Red & Yellow Cards of the World Cup Week

The World Cup is still a little less than five months than five months away, but already there is plenty of action on and off the pitch. We hand out red and yellow cards for some of the top stories covered by our bloggers this week.

Red Card: Iran has one of the strongest, most talented teams in its history. Unfortunately the boneheads in charge of its football federation are doing their best to undermine the team’s chances in Germany. Not only did the federation fail to lock in an agreement for a friendly with Ukraine, but it has also been unable to come up with any opposition to adequately prepare the team for the World Cup. At this point, Sisters of the Mercy won’t even play Iran. Which is too bad, because the Sisters have got game!

Yellow Card: If you are soccer fan in the United States you are probably used to this by now. The US Soccer Federation did not broadcast the team’s friendly on Sunday against Canada. Fans were left to listen to a local radio broadcast and to watch the game unfold on a match tracker on the Internet. Soccer in America will always be second rate if its own federation can’t promote it. On a positive side, the Canada match was apparently as entertaining as watching paint dry so fans didn’t miss much.

Red Card: Togo striker Emmanuel Adebayor has a world of talent but a brain the size of a peanut. The 21-year-old Arsenal player refused to start for his team’s African Nations Cup opener and has earned the scorn of his teammates and coaches for his lack of desire to practice. After getting run out of Monaco for similar reasons, Adebayor looks to be one of those immensely talented players who just doesn’t get it. Unfortunately for Togo fans his ability to score has forced coach Stephan Keshi to stick with him even though he has labeled Adebayor a “Cry Baby” and had to be restrained from going after him on the team bus.

Yellow Card: Coaches in Africa must dread the timing of the African Nations Cup. Togo, Angola and Ghana all went down in their first games, while the pressure on their coaches went up. We will continue to pay close attention to how these World Cup qualifiers fare in the CAN because an early exit could lead to a sacking or two.

Red Card: Sven-Goran Eriksson’s name is like fingernails on a chalkboard. The hysteria surrounding Sven, Sven’s comments, Sven’s future, etc has us Svened up. Enough is enough already. Can’t we just send the guy away so that we never have to come up with Svensationally silly headlines ever again?

Red Card: Corruption in FIFA. Now there’s a surprise. Jack Warner has taken it to a new level though. The entire allocation of World Cup tickets for Trinidad and Tobago was given to a travel company owned by the FIFA Vice-President, who could walk away with millions of dollars from the sales. But hey, at least you know who you should call if you are craving tickets for T&T-Paraguay.

Speaking of red and yellow cards, check out our latest blog dedicated to the World Cup referees. Somehow I think this is going to be a popular one this summer!