SoccerBlogs

For the nth time in the history of The Offside's email, a title which could be paraphrased as ZOMG!!! Worst Miss EVerrrrrrr!!!!! landed in the inbox. This sentence runs through the mind often.

And for some reason, they seem to be getting increasingly accurate. Is football so visible now at lower levels that we really are seeing the worst misses ever, finally?

• Lack of self criticism: He did not take responsibility for the Germany defeat. In fact, he did not even want to review the match.

• Incommunicado: He did not communicate with Julio Grondona since his return two weeks ago from the World Cup.

• Squandered public support: 10,000 fans cheered his return from SA but he was unable to turn that to his advantage.

I am back in Venezuela after the world cup, to a long football hangover. Surprised was I to see that as I returned my great idol, the reason I love football, Diego Maradona, was coming to Venezuela as well, as a guest of president Hugo Chavez.Maradona has apparently been offered to continue as Argentinean national coach, a decision that is undoubtfully controversial, although I think he has been

- In a video entitled "Knights of Iraq: 6" by the Islamic Front of the Iraqi Resistance's (JAMI), a participant in the video is seen firing off rounds from a handgun wearing a Zidane shirt. So I guess these means terrorists also like soccer. Someone needs to find a video of a terrorist wearing an American football jersey or a baseball jersey quick, before the mindless masses actually begin to think that.

Perhaps every bookish football supporter has heard of/read the writings of Uruguayan journalist and poet, Eduardo Galeano. Judging how often his name is dropped among left-wing academic armchair football "fans" (see SWPL on the subject), he's also becoming the face of football for the growing body of mostly North American academes who deem football the one acceptable spectacle sport, in contrast with those "brute expressions of masculine oppression," American gridiron and hockey.

Eduardo Galeano became the talking point when Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez met up in a very anticipated encounter at the OAS.

Chavez thrust Eduardo Galeano's "The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" into the hands of Obama. This of course is a vast improvement from the Venezuelan president's invocation of the "devil" being present when George W Bush addressed the UN.

Ok, here you go.. Del Potro and Carlito Tevez, the new BFFS and Tennis/Football pairing (albeit a sadder version of Nadal/Casillas) at the O2 Arena in London yesterday at the ATP World Tour Finals. Ya'll know The Dona welcome them both to his Thanksgiving dinner celebrated in honour of Benjie, which the duo kindly declined in favour of a movie (New Moon) and popcorn (a mix of sweet and salty).

Here's the best that we found this week from our friends across the footballing world:

Cruzeiro's Diego Renan fails to do a Cruyff turn, then gets shoved to the ground in a match against Gremio. [Dirty Tackle]

Luke Young and Sol Campbell are oldies but goodies [Never Captain Nicky Butt]

How would you describe Mascherano in three words?