He is no Maradona, unless he has a post-game rant worthy of a two-month ban, but Thierry Henry did himself and the French no favors today. It wasn't as blatant as the Hand Of God, but it was certainly disappointing. Henry's handball and assist eliminated Ireland with a 2-1 aggregate win, and punches France's ticket to South Africa.
If you haven't seen the incident yet, here is a clip showing it from a number of angles. Its no Zapruder film, but I think you can see the offending gesture. (I'm sorry about the song. If you are a Family Guy fan it might be a bit amusing, but if not I'm sorry). Sorry, but other half of the duumvirate known as The SportsOptimator must interject here: this song is awesome! I'll always associate it with Full Metal Jacket, one of the classics, so the song is a bonus. De gustibus non disputandum est.
As a side story this game was also a dominated by a not-so-obvious dirty trick: France's horrific jerseys. One member of this blog likened the back design to a Baby Björn. It looks like Adidas is doing its best to make the French look like clowns; hopefully they save the headbutts for South Africa.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
van Persie and the Placenta
Wait, nevermind. We're good. Arsenal dodged a bullet with the van Persie injury, because apparently he's traveling to the Balkans for some placental-massage therapy. Whew. Totally relieved.
Top Ten Best Club Kits Of 2009-2010
The Sports Optimator is proud to present its Top Ten Best Kits of 2009-2010. Sadly this list was painfully difficult to populate as the world of football jerseys has imploded for some reason *ahem* Adidias *ahem* and designers are going blind all over the world. We sincerely hope that things will turn around next year and we will wind up having a drunken argument over the top 10 instead of the worst 10 and nobody will get hurt. Once again, these are in no particular order and there is absolutely no bias even though the Sports Optimator(s) are Arsenal and Manchester United fans.
Arsenal (All Three) - After going through all the candidates for worst jersey it was a great relief to find a team with great jerseys. Arsenal managed not just one, but three great jerseys. The lesson here being that simple can be great, no need for complex piping or baffling colors (Barcelona, I'm looking at you, or more accurately averting my gaze) to create an exceptional design. The collar on the away and third jerseys is also awesome, the death of the collar saddens me.
Manchester United (All Three & Keeper) - If you told me that Nike, the reigning king of design abortions (Oregon Football), would land two multi-jersey entries in our top ten I wouldn't have believed you. Obviously the NCAA football crew isn't working on their football designs because simplicity is getting them rave reviews. The simple "V" and use of only a few colors makes Manchester United's jersey look good, so good in fact that even the Keeper is getting in on it (Petr Cech is very jealous right now) with a set of tops that look great.
Hamburg SV (White) - Shockingly, Adidas managed not to mangle a design and land in our top 10. It seems that Adidas has managed to keep some whites simple, but if the stripes didn't die into nothing mid-bicep this jersey would be great. My only gripe is Adidas' questionable logo placement, why not do Adidas & Hamburg at left and right chest? Why is one at a chest and the other centered? Olympique Marseille's white is very similar and just barely lost to Hamburg SV.
Roma (White) - Another simple design gone horribly right. Roma sticks to their colors and uses stripes to punch up their whites, which tend to be fairly dull around the world, without making it into a train wreck.
AC Milan (Home Red/Black) - A design that never gets old; vertical stripes, white collar, and a good color scheme. The only strikes against it are the centered Adidas logo and the shoulder stripes that stop mid-bicep.
Manchester City (All Three) - The dark horse of the group, and even though this list in in no particular order these may just be our top pick. Another great example of simplicity triumphing over flash, especially the black away and sash element on the whites. Major kudos to Umbro here, they seem to churn out great simple designs (England's kits from 2006-2010) without being boring.
Internazionale (Home & Away) - Nike is running away with the best 10 title with Internazionale being their third. This was almost PSV Eindhoven or Atletico Madrid, but the colors and classic striping were just too much, and their whites look great as well very much like Roma's. Simple and classic, nothing crazy here just good design. This could have been Sunderland as well, but their away kit made me think twice about including any of their jerseys.
Urawa Reds (Home Red) - Urawa just barely lost out to Manchester City as our top dark horse. I fully expected a carnival of horrors from the J-League, but was pleasantly amazed (even though half of them made me gag) by the Urawa Reds. Another simple design, avoids odd piping and randomly terminating stripes.
Celtic (Home & Away) - Nike strikes again with one of the most unique kits out there. They retained Celtic's long standing use of horizontal stripes, and even downed a few handfuls of shrooms to come up with the "bumble bee" look that actually looks pretty good. We won't get into the plaid shorts that go with their white international kit, we'll save that for our much anticipated worst shorts list.
