Blog Front Page: You Playing the Line or The Line Playing You?

Sounds of epic failure at the MGM.  Muttering.  And then silence.

"That clown didn't even use Fabregas!"

"Uruguay?  Who in The Christ saw that one coming?"

"My wife is going to kill me." 

The air became green with fear, envy, paranoia and wonder.  And, of course, the inevitable blizzard of torn-up betting slips in some ritual of the dead festival minus the Mediterranean funeral march in black and small discordant brass section.  Lots of sweat and hair being torn out, and then comes the demands being screeched at the players and coaches themselves, who obviously cannot hear them, with all the once cast iron certainties being drained like a festering hatchet wound.  God, I love Vegas like some guys who love women who are just plain no good for them.

"How many shots are they going to miss?"

There's something about that ball.

There's something about those players.

"Where in the hell is Torres?"

He's looking at Pedro.

Pedro?

Who in his right mind calls up Pedro?

It went on like this for a few hours.  One guy went so wrong on his picks that he turned ash-white and a cocktail waitress almost reached for his wireless to alert the paramedics.

"You okay, sir?  You okay, sir!  Here, breathe on this mirror or I'll need to call security!"

In the end, the guy who picked Spain in a landslide for the tournament showed a glimmer of life. He just ran out of hope. More times than not, as it turns out, hope dies a long and painful death when you've matched bank to it.  You could see the guy dying a little more each time the Spaniards shot it wide.  Sixteen tiny slashes to the throat, then ...

Silence.

The Swiss took the game.  Against Spain.  And there went the favorites, a beaten group as they left the pitch at the hands of some third rate football superpower who'd rather ski than kick.  First it was France in a draw, then came the English who still haven't recovered but should against the Algerians, and then came this.

Of course, this was the day when La Furia Roja was going to save this World Cup from all of these horrid defenses and terrible offensive play.  Now they have to use the lifeboats and life jackets on themselves.  Somewhere I read that $45 million USD had been wagered on this game and that roughly $37 million of it was laid on Spain - mostly because the odds did seem a bit short, but not to me.  I'm the guy who took the scoreless draw at the half between North Korea and Brazil ... and while I won't tell you what I walked away with, let's just say that a certain 7-Series with New York plates doesn't have a payment due until the end of the Obama administration.

You were warned, Sparky, remember my point about vowels in Group H?

And what have I repeatedly try to tell you: They come and they go in this Beautiful Game - but smart and ruthless will beat you every time. It is written.

The rest, it appears, is going precisely to my greedy little plan. Forlan's Uruguay with a former Milan coach now owns Group A. Maradona's merry band of bizarreness and rage, molded into a Venus de Milo of abuse and excess during his years in Serie A, are closing in on Group B with just one more win.  Group C will eventually land in Capello's lap because the Americans have one more slip up in the plan.  Germany in Group D is still the great unknown in all of this, but they'll take the first spot because nobody else seems to care.  Group E belongs to the Dutch because they are the Kings of Pre-Ejaculation and blow their load faster than a virgin at a porn shoot.  Italy and Brazil are still the most prepared for this World Cup and they'll take their respective groups with neither love nor style, grinding out the results as they need them.  

Dunga is the Anti-Proximo of this World Cup - the gladiator trader who brought Maximus to Rome to kill the Emperor, only this time it's the schooled killer reminding his master that style wins the crowd.  But Dunga seems too smart for such pranks as he watches Lippi seize on to more simpler things like sucking the life out of the midfield and discovering but one man's scoring touch to finish the painting.

But there are other questions. Like the role of the Argentines, the lack of real playmakers in the middle, Casillas's dip in form, the apparent defensive softness of the Germans, and the arrogance of Capello's squad selection.  Are these just speed bumps before the freeway ramp? Or was today just a painful reminder that everything must be earned at the World Cup?

Perhaps all are true. But there is one, very concerning development which I've repeatedly tried to impress upon you - especially in light of the defensive manner by which this entire World Cup has unfolded: did FC Internazionale find a way to deliver football back to its Dark Ages when defenses routinely chopped up the more creative sides?

And if so, how can it be broken down? Today's result, if not the entire first round, has underlined that no one has really figured out a Plan B. But everyone knows that it has to happen. At the present time Spain knows it will be Brazil waiting for them in the next round wearing brass knuckles and waving a baseball bat. And if they are lucky enough to get through that, Italy may well be waiting for them downstream with switchblades.

If a pretty football team is going to win this World Cup, they're going to need spikes on their boots and acid in their veins. A predator of epic proportions, something like that creature who chased Sigourney Weaver in outer space.

Mahalo!

It's possible, maybe some year. There's a Holy Grail to gambling on the World Cup and I'm proud to say that I haven't hit it yet, but I will in this lifetime.

