfaced in Italy and the world held its breath.

What did we get? Inter strolled to another domestic title in a race that looked like Usain Bolt vs. 17 extra-chubby renaissance pin-ups and got dumped out of the Champions League by a Manchester United team who had rings run round them by Barcelona in the final.

Sure, he managed to piss off politicians, league officials and rival managers by still being a petulant, outspoken little shit, but it just wasn’t the same. If you’re reduced to buying playmakers from third-quarter Premier league table specialists like Portsmouth as one of your closest former charges passes up the opportunity to join your revolution – Sulley Muntari and Frank Lampard, respectively – then you know you’re a big fish in a muddy puddle.

Hopefully, when he gets bored, he’ll be back.

In sports, as in life, pleasure comes as much from the suffering of one’s enemies as from the success of one’s allies and heroes. What would warm my commie heart more? A Nader presidency or a coupling of gonorrhea and kidney stones for each member of the Bush administration? I cannot say.

So, which brand of football offers the greatest opportunity for schadenfreude? The only way to answer this question is to discover which sport has the biggest cunts, in whose suffering and failure we might rejoice. So we will play a game of war, each of us having stacked our deck of cunt cards in advance with the most despicable athletes that our continents have managed to produce.

Ray Lewis

Is there a more celebrated player in the NFL than Ray Lewis? I’ve seen his little pre-game, “I’m the leader of this defense” song and dance more over my lifetime than the moonwalk and robot combined. And, apart from the time that Ray and his friends murdered a man by beating him to death, then Ray ratted out his buddies to avoid jail time and sent them down the river, you have to admit that Lewis is a stand up guy. Seriously, I don’t get it. Sports writers love convenient platforms to moralize. Steroids, gambling, skipping practices, taking plays off–all excuses for bogus sanctimony. But stomping some poor bastard into the grave? “We’ll give you a pass on that one, just keep dancin’ Ray Ray. And don’t murder any white people, for Pete’s sake.”

Ray makes OJ look like Jean Valjean. Not only did he get away with murder from a legal point of view, he still gets to do commercials. He laid the icing on the cake this year by claiming that his quarterback, Steve McNair, was unceremoniously dismissed from his previous team (in favor of another black quarterback) because of racism. Sorry sport, when you splatter somebody’s face across the sidewalk and wind up with million dollar endorsement deals, your race card is revoked. The biggest problem with Ray is that, there is no suffering to delight in and no taunts to participate in. Because the media have let him slide, the fans have as well. Where are the chants of “murrrr-derrrrr?” Why haven’t Cleveland’s fans nicknamed him The Juice? For those of us with memories spanning beyond the last Pepsi commercial, the only hope for an entertaining Ray Lewis is a snapped femur on a Monday night. There was a taste of satisfaction this year as he missed the Pro Bowl and attributed it to the fact that the other players “don’t know how to vote.” Here’s hoping that this is an appetizer in a feast of Lewis failures and melt downs.
Stefan Effenberg

The word ’cunt’ has a kind of negative ring to it, doesn’t it? And yet, the most hateable bastards in football are the bread and butter of the game. They draw the headlines, they fill the stands and – in the case of Ollie Kahn – literally provide the daily bread for banana vendors all over Europe.
A pet cunt of mine is former German international Stefan Effenberg (probably still plying his trade in Quatar where all great players go to die). Effe got his last cap for a good while during WC 1994, when he greeted booing Germany fans with the Stinkefinger.

So Ray Lewis killed a man? That’s a solid 10 for sheer cuntitude to be sure, but Stefan Effenberg’s trail of scandals score in the double digits for hilarity and number of “fuck yous”’ to friend and foe alike. Effe, you’ll be missed.

Freddie Mitchell

Those of us who enjoy a good train wreck will always miss Freddie Mitchell; the man who developed a rep as a buffoonish braggart, while playing the same position on the same team as TO. Freddie also proved once and for all that whatever gene increases the chance of sickle cell anemia is paired with another that destroys the fashion sense center in the brain. A time line of Freddie’s brief career, in his own words:

“I’d like to thank my hands for being so great.”

“the Patriots aren’t that good.”

“Coach Vermeil asked me not to talk.”

“They said it was a business decision, … It wasn’t about my athletic ability or anything else. They know I have a tear in my meniscus [cartilage]. There were no bridges burned. I’m going to get ready to play, and maybe I’ll be back. I’m open to [all 32] teams right now, and there’s no telling what I’ll do.”

