Soccer Va Jay Jays

Soccer is for Va Jay Jays. They are prima donnas. I get it. As an American, who fervently defends soccer.. its hard to defend the crap that happened in Wales this week. Chelsea, the New York Yankees of the English Premier League, was playing Swansea City in an League Cup (League Cup is a competition between the top 92 teams in England and Wales.... would be the equivalent of all of the Major League Baseball, Triple A and Double A teams having a knockout style competition).

Chelsea was down 2-0 on aggregate with little more than 10 minutes left.... meaning Chelsea needed to score 3 times to advance to the final... a hard task. With the clock running, time is of the essence. Often when the ball going out of bounds, players of the team losing will often rush to get the play going. With the game being played in Swansea City's stadium a 17 year old ball boy, Charlie Morgan fell on the ball as if he was an EOD specialist taking one for his comrades. As Eden Hazard, a Belgian midfielder for Chelsea, tried to retrieve the ball while little Charlie continued to lay on the ball. Hazard a bit frustrated gave him a quick right kick to the ribs. Charlie started to rive in pain looking for a call from the referee. It is mind numbing to think that a kid not involved in the game could effect the game. It happened. After several minutes of referees talking, Hazard was given a Red Card and Chelsea played the rest of the game a man down.

Just try to picture this happening in an American sport such as basketball. Imagine Spike Lee sitting court side at Madison Square Garden and holding onto the ball as Lebron James tried to throw an inbound pass. Not only would Spike Lee get lambasted... it would not happen. Spike has too much respect for the game to do something like this.

Unfortunately, this became a story of how a professional soccer player kicked a punk kid in the ribs. The way it was presented in the U.S. media it appeared as just another story of soccer players being soccer players. It is hard to defend a sport when the integrity of the game can be effected by some acting not even on the pitch. It is bad enough players flop and fake injuries...now we have ball boys doing it?! Shame on the referee. I do think Eden Hazard was wrong for kicking him in the ribs... he should have kicked him in the nuts.