24-0!

That means picking 8 Group Stage winners and then the 16 games throughout the knockout rounds all the way until the trophy is handed to one lucky captain.

I obsess over it every four years. Dialing it up at precisely the right time. Finding myself at 8-0 after the group stage, when the entire gaming community rises up and just galvanizes behind me - like when Doyle Brunson takes out every low-rent hack dishing out ninja bluffs in The World Series of Poker, but a bit more mystical for a specialist like me. Having the cajones to show up in the biggest and baddest Vegas sports books to hear, "Oh, Jesus ... it's you again." Then going into that World Cup Final at 23-0, one victory from sports wagering immortality. I've come close a couple of times, going 19-5 in 2002, 21-3 in 2006 and I've picked the last three winners before even the first kickoff.

I'm good - real good - but I'm seeking perfection and an interactive museum attraction at Madame Tussauds in Las Vegas. The opening will be attended by Criss Angel, Chuck Liddell and Wayne Newton amidst a dizzying collection of sequined showgirls sparkling from a wall of flashing cameras.

For now, I have to settle for the kind of notoriety reserved for degenerates. Like the time I was standing in a Vegas courtroom a couple of years back, on a routine traffic ticket, when I heard the assistant DA beg the judge to put me in the can for another 30 days. A complete outrage, it was. I grunted angrily at the DA and almost bit into his forearm. But he just gave me that same nervous grin and said, "Hey, Sonny. Good to see you again."

For a hot, ruthless moment I thought he was mocking me. I glared at him, a tiny little bed-wetter type in a cheap rumpled suit, hands clasped behind his back, serious in the way that a bicycle cop on Reno 911 gets about jay-walking.

But I still have the dream. I can almost taste that Maxim cover with Eva Mendes and Megan Fox on their knees before me and that headline "World Cup Genius Takes Down the MGM." Making an appearance on "Letterman," "E60," "Jimmy Kimmel" and that tragically awful Sky Sports late-night sports wrap up show where the guy seems so wooden you keep praying for him to spontaneously combust into flames. Walking down the street to come across my face in People Magazine's Style section, with just a provocative black-and-white picture of me counting my winnings with a neat cocktail and a simple caption: "Now that he's made gambling history, the wagering guru will be splitting his time between Vegas and Monaco as the world's top sports handicapper!"

I dream of becoming a modern-day "Ace" Rothstein without the car-bombing and all those tacky, pastel sports jackets. Then again, my dreams also include topless sideline reporters as well as "Porn Star Week on SportsCenter" and my own "30 for 30" special that would dig deep into the reasons why you should be me.

So here it goes: our date with perfection minus the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

Group A - Let's face it: this has the look and feel of an AA Meeting during happy hour. A bunch of tragic souls on a path to destruction once the caffeine kicks in. Uruguay wins this group based on the following factors - France's Raymond Domenech is a serious moonbat in need of a tin foil hat during a thunderstorm, Mexico would screw up a free lunch at an all-you-can-eat taco stand and South Africa can't even develop a wind instrument that doesn't sound like a pack of geese being tortured to death. Forlan and Suarez feast on these teams like it's junkie day at the meth lab.

Group B - Team doctors will allow the Argentine players to have sex during tournament. They just can't use their hands. And who on God's green Earth would go against a doctor's advice in these matters? Vitamin P for everyone. Messi scores more than Hugh Hefner during ecstasy tasting day at the Big House equipped with all the heart-shaped beds and water fountains spraying rose-colored Cristal.

Group C - This groups isn't as cut and dried as it may appear - which is why I call this group The Graeme Souness Division. But I'm going with England only because Fabio Capello will become the first national team manager to be arrested for motivating his team at gunpoint. What do these teams have in common? They're almost all decent squads on the verge of being called good by those who are not considered their fans, yet grasping at the thin vapors of rank mediocrity. Hence, the Graeme Souness Division. Enough said. I have more important things to consider.

Group D - My Paraguayan Press Agent, Helmut Romero, tells me that there is a real buzz about football in the Fatherland ... err, Die Mannschaft ... this World Cup year. And I have to agree. "Even with all of these undermenchen plaguing our glorious style of play," Romero argues, "there are young national heroes enforcing order in the names of Philipp Lahm, Stefan Kießling und Bastian Schweinsteiger." They'll miss Neanderthal boy Michael Ballack and his forehead folds of primitive flesh in later rounds as there is clearly evidence for some amount of social networking amongst the Germans this time around, including basic interaction between teammates over the use of fire in every day life.

