When 15 Seconds Isn't Quite Fast Enough [UPDATE]

In advance of Cruzeiro’s mid-week return match against Argentine side Estudiantes in the Copa Libertadores final, the Brazilians sent out a team of reserves for its Campeonato match against Atletico Mineiro.

Apparently, striker Ze Carlos didn’t even want to spend his afternoon playing in a potential beat down as he managed to get himself sent off after just 15 seconds.

The real crime? Ze Carlos even apologized, to no avail.

"I slipped, went to control the ball, turned and my arm hit Renan in the face. I even said sorry but I ended up being sent off. It was not on purpose."

Really, what’s the point if you’re not going to intentionally try to get run so early? Ze Carlos’ efforts didn’t even earn him soccer’s fastest red card. It’s not even close really.

Just last December David Pratt of Chippenham Town (in England’s Southern Premier League) got a straight red for a reckless tackle just three seconds into a match. Before that, the fastest sending off was generally accepted to be 10 seconds. That distinction was held for the better part of two decades by Giuseppe Lorenzo of Bologna.

Cruzeiro lost the match 3-0. Not that they care much. Again they sent out a side full of reserves anyway, resting first team players in advance of their Wednesday return match against Estudiantes.

With the win Atletico took over first in the Campeonato.

Now with video! (well, as long as it stays up)

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Kiddies + Toxic Waste Dump = Soccer Field?

If these kids grow third hands, I blame the EPA.

Thanks to a binational partnership between the US and Mexico, little tykes in Tijuana now have a brand new soccer field. A field right on top of a giant toxic waste dump.

Seems a US owned lead smelter used Mexico as an illegal toxic dump in the 1980s. Shocking, I know, but they made movies about this...movies called Men at Work. The dump was discovered in the early 1990s.

Now, thanks to the wonders of concrete, the waste is now entombed in the hard stuff. And, the playing fields are painted onto the flat surface.

Call me a skeptic, but I don't think soccer was intended to be played on concrete.

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Completely Irrational, Rambling Spurs Screed

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

-Famous Jew

Where to begin? It's hard to see straight with these tears in my eyes. Or speak, what with the snot oozing down my philtrum and choking my tongue. Whining, crying losers we are. And for what?

New players, same shitty results. New players, same breakdowns. Unable to cope with a ball in the air-- in either box. New players, same game. (Every Spurs fan on earth and the seven suns knew Cisse was going to score--with his noxious noggin-- at some point in those last ten minutes.)

Stick with a team long enough and you develop a bit of telepathy. It goes like: "I'll be shocked if he doesn't give up a double here"... "Pick to the house. I know it"... or "Power play? Why even bother?" With Tottenham it's easy. No magic powers required. Unless it's against Chelsea at Wembley ( let me cling, please…), the defense will suffer a collective brain fart at some crucial point late in the second half. It's nothing to do with the personnel on the field, it's about, like Seinfeld said, "the laundry." And no one is more prone to spoiling their whites than Tottenham.

It was supposed to be different with Juande Ramos. And not just because the pundits said so. We saw it-- for a moment I swear I saw it (Yetti!!)

Juande, your job is safe. For the whole year. So no talk about that. Let's talk about team selection. What did 150 years of football not tell us about playing right-footed players on the left, and left-footed players on the right? Do we have so little confidence in the striker from Charlton that Bentley's crosses, from the right, have been mooted and he is only useful on the left as a two-touch-and-blast-man?

Line Bentley up on the right, sit Lennon on the bench, and start Giovani up on the left. Bale is a winger, not a full back. The defense is not strong enough to carry his weight. Zokora is a central defender or midfield player. Please stop playing him at right back.

Now here's where I may surprise you. I say The Mister gets a pass on the Berbatov debacle. That was and is (and remains!) Levy's mess. It existed well before Ramos got here and judging by the pace of business these days, may well exist after he leaves. Sell that filthy beggar for 25 or 28 or 30 million, whatever. Just be done with it. Buy the crazy Colombian kid from River. Or overpay for Forlan or Huntelaar or any striker who will agree to move to London. It doesn't matter. It is the essence of addition by subtraction.

Ok. Deflating...

Lucy! I'm ready to kick again.

Just one win. Three points at Chelsea. Two awful streaks end at once. The world alight again. Wonders are many.

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Steve Morrow and Alexi Lalas--Two Peas in a Pod

Last Summer LA Galaxy GM and former USMNT member Alexi Lalas came out with his guns blazing and the EPL right in his aim. Lalas said MLS was on par with the Premiership and that the EPL was an "inferior product." Many said he was crazy and I am not inclined to disagree with those people.

FC Dallas manager Steve Morrow (that's him on the right), however, has cast his lot with Lalas. Morrow's bona fides are legit though. He played several seasons for Arsenal in the premiership and was a Northern Ireland interational. The FC Dallas manager, however, is far less bombastic than Lalas in his pronouncements.

He believes the perception in this country, let alone overseas, of the overall level of play in MLS is vastly and continually underestimated.

“The standards are growing each year and I genuinely believe we are at the stage now where the top sides could survive in the English Premiership,” Morrow said.

“The league is building itself in the right way and people in Europe are definitely taking notice. We see that when teams come over here, the MLS clubs are very competitive.”

Morrow probably has a valid point. It is tough to imagine an MLS team doing any worse than Derby County this year.

[Photo Credit: View Images]

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