FC Copenhagen (White) - This won out over others mainly as an example of how to use your logo well. A company that will not be named *ahem* Puma *ahem* likes to put its logo in 40 different places on its kits in the event you don't know who makes them. Kappa seems to have taken that approach and done something good with it on the sleeves. Too many logos? Definitely. An actual design element. Yes, so its ok.
Also Recieving Votes :
Lyon (White) - Very similar to Roma's, but added humor because their away black-red gradient is so hideous.
Paris Saint-Germain (Blue) - Arsenal away-esque, simple, and another Nike! Nike football seems to be bizarro-NCAA, can we have them switch teams for the sake of the Pac-10?
Atletico Madrid / PSV Eindhoven - Just barely lost to FC Copenhagen, this is what happens when more than one person tries to make a Top 10 list. To be fair they are very similar to Internazionale in the vertical striping, so maybe there should have been a Thick Vertical Stripes That Look Great category.
Arsenal (All Three) - After going through all the candidates for worst jersey it was a great relief to find a team with great jerseys. Arsenal managed not just one, but three great jerseys. The lesson here being that simple can be great, no need for complex piping or baffling colors (Barcelona, I'm looking at you, or more accurately averting my gaze) to create an exceptional design. The collar on the away and third jerseys is also awesome, the death of the collar saddens me.
Manchester United (All Three & Keeper) - If you told me that Nike, the reigning king of design abortions (Oregon Football), would land two multi-jersey entries in our top ten I wouldn't have believed you. Obviously the NCAA football crew isn't working on their football designs because simplicity is getting them rave reviews. The simple "V" and use of only a few colors makes Manchester United's jersey look good, so good in fact that even the Keeper is getting in on it (Petr Cech is very jealous right now) with a set of tops that look great.
Hamburg SV (White) - Shockingly, Adidas managed not to mangle a design and land in our top 10. It seems that Adidas has managed to keep some whites simple, but if the stripes didn't die into nothing mid-bicep this jersey would be great. My only gripe is Adidas' questionable logo placement, why not do Adidas & Hamburg at left and right chest? Why is one at a chest and the other centered? Olympique Marseille's white is very similar and just barely lost to Hamburg SV.
Roma (White) - Another simple design gone horribly right. Roma sticks to their colors and uses stripes to punch up their whites, which tend to be fairly dull around the world, without making it into a train wreck.
AC Milan (Home Red/Black) - A design that never gets old; vertical stripes, white collar, and a good color scheme. The only strikes against it are the centered Adidas logo and the shoulder stripes that stop mid-bicep.
Manchester City (All Three) - The dark horse of the group, and even though this list in in no particular order these may just be our top pick. Another great example of simplicity triumphing over flash, especially the black away and sash element on the whites. Major kudos to Umbro here, they seem to churn out great simple designs (England's kits from 2006-2010) without being boring.
Internazionale (Home & Away) - Nike is running away with the best 10 title with Internazionale being their third. This was almost PSV Eindhoven or Atletico Madrid, but the colors and classic striping were just too much, and their whites look great as well very much like Roma's. Simple and classic, nothing crazy here just good design. This could have been Sunderland as well, but their away kit made me think twice about including any of their jerseys.
Urawa Reds (Home Red) - Urawa just barely lost out to Manchester City as our top dark horse. I fully expected a carnival of horrors from the J-League, but was pleasantly amazed (even though half of them made me gag) by the Urawa Reds. Another simple design, avoids odd piping and randomly terminating stripes.
Celtic (Home & Away) - Nike strikes again with one of the most unique kits out there. They retained Celtic's long standing use of horizontal stripes, and even downed a few handfuls of shrooms to come up with the "bumble bee" look that actually looks pretty good. We won't get into the plaid shorts that go with their white international kit, we'll save that for our much anticipated worst shorts list.
FC Copenhagen (White) - This won out over others mainly as an example of how to use your logo well. A company that will not be named *ahem* Puma *ahem* likes to put its logo in 40 different places on its kits in the event you don't know who makes them. Kappa seems to have taken that approach and done something good with it on the sleeves. Too many logos? Definitely. An actual design element. Yes, so its ok.
Also Recieving Votes :Lyon (White) - Very similar to Roma's, but added humor because their away black-red gradient is so hideous.
Paris Saint-Germain (Blue) - Arsenal away-esque, simple, and another Nike! Nike football seems to be bizarro-NCAA, can we have them switch teams for the sake of the Pac-10?
Atletico Madrid / PSV Eindhoven - Just barely lost to FC Copenhagen, this is what happens when more than one person tries to make a Top 10 list. To be fair they are very similar to Internazionale in the vertical striping, so maybe there should have been a Thick Vertical Stripes That Look Great category.