No telling what he’ll do indeed. Rumor has it that Freddie moved onward and upward to the field of substitute teaching, before “being cut” for hitting up high school girls for their numbers. I’d like to think Freddie’s still running his mouth against rivals, perhaps claiming to not even know the names of Mayor McCheese and the Hamburglar.

Jesus Gíl y Gíl

Many a football fan suffers from the delusion that the big guns in FIFA and UEFA are the worst scum in the business. What they forget is that people like Blatter and Johansson have made it to the top because they had at least a semblance of respectability about them. No, for real in-your-face cocksuckery, look to the club presidents of Southern Europe. I’ll give Bernard Tapie and Silvio Berlusconi a pass this time and instead focus on a man who never let a sense of right and wrong interfere with business: The late president of Atlético Madrid, Jesus Gíl y Gíl.

Apart from his awesome name, Jesus has my undying respect for his time as autocratic club president, autocratic mayor of Marbella and shady businessman. From 1988 to 1994, he hired and fired no less than 12 managers, all of whom had to live by these rules: 1. Gíl chose the team for every match. 2. Gíl could and would appear in the dressing room before, during and after games. 3. Business trumped tactics. Players holding out on signing new contracts would be mocked, buggered and benched. 4. In all respects, president > coach. 5. The coach’s job description included spying on his players in night clubs. 6. If Gíl was away, technical secretary > coach. 7. Transfer policy fell under the president’s jurisdiction. 8. Physios are sissies and quacks. Assessing the fitness of players fell under the president’s jurisdiction. Indeed, nobody fucked with the Jesus.

Other random facts: Gíl y Gíl became mayor representing a party called GÍL .
In 1969, the property tycoon found himself having to explain why the roof on a restaurant he had built collapsed and killed 58 people.
In 2003, he was given a three-and-a-half year sentence for financial transactions in connection with Atlético Madrid.
RIP, GIL. May the lid on your coffin never collapse.

The Flanders Girl Hydra

Ah, football’s most famous family: the Fladerses. Remember when people used to yammer on about how Archie had been a great player on a poor team? And then it wasn’t Peyton’s fault that Tennessee didn’t when a title until he left. Then it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t even get to the Super Bowl with Harrison, Edge and Wayne at his disposal. Now Eli is losing because Shockey and Plaxico are cocks. And Lyndon Larouche would be president if not for the machinations of the British royal family. The last time I saw so much choking, Rocco Siffredi’s left ass cheek was occupying half my computer screen and to be blunt, I was rubbing one out on all of these occasions. The Mannings loose because they have the toughness and scrappiness of the Flanders family, thus their Ruthless nickname. They’re bland, boring players completely lacking flair, fire and scrotums. They are wintergreen, ice milk eating girls. They will always fail in the end, and I will always be masturbating to it.

And how do such a pair of bland motherfuckers as Rod and Todd become media darlings? We’re talking about a couple of young athletes who are have no charisma, are complete lames and loose. What’s so exciting about that?. Every time I see Peyton corpsing it up in some commercial, I think of the “Seinfeld” where Jerry get’s a little boy’s haircut. I’m not going to buy a cell phone or a satellite dish from some hay seed who walks into his barber’s, asks if he can break a ten and gets the “Andy Griffith.”

Lee Bowyer

Thanks to Margaret Thatcher, Britain has nurtured and cultivated its working class like no other western European country. Blue-collar workers are a dying race in the northern part of the continent, and the few remaining speciments all have broadband connections and like to get their weekend buzz from fashionable, pricy Belgian beers. Not so on the British Isles, where a good part of the population still adhere to old fashioned values like slapping the missus around and wearing Adidas tracksuits all day, all week, all year. Bless the old Iron Twat, for without the destitute East London neighbourhoods, I’m sure we would never have had the chance to sip our morning coffee to the many juicy headlines involving Lee Bowyer.

In his first season in the Premiership, 1994, Lee was given a lengthy ban for failing a cannabis test. Ok, smoking weed is not capital murder, but it’s also not exactly a popular drug in the London jet-set. You’d think a Premiership player would have the self-respect to get his hands of some cocaine, but I guess you can’t buy class. From then on, LB continually refined his chav manners with a consistency one has to admire. In 1996, he decided to treat himself to a fancy dinner at a London McDonald’s and allegedly greeted the staff with the line “I don’t want to be served by no Paki.”

