Italian football is no stranger to match fixing scandals, so it was no surprise this week when
police arrested fourteen players in dawn raids in relation to soccer fraud, bringing the arrest
tally to over fifty in the past year. Lazio captain Stefano Mauri was among the latest arrests, and
although there is no immediate assumption of guilt, Zenit St.
Fishtown Hipsters, kicking in the balls. I have to give it to the Russians, they know how to
make surprise moves, even Bobby Fischer wouldn't have seen this one coming. We all were
anticipating a team of skilled bullies in order to break us physically, to get at least one of us
hurt. Instead they went the other way.
Hong Kong youth side ESF Lions had a grudge to settle going into their match with rivals Kitchee
Escola, having lost the previous encounter 16-0. The bad blood wasn't helped when one of the Lions
earned himself a trip to the police station — and the starring role in a race scandal — by
delivering a fairly unsubtle kick to the head of an opponent who had suffered a bad tackle.
That was as surreal as it was exceptional. A match of such class, such splendor, that many of
us, including one Fernando Torres, were likely wondering who this team was that we were watching.
As I asked via Twitter after 20 sensational first-half minutes had resulted in a trio of fine
goals:
Is this real life?
