One for the Celtics

Normally I’d side with the LA Lakers but tonight it’s high time that “Paul Pierce et al.” win the NBA title. There’s no super superstar among the Boston Celtics but they are a team, not just a series of Kobe Bryant extensions…

Capello’s First Point of Order

Fabio Capello (pr. Kah-Per-Lo), the new England football manager, may or may not have serious intentions in getting the team with a trophy or another.

But if he does, there is one clear thing he needs to impose to change the squad’s attitude: a complete alcohol ban for any player willing to represent England.

Otherwise, Capello’s tenure will end up like Eriksson’s and any other manager’s this side of 1966.

England’s football system is large enough to guarantee that a team of 11 average alcohol-free players can be put together, and they will have an enormously higher chance to win than highly-paid drunks.

If Italy made it in 2006…

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I am not just saying players should stop drinking before matches, or during major competitions. Of course they should, and to do otherwise is a clear sign of foolishness.

But if I were Capello, I would ask for players to not drink any alcohol at all in any moment of their day. Ever.

A player’s career in the national team is usually short anyway, seldom lasting more than 4 or 6 years. If anybody cannot resist that short a time as an absolute teetotaller, in exchange for the possibility of winning the Cup in South Africa 2010, that person must have a serious alcoholism problem. And he should be sent for some basic detox, not to play for his Country.

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Of course there’s always another solution: change nothing, pretend it’s all about football schemes, play on, and just wait for next abysmal failure…

…while going from one rape allegation to another, of course!

ps Is it important for Capello to learn how to speakka goode Englisch? Maybe not. He’d better spend some money to buy a large amount of wild dogs, to unleash against any player showing signs of drunkeness (or just slacking).

Drivers Not Important In Slightly Fishy F1 Championship

After the Monza GP there is finally a bit of clarity in Formula One: drivers are not that important, in 2007.

In fact, a look at the standings reveals a remarkable pattern, with McLaren’s pilots in positions #1 and #2, then Ferrari’s in #3 and #4, then BMW Sauber’s in #5 and #6 and so on with Renault, Williams, Red Bull and Toyota.

The first 14 places are occupied by successive pairings of team-mates.  

Ergo the car is more important than the actual driver.

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Now can we say there is anything fishy, after months of allegations?

Well, there is just a hint that something may not be as usual, in the fact that Ferrari and McLaren are so much better than anybody else.

In a year where drivers are not important, in fact, what are the chances that two completely independent cars can compete so close to each other?

Wouldn’t it be much more probable for one team to be in front of the pack, having cracked the right configuration and materials for the current set of rules?

Or otherwise, if such mix can be found by more than one team, shouldn’t there be three or four competing at the top?

If I were the judge in the McLaren-Ferrary spy case, I would get both cars compared to the last detail, and with a couple of other cars too…

Open to Doping

How many years will pass before the towels will finally be thrown in in the boring comedy aganst doping in sports?

Especially with the advent of sport professionals, only freaks can be on top of the world without using any doping. And so people have been “enhancing” themselves for decades and they will continue do so regardless.

And why not? The public watches in expectation of some extraordinary feat. Well, any limit for the lightly-trained body has likely been reached and surpassed by now, so where would records come from? London 1948 may have been the last time anybody in the crowd could have reasonably competed on the field.

Antidoping efforts are therefore only a giant, hypocritical waste a time, the children of the shameful witch-hunts of the 1950’s and 1960’s against anybody not doing sports as an “amateur”.

Why can’t we get things declared out in the open? At least, control is so much easier under sunlight. Who was there instead to protect those young cyclists, all killed by heart attacks in their 20s?