Group E - Here we go again with the Dutch who are in dire need of a form of male-bonding that does not require leather ass-less chaps or a show-tune collection. There's a lot to admire about the Netherlands - most notably, the Mona Lisa of the WAGs, Sylvie van der Vaart - but can you really trust a country to win the World Cup when it doesn't have its own cuisine? These are the kinds of things that keep me up at night, pondering the reasons why. Bugs, boogers, burgers, at least have your own kind of food. The Dutch are like the rich kid with a flashy new bike who can't wait to get it stolen on the wrong side of town. Enjoy those action shots of Sylvie van der Vaart tossing her hair in the stands, because that will the best that the Netherlands has to offer this World Cup, unless the Mona Lisa herself makes an unannounced appearance in clear plastic heels at some Vegas strip club VIP room.

Group F - What exactly is an Azzurri? I've been searching Wikipedia for days and can't come across a reasonable definition. It's a conspiracy, I swear, and it could entice periods of white-hot rage had I been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Mailbag Alert: Fat Tony, from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn - who has a hedge of the most impressive mid-finger hair even encountered on the East Coast - says that in Sicilian dialect Azzurri is a euphemism for "Park the bus, bitches." Tony adds, "you should go with dat pearl of wisdom ... or else!" I think we should. Italy in a street fight.

Group G - It's pretty obvious that this is a three-horse race and North Korea has the look of a battered wife after Sluggo empties a fifth of Jack Daniels; I expect everyone to beat them fairly easily. Brazil, this time at the World Cup, has the look and feel of Internazionale Milano, tiny droplets of offensive quality surrounded by the biggest collection of thugs in organized football. They are Italy with a better marketing plan. And they'll grind the competition into dust so who really cares about second place? Wagering on the runner up is like making out with your hot first cousin - marginally pleasing on a boring afternoon, but why risk the embarrassment should you get caught?

Group H - The Spanish National Team most closely resembles the Dutch except that most of their last names end in vowels. Every other team in this group speaks Spanish, including the multilingual Swiss, which means that every time David Villa is heard calling an opposing defender, "Puta," somebody will kick him off the pitch. A relentless beating comes back to haunt the Spaniards further into the competition, right about the time that Sergio Ramos runs out of bronzing agent and his orange-glow disappears faster than Paris Hilton's virginity.

The Final on July 11th - Let me just say it right up front: it will end in a draw and go to penalty kicks. No worries for you England, you'll be knocked out way before this point because your team has the DNA and stability of a mental patient. Let's put it this way: Paul John Gascoigne - The Gazza - seems saner than John Terry and his off the pitch antics which seem to pile up faster than Lindsay Lohan's days in rehab.

Which brings me to the quandary I have in not selecting Argentina with all of that wonderful offensive firepower. They are the scariest team in the entire competition, but El Diego has gone all Tony Soprano with his cigar-chomping bursts of outrage at everything ranging from reporters with a brain dead question to the angle of the sun. It may end quite badly for La Albiceleste, but they will be very entertaining - much in the way that Sid Vicious could entertain by etching his first name into his chest with a broken beer bottle ... otherwise known as a self-inflicted train wreck.

Spain? The last big thing that Spain delivered to the world stage was Charo.

That leaves us with the big two - Italy and Brazil - who in my mind are the only ones mentally equipped to deal with this terrible, injury-filled lineup of misfits. Even the Germans and the Dutch seem more Jerry's Kids than reasonable contenders. That is to say - only Lippi and Dunga have figured it out from the outset by turning this nice little competition into a vicious street fight while everybody else has arrived in a flock of mini-vans filled with Capri-Suns because "the World Cup is such a special thing."

Save that dimwitted craziness for Disneyland, Sparky. As I've tried to tell you before every big game: They come and they go in this Beautiful Game - but smart and ruthless will beat you every time. It is written.

Brazil over Italy on penalty kicks.

See you again once things begin to shake out a bit. Mahalo.

The match at half-time may have looked close, but it wasn't. The aggregate may as well have been 55-1 instead of just 3-1. The scene in the Barcelona locker room must have been grim. The panic was on, the dream was shattered, the whipping was just getting started - and it was all over but the crying.

"In football, one day you're a whore and the next you're a nun." - Joaquin Caparros, manager of Athletic Bilbao

The truth be said of today's game: FC Barcelona had less finish than a stack of plywood and their biggest off-season acquisition was so thoroughly intimidated that he played like a dazed fool. You knew from Jump Street that either Lucio, Esteban Cambiasso or Walter Samuel was going to crack him wide open from fear and pressure and shame - and by the 63rd minute it came to a crashing end for Zlatan Ibrahimovic at the Camp Nou, who must seem destined for the blue side of Manchester with the rest of the psych ward day-room that Garry Cooke has assembled.

