Ukranian coach Oleg Blokhin has assured his players that if they reach the semifinals of the World Cup, they will be allowed to have sex with their wives. What a swell guy. Of course, I'm guessing a few of the Ukranian players might have been wishing Blokhin said "other players' wives" considering star Andriy Shevchenko's wife is Kristen Pazik (above). If that were the case, Ukraine would be a lock for the final four.
Elsewhere, in possibly the most stupid thing I've heard in a long time, the New York Red Bulls have supposedly offered Ronaldo $120 million for his services over ten years, which he turned down.
First, even though making a move from Real Madrid to MLS would be akin to leaving the Lakers to go play for a team in the Euroleague, I actually am a bit surprised Ronaldo said no. Over in Spain, he has battled injuries recently and has even been booed by Real Madrid fans who think he's overweight and disinterested. He's not young anymore, and this is most likely his last World Cup. Point is, he's entering the twilight of his career and has accomplished pretty much everything he can at both the international and club level, so why not settle down in the Big Apple and get paid a salary that would make any NBAer or NFLer proud? I mean, he had to at least consider it, right?
But the more important aspect here is the sheer stupidity it takes for MLS to offer one dude $120 million when the annual team salary cap is $1.6 million. Granted, the Beckham rule may allow for one cap exception per team, but still, Enron had numbers that made more sense. The Red Bulls play to sparse crowds in the enormous Giants Stadium and have no new stadium plans officially underway as of yet. To think that throwing out money with a verve to rival the major American sports is a good idea in a league still trying to get its footing is absurd, and possibly suicidal.
Even worse, as good as Ronaldo has been, MLS doesn't need guys who choose to play in the league solely as some sort of lucrative semi-retirement. Fuck that. MLS won't become successful by making it some sort of circus show. (Come behold the once great Ronaldo! Once he was even fit!) Get young, hungry dudes who want to improve and win. American dudes. They're our future, not aging Brazilians who are a few meals away from retiring back to the beaches of Rio. I'm too young to remember the NASL very much, but I do know that the league thought it was a good marketing plan to pay big bucks to some of the biggest names in soccer history. The likes of the legendary Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, and Johan Cryuff all faded into oblivion in America after their careers had peaked and were ready for the downslide. So they came to America and made a few bucks to, essentially, go through the motions, at least compared to the level of play they were used to.
And we all know how things worked out for the NASL.
