The World Cup: 5 Players to Ignore
These five World Cup players will, hopefully, slink off into the sunset, never again to have their names breathlessly uttered. They are, in so many ways, the Halliburtons of the soccer world.
1. John Terry (England)
Terry was once the England captain. Then he was caught playing away with one of his teammates' girlfriends. This was shortly after Terry, who is married, was named Parent of the Year. Yet all this constitutes his interesting aside.
The Chelsea captain's game, always based on muscle rather than intelligence, is slipping. At the highest level, he is found wanting for pace and resorting to nefarious nonsense. He is England's Marie Antoinette. He loses his head. Just as he did at the very end of this year's English Premier League season when he managed to perpetrate two rash and unnecessary hacks at opponents to get himself sent off against Spurs. Oh, he also got into an argument at half-time of that game. With a fan.
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2. Kaka (Brazil)
Very rare for a soccer player transferred for a fee of around $70 million (oh, of course it was Real MADrid that paid the money), Kaka comes from a wealthy family. However, his game is nothing especially rich. Neither a striker nor a midfield player, he is the sort of Brazilian that doesn't seem to inspire the imagination. Still, he will, no doubt, have an array of religious t-shirts (his favorite is "I belong to Jesus") hopefully placed beneath his national shirt, should he actually score a goal.
Some might recoil at certain players' need to advertise their beliefs somewhere other than a church or an autobiography. There is no truth to the rumor that his t-shirt collection helped him gain his modeling contact with Armani. Oh, one other thing, Kaka is an Italian citizen.
3. Thierry Henry (France)
Henry is someone who once represented elegance. He even appeared on EA Sports FIFA video game boxes. Yes, he was that elegant.
Then, in the last qualifying game against Ireland, he deliberately handled the ball not once, but twice to set up the winning goal. (The referee and his assistant claimed they didn't see it.) But that's not why you should ignore him. It's that after cheating his team into the finals, he crawled over to the Irish players to commiserate with them, sitting down on the field and putting his arm around them. It was like watching someone pick your pocket and then offer to buy you a drink.
4. Javier Mascherano (Argentina)
There are those who admire destruction. But these are mainly defense contractors. Watching Mascherano play is like watching a child who has a psychotic predilection for pinching people. The Argentinean midfielder would rather step on the toes rather than the shoulders of giants. He would rather give you a sly nudge in the kidneys than, oh, play soccer.
I imagine that, even at dinner, Mascherano, on being served with a whole trout, first pokes it in the eye with his fork. Or maybe even his finger. NC-17, at best.
5. Fabio Cannavaro (Italy)
Here's the good part about Cannavaro: he's only 5 feet 9 inches tall. Which is very strange for a center-back. Here's the very good part about Cannavaro: he's 36, which means this is the last time we will see him in a World Cup.
I would be willing to bet a considerable dowry that Cannavaro will tug more shirts at this World Cup than will shoppers in any team store. He symbolizes the kind of negativity that would even be depressing in a grape crusher. The fact that he has played for Italy more than any other player in history shows precisely the qualities that Italian football reveres. Avert your eyes. It will not be difficult.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing, and an avid sports fan. He is also the author of the popular CNET blog Technically Incorrect.