One of his ex-girlfriends, who is half-Asian, broke up with him after he declared one night that they couldn’t have any kids together because it might result in a ‘throwback’. When she asked him what he meant, he replied: “You know, we could have a brown baby. It could be the colour of your mum.”

Bon appetite, dear readers.

He was later charged with – and acquitted of – assault on a Pakistani student after a night out in Leeds

Little Lee’s finest hour, however, came in April 2005 when he got into a brawl with teammate Kieron Dyer over…well, nobody knows, really. Attacking the opposition is one thing, but few players fail to understand that physical attacks on teammates tend to have a somewhat negative effect on team spirit on and off the pitch.

In short, Lee Bowyer seems to have spend his entire career going through the UN human rights charter backwards and upside down. For a player who was once considered one of England’s finest young talents, Bowyer’s last few years have mostly looked like the Titanic running aground on Atlantis, and if his latest appearance for West Ham (in a 6-0 hammering by Reading) is anything to go by, he may soon find himself on the seabed.

‘ll admit right away that I’m not as desensitized to mindless violence as generation Fucked Up or whatever name the kids go by. I don’t like squid porn videos with my morning coffee, and rarely will I even watch happy-slapping on my PC in early afternoon. It’s not that I’m not a pervert, because trust me, I like for my close relatives to shit on my face as much as the next guy. No, it’s that all this internet weirdness lacks the beauty and grace of the more traditional, artsy violence: good old-fashioned hooliganism.

Many people associate hooliganism with the English fans, but it would be unfair to forget the vast contribution to modern day hooliganism that is South American football. A family outing to a Premiership game may result in your kid hearing the word ‘twat’ and getting spat at for wearing a Man utd. scarf (rightfully so, I might add), but in Buenos Aires you’ll want your brats to be wearing full body armour so as not to get fucking eaten. For added excitement, there is always the risk of the stands collapsing beneath you. And on top of that, you are likely to be sqeezed in with the cream of Argentina’s youth as they vent their frustration over general poverty and Catholic girlfriend Maria refusing to put out. Vent it with guns, that is. If there is one aspect of footy that unites us across the Atlantic, I feel it’s the appreciation of these reckless entrepreneurs and the terror they spread in and outside stadiums. Now, I’m not talking about the real tragedies here (Hillsborough, Heysel etc.), because that shit is just not funny. At all. But I would like to make a case for the random fellow who takes every Sunday off to go to the game for a bit of innocent punching and stabbing.

Case in point: The Holy Vespa Incident.

There is a reason why the word ‘Vespa’ seems to appear in every article I do, and that reason is The Holy Vespa Incident. Instead of taking on the daunting task of giving a full interpretation of this event and its implications on how we view ourselves as a race, let me brief you on the basics: During a game between Inter and Milan in the Italian seriea a few years back, the Inter fans managed to smuggle in a Vespa scooter, torch it and chuck it from the stands onto the area behind the pitch. It is with great pleasure, dear reader, that we can now present you with a classic work of art: a picture of The Holy Vespa Incident:
Seriously, I’m at a loss trying to describe the sheer awesomeness of what transpires in the above picture. Behold the guy with the full beard and the black cap. His gesture is that of the Star Wars Emperor striking his opponent with lightning from his fingers. He is, quite simply, omnipotent. Hoodie guy is at the centre of events, having clearly done most of the lifting. He is so utterly focused on his work it borders on a trance-like state. Meanwhile, the guy on the left in the white polo shirt sort of takes a step back from his art and, with an affected gesture, tries to fully appreciate the beauty of the moment. Tanned dude with sunglasses improvises a rap song to wish the Vespa a happy journey. Fuck Tate Modern.

For some reason, Milan seems to be the Mecca of hooliganism. Just a year or two ago, AC Milan goalkeeper Dida got hit by a flare that sent him to the floor writhing in pain and burned a whole in his jersey. What glorious times we live in when you can take time out from the strains of modern life to hurl rockets at players from opposing teams. And thank God for the laxness of Italian “security.” Ahem, “What’s that, a Vespa? Alright, make sure the engine is turned off. Enjoy the game, Signor.”

