Can you imagine a time when the Wimbledon champion had his number listed in the phone book? And that when this international celebrity and ambassador of dignity won a tournament, he told the crowd to go ahead and look it…
Concrete Elbow by Steve Tignor
Not that I’m implying Lions center Dominic Raiola has a little anything—I have no intimate knowledge of Raiola’s junk, nor do I want any. What I meant was…aw forget it. The Detroit Lions are on a roll, a three game roll to be exact, which has this normally moribund franchise pumped. So excuse them if they’re not a little excitable after marching into Sun Life Stadium and beating the Miami Dolphins 34-27. Dominic Raiola though, he’s ramped without the slightest [...]
The Last Angry Fan
Little Fockers Plot Recreated With Scathing Reviews<br />
What’s Going On At Uproxx
Little Caesars Pizza Bowl <formerly the Motor City Bowl> Kickoff: Sunday Dec 26, 2010; 8:30pm EST, ESPN Florida International Golden Panthers vs. Toledo Rockets Notes: FIU is playing in their very first bowl game, quite remarkable for a football program that is just nine years old at any level; the Golden Panthers’ six wins this [...]
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Fantasy College Blitz
Could Kentucky end up in the Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl the day after Christmas?
That’s what Chris Low of espn.com thinks.
The SEC blogger has posted his latest bowl projections, and Chris apparently believes that Tennessee will beat Kentucky on Saturday, pushing the Cats down to the No. 10 spot in the league’s bowl pecking order.
Thing is, the SEC has just eight bowl tie-ins, and a ninth team would be added if both LSU and Auburn make BCS Bowls.
If that happens, and Tennessee beats Kentucky, and Georgia beats Georgia Tech, then the Cats could be squeezed out of the league tie-ins. The SEC would have to try and find another landing spot for Joker Phillips’ team.
Low thinks that would be in Detroit in the bowl formerly known as the Motor City Bowl, against a MAC opponent.
Top divisional contender Junior dos Santos sat in attendance at UFC 121 this past weekend and watched Cain Velasquez dismantle then-champ Brock Lesnar in four minutes on his way to becoming the UFC’s new heavyweight title-holder. However, rather than dismiss Lesnar’s skills to cheapen the victory or express a hint of intimidation at Velasquez’s showing, [...]
Five Ounces of Pain
Smile for the cameras
So that’s it, then?
Wayne Rooney re-signed at Manchester United. Now, the dickie birds may sing again. A lone cow forages on pastures still green.
But isn’t his dramatic u-turn just a little bit fishy?
In a bueracratic footballing environment populated by massive clubs and billions of dollars, there’s almost always more than what meets the eyes of casual fans. Just as Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger (in different ways, with different degrees of candor) acknowledged that manager’s will “create” injuries for players in order to rest them without public rebuke, the same, if not greater, levels of plotting and coyness can–and probably do–apply to this remarkable deus ex machina.
If Wayne Rooney wants to leave Manchester United–something he was so “adamant” about, they’d not be inclined to let him go for little or nothing. Nor would they have been too chuffed at him buying out his last year for 5m, an option allowed to him under FIFA regulations. Rooney wouldn’t have really preferred that either, as it’d forever tarnish his reputation among the rafters of Old Trafford.
Don’t get it twisted. There is a very real possiblity Rooney has re-signed with United in a clandestine “sign-and-sell” deal, basically the exact same agreement that Ronaldo had with the club when he re-signed late in his tenure, assured to move to Real Madrid (a move that was planned well in advance, so much so that Ronaldo patented CR9 that January while he still wore number seven for United).
Things might seem all hunkey-dorey for Man Red fans around the world. But Rooney signing a new deal may merely enable United to receive just compensation for the player, instead of him leaving on a Bosman’s free or buying out his last year for next to nothing.
If you believe such elaborate machinations are conspiratorial and implausible then I have a bundle of home loans I’d like to sell you. Hell, you probably don’t even believe in aliens. Money enables, if not necessitates, such subterfuge and smiley faces. Have we not learned anything?
Rooney’s u-turn saves face for player and ensures financial compensation for club if he were to leave before his new contract runs out, something that isn’t exactly unlikely in the current “money first, football second” climate of European football, a paradigm shared vociferously by Manchester United’s owners to their own club’s detriment.
Is it likely Rooney has re-signed with an implicit agreement to be sold next summer? I think so. You may not.
But we should all agree it’s very possible.
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