#5 - A Fascinating Read: Take a few minutes and read Neil Morris' article, "An inside look at the rise and fall of the Carolina RailHawks: From Game Day to eBay". It's an interesting look at the dysfunction that surrounded the team and how the rights to the franchise ended up for sale on eBay. It's a really crazy story of how even with all the positives the team had going for it (tremendous training and game day facilities for a lower division team), they struggled to anything right and really seemed to squander a lot of potential.
#4 - Are We Really Surprised?: Sepp Blatter this week admitted there was collusion in the World Cup host voting for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments. Better yet, he doesn't give a damn. Not that we should really be surprised that the collusion occurred or that Sepp could care less, but if this isn't enough to completely make you hate FIFA, the blinders must be super glued to your head. Every time we think we've seen the worst of FIFA, they manage to dip to new and even lower levels of depravity. It's disgusting abject corruption that spits in the face of everything that is good about the game. I've had enough honestly and I'm done with international football.
#3 - Let's All Laugh at Arsenal: Come on now Gunners. A 4-0 lead at halftime over Newcastle and you end up with a 4-4 draw? Shame on you. No blaming the referee (even though he was atrocious), even a man down and hard done by you still handed over a 4 goal lead. It's the greatest meltdown in Premier League history and it couldn't of happened to a more likable bunch...
#2 - An Epic Handball: There have been many infamous handballs in the sport of soccer. Diego Maradona's "Hand of God" and Theirry Henry's cheating that propelled France in to the 2010 World Cup are easily the biggest, but that doesn't mean that epic moments of outright cheating only occur on the sport's biggest stages. Case in point, this handball from the Conference North in England.
#1 - #mlsscheduleislatebecause: As MLS fans waited for the release of the full 2011 schedule on Thursday, an innocent hash tag set the Twitterverse on fire and was trending worldwide for some of the day. Even though the hash tag and tweets were poking fun at the league, I think the general reaction was extremely positive and the "Any publicity is good publicity" theory was in full effect. Who knows how many tweets were sent with the hash tag, but it certainly made the wait for the schedule release an entertaining experience.