Speaking of security, the recent world cup in Germany was obviously a bit better organized. Still, a streaker managed to make his way on to the pitch during a group game despite stewards being deployed with a space of about 10 meters all around the stadium. Seriously, how slow are these guys?

Steward 1: “Wait, Gerhard, did a naked dude just run in between us?”
Steward 2: “Nein, I don’t zink so. Wanna head over to Jürgen’s after the game for sausages and scheisse-porn?”
Steward 1: “Yah.”

Despite the efforts of FIFA et. al., we should never succumb to criticizing Gerhard, Giovanni and the rest of the guys around the world who don’t take their jobs so seriously as to refuse thugs and convicted cannibals entry to our stadiums. For if there is one phenomenon that, if only briefly, breaks the monotony of flatline, suburban life for all of us middle-of-the-road psychopaths missing an outlet for our aggression, it is hooliganism. So yay. Yay for it, mang.

A quick summary of the site that neglected to mention its recurring motifs of Black Metal, hardcore pornography and a large wooden cock was enough to convince them that I was suitably harmless and so the road was paved for me to pick up my press pass the following morning, then stroll towards City Hall Square for two days of football and sunshine.

Friday:

The day began with a major crisis: to my horror, the press centre boasted no food or, more importantly, beverage stand whatsoever. I was forced to assume that, in a slightly misguided attempt at striking up a bit of empathy with the players, I was expected to scour the city’s trash bins for both instead. Inexcusably, my weekend of homelessness had begun on a sour note. I had become a credit card-carrying bum.

Another faux pas on the part of the organising body was the decision to set up the two pitches in the middle of what appeared to be a refuge for a gang of homeless locals. That said, they endured the commotion with the admirable stoicism that comes from being passed out, blind-drunk at 1 o’clock in the afternoon.

Tempted as I was to follow their example, professionalism prevailed and I headed to Pitch 1 to watch the games commence. Friday was quarterfinal day, but due to the limp-wristed liberalism of the organisers, all the teams were still represented, as there were 6 trophies to play for: the winner’s trophy and 5 Mickey Mouse consolation prizes. Denmark were thankfully gunning for the real thing and Friday’s climax was to be their quarter final against Nigeria. Three hours prior to that game I had a little chat with two of the Denmark players kicking back in the still near-empty stands:

As the whole team slowly gathered in the corner, I observed as the pre-game preparations consisted of chain-smoking and talking on mobile phones. Just like the Premier League, probably. One player spent roughly 15 minutes on the phone warning an acquaintance not to bring his ex to the game later on, as he would ”fuck up and leave if that cunt as much as shows her face down here”. Clearly not the sort of lad who’d let his girlfriend give head to a bouncer called Pancake without severe retribution – very commendable and very unlike the Premier League, in that respect.

The first game I watched was USA vs. Argentina. It ended 6-4 and proved that Team America does its best work on the Sawkher pitch when its women, homeless and no David Beckham are involved.

With unpredictability the only certainty here, this was a chance to shine for all the nations otherwise condemned to eternal footballing mediocrity. Except England, obviously.

America fielded a team that didn’t exactly support my perception of the nation as an ethnic melting pot:

Could it be that something’s rotten in the old Union? Be that as it may, they won themselves a nice Mickey Mouse trophy for the mantelpiece back in Ye Olde Shelter – and this was all achieved with the inexplicable omission of Freddy Adu.

An equally fair-skinned team was Burundi, who had gone through some trouble obtaining their visas prior to the tournament. As it turned out, everyone was pleased they made it, for they took it upon themselves to perform the ancient ritual of disposing of England in the quarters. I suppose a penalty shootout would have been too much to ask for, but we gladly settled for an old-fashioned 12-6 thumping and the knowledge that back in Blighty the fans were probably attributing it to a lack of balance in central midfield.

By the time of the Denmark vs. Nigeria game rolled around I was sadly still sober, but the stands were packed and the atmosphere was surprisingly great. The Danes were on the winning end of another 6-4 scoreline. The hard-fought contest was marred by some dubious refereeing resulting in an excellent post-match brawl, which put things back on an even keel in terms of entertainment. Sparked by a couple of Nigerians having a go at the referee, the home nation looked on with the reluctant knowledge of how far attacking the ref will get you in football.

