Lionel Messi getting Tomsula'd by Barcelona coach

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Athletes are not linking arms and singing “The Internationale,” but as events in Columbia, MO, showed us, they are also not letting events race by them any longer.

For instance, in Flint, MI, the Ontario Hockey League Firebirds quit their team en masse after owner Rolf Nilsen fired head coach John Gruden (yes, with an H, so it isn’t that one) and his staff because Gruden wasn’t playing his kid Håkon enough minutes. Via Josh Cooper of Yahoo.com, there was this from OHLInsiders, the day of the firing:

“There was more than one occasion where Nilsen was coming down pleading with coaches to play him more. They were even asking for power play and penalty killing time. Following today’s post game skate, the coaches told the players of their news. It is then that all players walked up stairs and handed in their jerseys went to the equipment room and packed their bags.”

The upshot: Pops rescinded the firings, even describing them on Twitter as “an “irresponsible mistake,” and apologized to the players. Here’s hoping he also apologized to his kid for putting him in such a ridiculous situation.

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In other suits-getting-theirs news, German soccer president Wolfgang Niersbach resigned from his job over the allegations that German soccer officials bought votes in order to win the right to host the 2006 World Cup. Niersbach said he took “political responsibility” for the controversy, which is code for “I’m beating the torches out of town.”

Also, for the edification of People For The Ethical Treatment Of Bribery, no players were involved in the making of this resignation.

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More corner offices in flames: Illinois athletic director Mike Thomas was fired after the results of an investigation into the treatment of football and women’s basketball players. Football coach Tim Beckman was fired in August as a result of mistreatment allegations, and lawsuits from women’s basketball and soccer players are ongoing. Interim chancellor Barbara Wilson said no misconduct by Thomas was found, but that a “change in leadership was needed.”

In other words, this is going to cost some donors some money.

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Barcelona defender Gerard Pique recently admitted that El Clasico, the Barca-Real Madrid cultural war that highlights every Spanish soccer season, makes the Barcelona players “horny,” according to El Mundo Deportivo.

“It’s a special game,” Pique was quoted as saying. “These are the sort of games that get us turned on.”

To which Real Madrid’s world class defender Sergio Ramos responded, “El Clasico has never made me orgasm, but nearly!”

In other words, you can watch the November 21 match and feel really, really dirty.

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And speaking of which, Memphis’ Matt Barnes spoke out about his ongoing feud with Knicks coach Derek Fisher over Barnes’ estranged wife, at least as much to say, “We’re two grown men who should have handled two grown men’s business, but he wanted to run and tell the cops and the NBA,” and “The New York Post is run by the New York Knicks, so it's obviously a way of trying to make me look like the bad guy.”

That’s like Zach Randolph saying, “Do you think our powder blue uniforms make my butt look big?”

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In a related soccer (but not orgasm-related) development, Barcelona coach Luis Enrique Tomsula’d (yes, I made it a verb) a question about Lionel Messi after the team’s Sunday victory over Villareal.

“Messi” is neither ruled out nor certain to play," Enrique said of his best player’s progress from a knee injury. “He is still in the recovery process. It is going well. There are two weeks left. We will get Messi back, but either before or after that game.”

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Denver cornerback Aqib Talib’s one-game suspension for poking Indianapolis’ Dwayne Allen in the eye wasn’t actually for poking Allen in the eye. It was for his explanation:

“From my angle, I see (Allen) head butt Von (Miller, the Bronco linebacker) a little bit. I went over to poke his head, and I think my hand slipped and hit his face. He acted like he got in an 18-passenger car wreck. I guess that’s what type of guy he is.”

That and the jaunty eyepatch is what makes him the “type of guy he is.”

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FEMA says we should buy flood insurance to prepare for El Niño. That’s entirely up to you, but these are the same people who said after 9/11 that duct tape could keep out airborne pathogens.

But I’m calling my person anyway to see if I can at least get a free bucket.

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And finally, in many countries, NFL coaches wearing faux military clothes to call in plays and yell at officials would be jailed for disrespecting the costume. Fortunately we don’t live in one of those places.

Even more fortunately, we do live in a place where I can say, “You all look like your parents shop at cut-rate Halloween stores. You’re not soldiers, so stop it. You look ridiculous. That is, unless you’re all planning to dress up as nurses in two weeks. I mean, they serve too, don't they?”

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