Weekly Flotsam and Jetsam
After a week in which England and Brasil played an incredibly boring, meaningless, dull, flat, Friendly in Dubai; Van Persie tore ligaments in another Int'l Friendly, rendering him unavailable for key games against Chelsea and Liverpool (does this even count as a key game anymore?); and Jay Cutlerthrew five picks against a shitty Niners team, I needed some distractions. As usual, the intertube did not disappoint.
First off, the Spanish region of Extramadura attempts to make the one-way a national pastime.
This is not necessarily sports-related, but since some of us make this a sport, I'm including it. How stupid do people think the kids in this region are? Were pamphlets really necessary?
Speaking of acid, this is the best baseball-related thing I've seen in a while. After Holliday took one in the nuts, and the NY All-Stars took the Fall Classic, I haven't been in much of a baseball mood, but the story of Doc Ellis' no hitter on a bunch of acid is from a better time, when men were men, there were no make-believe baseball teams like the Diamondbacks, Marlins, or Devil Rays (unless you count the Cubs), and the Atlanta Braves actually played in a geographical division that made sense.
By now this is old news, but in case you missed it, Elisabeth Lambert was caught on video in some crazy girl-on-girl action.
And, finally, it looks like Titans owner Bud Adams put some tips he picked up from the Flight of the Conchords to good use over the weekend.
First off, the Spanish region of Extramadura attempts to make the one-way a national pastime.
This is not necessarily sports-related, but since some of us make this a sport, I'm including it. How stupid do people think the kids in this region are? Were pamphlets really necessary?
Speaking of acid, this is the best baseball-related thing I've seen in a while. After Holliday took one in the nuts, and the NY All-Stars took the Fall Classic, I haven't been in much of a baseball mood, but the story of Doc Ellis' no hitter on a bunch of acid is from a better time, when men were men, there were no make-believe baseball teams like the Diamondbacks, Marlins, or Devil Rays (unless you count the Cubs), and the Atlanta Braves actually played in a geographical division that made sense.
By now this is old news, but in case you missed it, Elisabeth Lambert was caught on video in some crazy girl-on-girl action.
And, finally, it looks like Titans owner Bud Adams put some tips he picked up from the Flight of the Conchords to good use over the weekend.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Scum Of The Earth : Rival Colored Apparel Wearers
You might be saying "what?" to the headline, but I don't know what else to call it. They are the people who wear "fashion" apparel for their "favorite" team in colors of their rival(s). To be honest, I can't imagine a better to way to show your complete lack of allegiance to your supposed team.
For anyone who hasn't seen this plague in person, just wait a few weeks. You will no doubt see local idiots, and even celebrities, sporting one of the most popular marks of a non-fan; the red Yankee's hat. The fact that these are even made is proof that either there is no God, or the Devil exists, and quite possibly both. To don a red Yankee's hat is to be completely unaware that their bitter rivals are the Red Sox, add to this list red
Thursday, November 5, 2009
European Football Recap, Or, Carlton Cole is a Wanker
The Sports Optimator has been dragging its collective feet the past two weeks, for reasons unbeknownst to even them. To make up for lost time, it will attempt to cram old and random news in next to newish news, and still make it seem interesting.
I know you're excited. Though maybe not as much as this guy.
First up: Some Parisians, contrary to some stereotypes, are not quite as civilized as one might like. Football Weekly's Barry Glenndenning reports:
European football did not, in fact, shut down due to Swine Flu. The game between Marseille and Paris St. Germain was merely postponed. But, luckily for the fans, it was postponed late enough for them to be already at the ground...so they were still able to have their riot, and get canisters of tear gas chucked at them by the police...so their day's fun wasn't entirely ruined.
Everybody seemed to be well-armed for the affair. One fan had a crossbow, apparently, and the police look to be well-equipped with double-barrelled flare guns.
Seriously, though, PSG hooligans seem to be some of the worst of their kind, which is certainly saying something. Just last year one was killed by an off-duty police officer after a hate mob had surrounded a Jewish fan of Hapoel Tel Aviv.
While we're on the subject of the letter 'P,' Plovdiv, Bulgaria, has a sweet crest, is host to economic and cultural events such as the International Fair Plovdiv, the international theatrical festival "A Scene on a Crossroad", the TV festival "The Golden Chest" - not to be confused with Dimitar Berbatov's golden chest - and the bi-annual Plovdiv derby. How quaint.
Moving on. The fortunes of Liverpool have oscillated wildly over the past few weeks, as everybody surely knows by now. What you may not know, however, is that the fortunes of the Sunderland beachball have ended up in the same spot as Liverpool's Champions League hopes: in the toilet.
Elsewhere, Real Madrid's 2-0 victory over Getafe is being heralded as the best performance by ten men since Debbie Does Dallas.
