Suarez

Suarez

Welcome back to the second semester, sports fans! Plenty to catch up on so, first, let’s go to the teeth-marked World Cup desk where, without a doubt, the biggest controversy so far has been Vampire Diaries and True Blood fanboy Luis Suarez’s attempt to sneak in a mid-game snack. Now, we all like eating Italian, but c’mon, Luis! You are being too much of a literalist here. After he serves his ban, Uruguay must make sure Suarez is properly fed before his next game. We can all see that he has a very prominent set of chompers but that doesn’t mean he needs to try incorporating them into his football game; he is talented enough with his feet as it is.

Amongst several racist outbursts this was his THIRD biting incident in just four years, which instantly spawned many awesomely funny Hannibal and Jaws parody memes. Speaking of Jaws, the team at “I Fucking Love Science” have crunched the numbers and worked out that a football player has a significantly higher chance of getting bitten by Luis Suarez than getting bitten by a shark. Suarez’s club Liverpool has a motto of “you’ll never walk alone,” but I don’t know if they can continue to support him after another incident that will see him banned from playing until the start of November. After his two-goal performance that knocked out England from the World Cup, the gossip mills were throwing out rumours of impending £80 million bids from Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona. This latest incident will surely make them think twice about investing in a player with such a short fuse. I personally hope Liverpool has a clause in his contract that they can exercise and fire his ass so that he finds himself walking alone from now on. However, despite all the rhetoric about players being role models and doing the right thing, modern football isn’t so much about morals and sportsmanship as it is a cold blooded, cash driven business and Liverpool invested £23 million to bring him to their cold, miserable city and they will want to see a return on that investment should he leave for sunny Spain.

An exciting World Cup so far ...


In terms of return on investment, the England team gave a very poor account of themselves. Actually this year’s performance was their worst at a World Cup: only two goals were scored and a single point gained. English Football Association chairman Greg Dyke was so desperate to shift the blame away from his chronic mismanagement of English football that he went so far as to suggest that had Prince Harry, who came to the dead rubber against Costa Rica, turned up to watch their first two group games against Italy and Uruguay, that maybe this would have raised spirit and morale and inspired the overpaid squad, boosting their chance of qualifying. Whatever helps you sleep at night, mate.

This World Cup has been very good to watch so far. By halfway through the Round of 16 matches, more goals had been scored than in the entire 2010 tournament. Not many people would have predicted England, Italy, Portugal and Spain to all fail to make it out of their groups while minnows like Costa Rica and Algeria would advance. The hosts Brazil have been very unconvincing and may struggle to make it into the semi-finals that are being held in Belo Horizonte and São Paulo on Tuesday and Wednesday night, setting the stage for the final in Rio on Sunday.

All Blacks & Highlanders are looking good


The “Red Roses,” a.k.a. the one-time world-champion England rugby team, failed to win a match against our multiple-time world-champions, but gave a much better performance than the anaemic “Three Lions” managed, as intimated above. The three-test series against the All Blacks was a lot closer than most people thought it would have been. The AB’s started off a little bit rusty but only got better as the series progressed. It was good to see Highlanders centre Malakai Fekitoa getting his first cap and he proved that he will be a Lomu-like force to be reckoned with at next year’s World Cup in England. The “brothers Smith,” Ben and Aaron, were also very impressive, scoring some important tries and only strengthening their claims as first-choice picks in their positions for the upcoming Rugby Championship. The trio also backed this up with a big performance in the crucial home game against the Chiefs, marking a huge step in the Highlanders’ quest to make it into the playoffs. This weekend’s game against the Crusaders is massive. I also think that Richard “Barracuda” Buckman has been very impressive out on the wing and has my vote as a wildcard replacement for the iffy Corey Jane in the All Blacks squad for the end of year tour.

Warriors are on the up, Sharks season gets worse


Good news for Warriors fans as they are hitting some good form at a crucial point in the season. Four wins from their last five have lifted them up into the Top 8 and they have some very winnable games coming up so hopefully they can maintain their form through to the end of the season and host some play-off footy up in Auckland.

New South Wales finally breaking the stranglehold that Queensland has had over the State of Origin series since 2006. Ever since I started watching State of Origin I haven’t really supported one side over another but for the past few years I have really wanted NSW to win it back as, historically, it has been such a close competition in terms of games won, points scored, etc. – although Queensland’s recent dominance has skewed the stats in their favour. Over Queensland’s recently ended eight-year series-winning streak they only managed one 3 – 0 clean sweep (in 2010) and the Blues will be trying to go 3 – 0 for the first time since 2000 when they play the final Origin match in Brisbane on Wednesday night.

One man who will never pull on the Blue jersey again is the thirsty Todd Carney who we have all heard about being fired for a leaked picture of him drunkenly pissing into his own mouth in a nightclub bathroom. I usually take issue with stupid but unrelated off field incidents being taken too seriously but given his dodgy past and multiple offences and warnings I have to agree with the Sharks decision to terminate his contract immediately. It really sucks for them, though – stuck at the bottom of the table, mired in financial problems and doping scandals and having to fire one of their best players for a non-criminal, non violent off field incident. All of which shows that social media is rarely a good thing for sportsmen prone to behaving like douchebags.
This article first appeared in Issue 14, 2014.
Posted 1:08pm Sunday 6th July 2014 by Daniel Lormans.