Something to drink?

The world's most effective (and photogenic) poison

By now, we all know and understand the first rule of football: South America is fucking crazy.

We've studied this phenomenon before. Whether it be Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia or Bolivia, there's plenty of futbol madness to go around. Well, it's been a couple of weeks, but thankfully Paraguay wants to throw its entry into the ring, with the allegations surrounding an important Primera Division match, a team in danger of being relegated, and the sublime art of poisoning.

Club Guarani is in 2nd place in the Torneo Clausura, hunting the title and automatic berth into the 2009 Copa Libertadores with just one game to play. This past weekend, they played relegation-threatened 3 de Febrero, and beat them easily 4-1. Simple enough, right? Just another day at the office for Guarani.

However, 3 de Febrero were missing several players who'd been hit with food poisoning in the days leading up to the match, including one, defender Juan Ortiz, who received treatment in hospital, and causing six other players to miss the game.

The guilty substance is said to be the sports drink with vitamins (too much riboflavin, perhaps?) that they consumed during training, and the coach Pedro Nelson Fleitas smells a conspiracy: "This needs to be investigated. We don't know if the product was past its sell-by date of if somebody put something intentionally in the juice."

Check the goals below (at about :58 in the video); now, I don't know much about Paraguayan soccer, but Guarani looked to have it pretty easy. Their goals were more sunday league than title-chasing, thanks to some sloppy, lazy defending. That said, Guarani could simply be that good.

Sour grapes, or sour stomachs? You decide.



It's not the first time the specter of sabotage has riddled the sport: Brazilian midfielder Branco claimed that the Argentines tainted a water bottle that they gave to the Brazilians during their 1990 Second Round game that Argentina won 1-0. There have been several other incidents, one involving Spurs a while ago, I think?

Anyway, there's your South American scandal for the week. I'm sure there will be a few more by Friday.

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Luciano Moggi may never cheat again, at this rate

You remember Luciano Moggi, right? He's the guy purported to be behind all of the match-fixing shenanigans at Juventus that had them stripped of a couple of titles and sent down for a season in Serie B. Moggi collected a five year ban for his efforts at the time.

Now, some news has come to light on just how far and wide the scandal went, as Moggi has received an additional 14 month ban for futzing with some cell phones.

Now, I don't know if Moggi was inspired by the third season of The Wire, but I like to think that he was. I can just see this weathered mini-Berlusconi watching the Baltimore based series and saying, "That's it! I'll switch out SIM cards just like Stringer Bell."

So, yeah. Moggi started up an illegal wireless network, and dragged others down with him. One of those is Angelo Fabiani, who was the director at Messina. Messina's fate? One year removed from Serie A, they have given up their professional status and have been sent to the purgatory of Serie D, the Conference of Italy.

Also, some of the SIM cards showed up in the hands of various referees. Though no names have been released, the refs have been handed fines. I would hope that a continuing investigation into the refs' actions is ongoing.

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Oswaldo Sanchez couldn't save himself from himself

Behold, a non-Euro 2008 post!

Oswaldo Sanchez hasn't had much luck between the posts recently. Mexico was embarrassed 4-1 at the hands of Argentina, and now they face the mouth-watering prospect of having Sven Boring Eriksson at the managerial helm, in a move I still can't quite figure out. [Was Sven's tan lacking? Does he enjoy tequila? Has the Swedish krona suddenly become a weak currency?]

Adding further fuel to the depressing fire, one of Mexico's best players is off to lose his skills and waste his talents playing at White Hart Lane.

Heck, it's enough to drive a player to drink.

Or, in Oswaldo's case, to drive a player to trespass and resist arrest.

It's purely a semantic difference, right?

From the wonderful newspaper report:

Police said the arrest was made shortly before 7 a.m. in downtown Chicago, where Mexico beat Peru 4-0 the night before in a friendly at Soldier Field with Sanchez in goal. According to some reports, hotel guests complained about a loud party by players in the early hours of the morning.

“He was asked to leave the premises and he remained on the property after being repeatedly warned to leave,” officer John Mirabelli said. “When officers attempted to place him in custody, he resisted arrest.”

Christ, killjoy law enforcement officers of the world, can't a man simply unwind after morale-reviving win?

Either way, funny as it sounds, the downside is that such arrests might well affect his visa status for future travels with his team to the US, where Mexico play quite a few exhibition games and tournament qualifiers.

Such a calamity would not be a good welcome gift for Eriksson, who's still trying to put his own self-confidence back together after the public humiliation of answering to Thaksin Shinawatra.

Let's hope Sanchez regains his balance long enough to prevent future errors.

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Scandals. Italian Football. Surely not!

Inter beat Parma last weekend thanks to a rather dodgy penalty call that left the Italian press (or at least those in Rome, Turin, and half of Milan) crying foul.

Of course referees favoring big clubs is about as Italian as Peroni, falling governments, and Fiats. But the odd thing is that Milan or Juventus historically have gotten the calls, not Inter. Clearly Berlusconi and the Angelli family are not bribing the right people at the Italian FA anymore.

Paolo Bandini writes in the Guardian that:

Now - although there's no concrete evidence to back them up - the whispers are back. Insinuations that Inter benefit from too many questionable decisions have been brewing all season, and yesterday's controversy comes just one week after they were awarded a far more dubious spot-kick at Siena. Before Calciopoli, many Italians would talk of the sudditanza psicologica - psychological subjection - suffered by referees, a supposed involuntary mental shift which caused them to unconsciously favour big clubs. More and more, the term is creeping back into the Italian football discourse.

Those who expected Inter to crash to earth this season will be surprised by the Nerrazurri's presence at the top of Serie A with 49 points. Skeptics will point to the referees, but Inter's players, Zlatan Ibrahimovic in particular, have been having great years.

There is, however, still some drama left, as Roma managed to snag a win against Catania despite the absence of Totti and about half the first team. The Romans are only seven back, and if they don't sell half their team to Sven and Man City during the transfer window, they have a chance to win the Calcio for the first time since 2001.

Milan, who have a ton of games in hand thanks their mid season vacation in Japan, won as well, meaning they sit only 10 points out of a Champions League spot.

Photo from interfc.com

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