While we're on the subject of porno, The Sports Optimator is proud to link to One of the Greatest Websites Ever: SPORNO. We also humbly submit two of our own submissions to the effort, although the second one is not Sporno at all. It's just wrong. The Google image bin is a fascinating place, indeed.
I know you're excited. Though maybe not as much as this guy.
First up: Some Parisians, contrary to some stereotypes, are not quite as civilized as one might like. Football Weekly's Barry Glenndenning reports:
European football did not, in fact, shut down due to Swine Flu. The game between Marseille and Paris St. Germain was merely postponed. But, luckily for the fans, it was postponed late enough for them to be already at the ground...so they were still able to have their riot, and get canisters of tear gas chucked at them by the police...so their day's fun wasn't entirely ruined.
Everybody seemed to be well-armed for the affair. One fan had a crossbow, apparently, and the police look to be well-equipped with double-barrelled flare guns.
Seriously, though, PSG hooligans seem to be some of the worst of their kind, which is certainly saying something. Just last year one was killed by an off-duty police officer after a hate mob had surrounded a Jewish fan of Hapoel Tel Aviv.
While we're on the subject of the letter 'P,' Plovdiv, Bulgaria, has a sweet crest, is host to economic and cultural events such as the International Fair Plovdiv, the international theatrical festival "A Scene on a Crossroad", the TV festival "The Golden Chest" - not to be confused with Dimitar Berbatov's golden chest - and the bi-annual Plovdiv derby. How quaint.
Moving on. The fortunes of Liverpool have oscillated wildly over the past few weeks, as everybody surely knows by now. What you may not know, however, is that the fortunes of the Sunderland beachball have ended up in the same spot as Liverpool's Champions League hopes: in the toilet.
Arsenal's fortunes, on the other hand, seem to be on the upswing. After two straight second-half letdowns against weaker sides (although it should be said that Carlton Cole went down for that penalty faster than Chloë Sevigny in Brown Bunny), the Gunners had their way with Liverpool (and Voronin, who, in addition to being rubbish, has the best/worst cock-rock haircut this side of Europe, and I mean the band, not the continent... Voronin... was he really the leading goal-scorer at Bayer Leverkusen? The Bundesliga must be in worse shape than I thought), Spurs, and, in particularly fine fashion, AZ Alkmaar. Eduardo should be singled out for his gorgeous back-heel to Arshavin in the run-up to the final goal, but it was Arshavin who shone brightest last night. As Wenger said in his typical Frenglish after the game, "He gave the ball every time the fraction of the second you wanted him to give it, and that is top quality." Hear hear. Going back to the Spurs tie and their dismal defending (because as exciting as Cesc's solo goal was, it was perhaps not "one of the greatest goals in Premier League history"), the Guardian's Barry Glendenning points out that "no amount of Croatian lesbian-lookalikes is going to stop you shipping goals"). He has a point. Well, two good points, actually.
While we're on the subject of porno, The Sports Optimator is proud to link to One of the Greatest Websites Ever: SPORNO. We also humbly submit two of our own submissions to the effort, although the second one is not Sporno at all. It's just wrong. The Google image bin is a fascinating place, indeed.
Yankees Buy World Series Title, Country Yawns
Well the Yankees finally bought themselves a World Series title. I shouldn't say the country yawns, there is the state of New York and all the Yankee front runners out there that see this as a great opportunity to be more annoying. Just wait, over the next few weeks all those people you saw randomly wearing Phillies gear the past year will switch to Yankee's hats and shirts.
I know their fans will see it differently, but this is a perfect example of whats wrong with baseball today. MLB survived the steroids era and appears to be healthy again, but the state of the game for fans is on life support. I know the Yankees may not have literally bought the title, but their insane spending basically guarantees them the best chance at winning.
I normally watch the World Series all the way through, but I completely checked out after game four. Mostly I was sick of watching the Yankees, but for the most part I just couldn't listen to Joe Buck and Tim McCarver gush about the Yankees anymore. I'm somewhat sad I didn't watch game six, I'm sure McCarver had some real gems that would have kept me laughing for weeks.
I know their fans will see it differently, but this is a perfect example of whats wrong with baseball today. MLB survived the steroids era and appears to be healthy again, but the state of the game for fans is on life support. I know the Yankees may not have literally bought the title, but their insane spending basically guarantees them the best chance at winning.
I normally watch the World Series all the way through, but I completely checked out after game four. Mostly I was sick of watching the Yankees, but for the most part I just couldn't listen to Joe Buck and Tim McCarver gush about the Yankees anymore. I'm somewhat sad I didn't watch game six, I'm sure McCarver had some real gems that would have kept me laughing for weeks.
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