The win, incidentally, didn’t get Denmark any further than the semis, where they took a deserved 15-1 hammering at the hands of mighty Poland. No small feat in a game lasting all of 14 minutes.

As the last match of the day ended, I left the city centre to take shelter at a friend’s house in fashionable northern Copenhagen, a continuation of my plight as a Business Class homeless person.

Saturday:

The Homeless World Cup’s final day gave the opportunity to acquaint myself with some of the strong nations of world football who hadn’t performed well at this venue. Apart from the ludicrous six finals, the competition had a stab at mimicking the real World Cup by playing out a string of variations on the meaningless tussle for 3rd and 4th place. Among these fixtures was France vs. Brazil.

Puncturing the at-times reasonable misconception that everyone in Brazil is better at football than everyone else, their downfall here was due to an apparently female striker who did well to mask her Adam’s apple with a 5 o’clock shadow and a lot of on-the-ball trickery, step-overs and diving that got them nowhere, as this competition proved to be more about quick passing, positioning and sweeping opponents out of the way with the blind motivational fury only a breakfast of Special Brew and chain smoking cigarette ends can bring out of a sporting competitor.

As for France, it was no surprise to those of us who follow the Euro 2008 qualifiers that they ended up playing second fiddle to Scotland.

The final of the main competition was like football coming home… to 1891 or thereabouts, before South America and swarthy Europeans destroyed the beautiful game with a lethal injection of skill, flair, tactics and other gratuitous nonsense. I imagine the first game of footy ever played may have looked something like the bizarre spectacle I witnessed: for all the finalists’ cared, the ball may as well have been a pig’s bladder or a Rubik’s cube. Scotland ran out 9-3 winners over Poland in a game decided by quantum mechanics (90%), the direction of the wind (7%) and the players’ intentions and abilities (3%).

The Poles naturally had an army of immigrant plumbers, carpenters and fascists cheering them on, while the Scots thankfully spared us the sound of bagpipes and people screaming in horror at the sight of lifted kilts. I hung around long enough to see Crown Prance Frederik of Denmark present the trophy to the Scottish captain, who looked a bit like Chelsea mercenary – sorry, vice-captain – Fat Frank, circa 2015, before I headed off to the nearest pub to finally do a bit of work on my own beer gut.

Having been put off poverty by the quality of football on display, I spent Sunday bathing and shaving before I abandoned my nation’s depraved capital and hopped on a train bound for home, the lesser-known city of Aarhus. As I unlocked my front door, I looked at my flat with fresh eyes, reflecting that a home is nothing to be taken for granted or scoffed at – also, who’s to say you can’t be passed out drunk at lunchtime under a roof, too?

The question of which
sport is better, football or football, is one that never seems to be
resolved. As globalization and technology continue to boost
intercontinental communication, the urgency of settling this precarious
matter once and for all becomes evermore apparent. Realizing that a
showdown is inevitable, Ruthless Reviews has decided to stage the
ultimate online duel between the two sports. An advocate for each sport
will make his case, point by point. Weapons and time of day, you ask? Words at dawn –
and may the best sport win. On to the first battle.

If you’ve clicked on this
article out of a passion for football – be it the American or the world
kind – you’re about to get an unpleasant surprise. Through all those
years and years of eating chips and drinking beer in front of the
screen with your buddies, there’s something they forgot to tell you:
You like other boys.

It’s true. Effeminate little Bruce down the street whom you used to
beat up after his knitting class on Thursdays turned out to be the real
man between you and him. He knew who he was and took his beatings like
a man, while you hid your shameful desires behind a love for the oldest
male bonding ritual out there: Sports.

While it’s a public secret that all female athletes are lesbians
(except Russian hammer throwers, who skipped the tom-boy phase and went
straight to being hetero men, moustache and everything), homosexuality
among male athletes and the billions of on-looking men around the world
has remained the last, big fortress of Freudian repression in our
otherwise emancipated minds.

So you thought you
could slap your mates on the back, celebrate scores with hugs and watch
sweaty, muscular men do their thing on TV — several times a week, for
years on end — without anybody calling your bluff? We’re sorry, but
your little charade is over.

We’re here to burn your pathetic Potemkin village to the ground, so
get your strawberry lemonade and that pink thong from the back of the
bottom drawer, because you’re coming out today, and football is coming
out with you.

