soccer Page 258 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Anelka Laughs Snootily At French Ban
After being handed an 18-match ban, effectively ending his international career: "They are real clowns these people. I'm dying with laughter." Meanwhile, Ribery got a 3-match suspension, and is dying with whatever his underage hooker gave him. [AFP]...

One Reason To Like The English Premier League: Chris Kamara
The EPL season started this past weekend and Fox and ESPN are gearing up to bring you more and more soccer from England and the rest of Europe this year. Unfortunately, they will deprive U.S. viewers of Sky Sports' Chris Kamara....

Those Stjarnan Chaps Are At It Again
As spotted by our pals at Pies, the Icelanders who clearly spend more time coming up with dance routines than learning how to tackle have been really quite busy....

Craig Bellamy Banned From Training With Man City
There used to be a time when The Spoiler, along with the rest of the planet, hated Craig Bellamy with a seething, unhealthy passion....

The Spoiler’s 10 Premier League Predictions
Get really excited everyone—the Premier League is back! This is wonderful news, and hopefully a couple of decent weekends will blow away the awful cobwebs left behind by a very disappointing World Cup....

Manchester United Sign A Talented, Young Homeless Guy (UPDATE)
In a real life football reimagining of Charles Dickens's greatest novel-turned-musical, Oliver Twist, Sir Alex Ferguson has gotten all Mr Brownlow about it, and signed a former Homeless World Cup star for Man United....

Robinho Misses Out On Barca Move By Being Troublesome
Like an early 1990s Mickey Rourke, Robinho is increasingly looking like a man with buckets of talent who no one particularly wants to work with....

Joe Cole Is Better Than Lionel Messi, Insists Steven Gerrard
You'd think that footballers would learn from their mistakes. But as sure as the sun sets, eggs is eggs, and as sure as Ashley Cole will inevitably end up with his oozing hands dancing all over the wrong woman's naked body......

Read This: The Pelé-Maradona Rivalry, Explained
The great Brian Phillips, on the Pelé-Maradona rivalry: "Pelé ... offers the child's narrative of sports heroism, an exuberant conquest of a just and welcoming world. Maradona ... represents the adolescent narrative: an unjust world forced to yield to a superior ego."...

After Photography Ban, Soccer Game Covered By Cartoonist
League One side Southampton banned all photographers from their stadium for this weekend's match. The visiting team's newspaper handled it well, reducing the comical situation to, well, a comic....

Javier Hernandez’s Face Scores Important Goal Against Chelsea
On your first day at work, it's all about keeping your head down, not attracting too much attention to yourself, and definitely not doing anything clumsy/humiliating....

Lady Footballer In Humiliating Handball Mix Up!
As embarrassing mistakes go, this one is up there with accidentally calling your teacher "Mummy", or unknowingly leaving your flies open during a bumpy bus journey....

Humiliating Goal Miss Alert: Rui Miguel Edition
Everyone's been there - just you and the goal, the ball floating in. Man, you could pelvic thrust it in if you really wanted to....

Startling Penalty Miss Alert: Spanish Second Division Edition
Mind doctors will tell you that the key to a decent penalty is a technique called "positive visualisation". Mehmet Aurelio is not at the forefront of this practice....

Artful Shevchenko Pickpockets A Football Reporter
Chancers, grifters and terrifying mobs of tiny vagrant children have got this one down to a fine art — simply distract your victim by doing a funny little dance, whilst your robbing partner deftly rifles through his/her pockets looking for loot....

Deadspin Classic: Cats Playing Soccer? Cats Playing Soccer
In the summer of 2010, the World Cup captured the attention of this humble sports blog and it was only a matter of time before the Internet produced the perfect viral video to celebrate the event....

Frank Lampard Humiliated By A Cartoon Character
It's a particularly sad day for Frankie Lamps, with news (in The Sun) that a great big pile of golden iPods emblazoned with his extravagant autograph have been "melted down" and replaced with a popular Japanese cartoon character, called Hello Kitty....

Young Man United Lad Scores A Really Lovely Goal
Tom Cleverley: remember the name. He scored a goal in the match against the MLS All Stars, which would be described in America as "awesome", or "win!", or "neat", or "rad"....

A Short Video Tribute To Diego Maradona, The Manager
As mentioned yesterday, the World Cup 2010 will be remembered for three things - vuvuzelas, a terrible match ball, and Larissa Riquelme's mobile phone deftly positioned between her enormous bosoms. But one thing was glaringly left out—Diego Maradona....

Ahmadinejad Says Paul The Octopus Spreading "Western Propaganda And Superstition"
Iran's president accused Paul of representing all that's wrong with western society, in multiple speeches over the weekend. No, I think that was Dutch soccer. [Daily Telegraph via Unprofessional Foul]...