NIELS for FOOTBALL
World football
refuses to play second fiddle to any sport in terms of homosexuality.
Cristiano Ronaldo may occasionally glance enviously at the tight pants
in the NFL, but he wouldn’t be caught dead with a silver helmet or tooth
protector.

The overall aim, the very point of both sports is the physical
unification of sweaty men; Goals are but a necessary detour towards the
real goal: The celebratory pile. What I will contend here is that the
difference lies in the manner in which players will allow themselves to
touch each other. As we shall see, these differences are rooted in the
basic cultural heritage specific to the US and Europe respectively.

Fundamentally, America’s puritan past forces NFL players to adopt a
macho facade when the urge to cuddle arises: A touch-down is the cue
for the linemen to get their fat asses moving towards the goal for some
chest-humping and helmet-crashing with that slender, smooth-skinned
running back who seems to possess a strange magnetism in the post-game
sauna sessions. No hugging here, no kissing, no tussling that inviting
afro: That’s a no-no. The perhaps greatest sorrow of the NFL player is
the taboo of the submissive male. The aforementioned moves make it
crystal clear: All males display aggressive, alpha male behavior
instead of establishing a hierarchy that would facilitate a healthy
man-man relationship.

Not so in world football. Here, the cutesy little wingers dribble
enticingly along the sideline, spelling out the words “come and get me,
big boy” with every graceful move, much like a peacock flaunting its
tail in a drag show as old as life itself. The central defenders, at
the mercy of hormonal drugs and instinct, heed the call and go in for
the tackle. Whether they make it or not is of no real importance; The
dribbler will fall to the ground, roll around, scream and generally
make little doubt about his status as molestee. Having gone through
this ritual, the scene is now set for consummation: A hand reaches out
from above, the winger is pulled to his feet, asses are patted, hair is
tussled and affable smiles exchanged.

Similarly, celebrations after goals are not hindered by shoulder
pads or helmets; The pile of players is a skin buffet where only
experience and speed determines whether you are blessed with a crotch
in your face (the crown jewel) or will have to settle for armpits. We
are left, then, with the question of whether homosexuality is better
expressed closeted or out in the open. American football vs. world
football fagdom is a choice between foreplay and actual, unbridled
man-love.

My personal verdict? I don’t know much about gay, but I know what I like. And I likes me some unabashed ball-fondling.

ERICH for FOOTBALL

Not surprisingly,
considering that he comes from a country that reluctantly outlawed
kiddie porn sometime in July, Niels fails to grasp the real appeal of
Puritanism. Sex is better when it’s wrong and ritualistically denied.
In heterosexual terms, insofar as one can understand them, you might
ask a girl that you’re plugging if she’s a whore. You want her to say,
“Yes, I’m a fucking whore. ” You don’t want her to say, “No, I am an
adult woman possessing a perfectly normal and healthy sexuality. A
little to your left please.”

In the same vein, where’s the allure in Europe’s gay community
romping freely about a grassy field with fiercely competing hairdos?
No, it’s far more titillating to have teams named The Bears, The
Packers and The Browns and pretend that nothing could be more normal.
Or to watch the Raiders vs. The Vikings: two teams named for nautical
plunderers of booty and to pretend that we are interested in the
cheerleaders. It’s like watching an episode of “Sex and the City” with
a loving partner and a glass of syrah versus a furtive trip to a rest
stop after your secretly despised wife has fallen asleep. There’s no
doubt which one is more exciting.

Each play in American
football begins with the quarterback and center simulating, not only
anal sex, but the subsequent birthing of a butt baby. Yes, there are
tight ends and wide receivers running ‘up & outs’ and ‘hail marys’
against defensive packages. But even football terminology that lacks
any clearly identifiable sexual connotation sounds gay, like ‘button
hook’ and ‘deep cross.’ Players are in constant and close physical
contact. But that’s just plain gay. The NFL is kinky gay, which is why
the players go through the entire performance wearing chastity belts,
in the form of athletic supporters. The frustration, building through
hours of competition and agonizing commercial breaks, must be nearly
unbearable. No wonder “Romo” was such an asshole, his only flicker
affirmation in life coming in rare encounters with native speakers of
Portugese.

In the rest of the world all they really do is wear shorts and
tickle each other’s coin purses. It’s festive, color coordinated,
antiquing gay. American football is hankie code, fist sized glory hole,
“your dungeon or mine?” gay. It’s a blow out.