Even his teammates had lost faith in Ibrahimovich: Almost every ball sent his way struck a Stephen Hawkings black hole as he was left running into the teeth of that wicked Inter defense which seemed more like running head-first into a closet. Then Xavi began to spray passes to anyone but the Swede, and finally Guardiola got so desperate that he began calling plays with a flurry of wild hand gestures as if he was some kind of mutated Liberace clone ... which imploded on itself and brought hoots and jeers from the crowd as Jeffren and Bojan entered the fray and became snack food for Mourinho's men.

It was painfully obvious to even small children that Barcelona was going to be chewed up, beaten and humiliated.  Materazzi could be seen on the bench reaching for his bar of soap ten minutes before the sprinklers were turned on.

And, before someone trots out the "més que un club" canard that they learned from reading a Wikipedia page after several deep bong hits, understand this: long after you and I are worm food, people will marvel at what Mourinho's ten men did against a club that had gone six-for-six in the trophy count ... not just because its confident manager is smart, but because he's indeed Special and Ruthless and, even perhaps, as Audacious as they come.

Sure, Barcelona has some cute football folklore and a catchy song if you crave the "It's a Small World" ride at Disneyland, but stone arrowheads aren't much good against cannons, Christianity and phalanx tactics. Barcelona was out-organized, out-mindgamed, out-strategized and just plain outdone by the sport's biggest fish. A predator of the highest order. The kind who's built for the Big Game and who are carefully snatched up by the Massimo Moratti's of this world due to their low excitability thresholds and their alpha-dog, hyper-competitive zeal.

You see, the top flight of international football is not a place for rank amateurs these days. Not even Don King could deal with the venality of it all. Take my word on it, Sparky ... I've encountered some heartless and calculating operators in my time, and this crowd should be sent to a small vacant island with no government of any kind and no extradition treaties where all the inhabitants would be found absolutely guilty and no crime against the state or humanity is regarded as too heinous to gain acceptance into the club.

High-stakes freaks like Ramón Calderón and Silvio Berlusconi and Joan Laporta and Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich would be sipping playfully past the umbrellas shifting in their piña coladas poolside, along with Gordon Liddy and "Lucky Luciano" Moggi and Ferdinand Marcos and Sirhan Sirhan, shacking up together as one big delusional and happy family in a single - albeit monstrous - Mandalay Bay-like existence all tucked away forever. It would have a fully stocked open bar and satellite TV beaming Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous reruns and overflowing platters of tropical fruit and Don Ho yodeling Tiny Bubbles behind the Hawaiian organ while hordes of tanned, topless servants lap at the grease and shards of meat from their fat fingers and comb at the thin hairs on the backs of their necks, insulating them from all the pity of the outside world.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are going to witness some very strange doings on TV sets worldside in the next few weeks. It should lead to some fits of very strange behavior in locations from the Eastlands to Stamford Bridge to the Santiago Bernabéu and to the San Siro while the factions start choosing up sides ... But one thing is for sure: this last phase of the Champions League will spell doom for Bayern Munich.  Such is the case in World Football, particularly with the German national team and in the Bundesliga where many of the biggest fish currently find themselves at hands length or on the verge of lunging for each other's throats.

The reason comes in two parts. One is that Louis Van Gaal will have to beg, borrow and steal to get anything positive in Germany or Europe, which several weeks ago seemed like a Happy Days reunion tour - but now is looking like a dangerous gangfight because his overall game plan for the season was so hopelessly flawed that it could never have been successful. It was arrogant and ignorant and stupid, and now the vultures are coming home to roost.

Tragic, eh? No. In fact, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. I believe very strongly that the Bayern bossman can and shall be beaten like a gong in every competition besides Dutch Dog Chaser this year, but he won't be the only jackass running for his life.  A certain rabid coyote named Felix Magath is waiting in the weeds with his fangs drawn, as they say, ready to sink them into the necks of the Munich high brass who once discarded him. 

Some things are unavoidable, regardless of club affiliation, so don't even fight it: because it's as predictable as the fifth guy on the transporter beam getting chomped up by an extra-terrestrial being during Star Trek reruns.  Some guys are born winners while others are born to run into brick walls - and sadly, Van Gaal is among the latter. A petty control freak who couldn't get elected junior pimp of Albania. Take my word for it: eventually the Dutch will whisk him off the streets of Munich, take away his cellphone and restrict him to the company of gypsies and - maybe - let him supervise needle exchange programs in the park. 

But for now we are in Mourinho's world - whose almost mythical reputation is fast approaching that of the Dos Equis guy.

The Champions League Final, in the end, will seem nothing more than a muffled explosion from the Santiago Bernabéu executive washroom, announcing that yet another retread has been handed a death march back to the ranch - which for the Germans will be a strange and suffocating orgasm of long awaited deliverance that will wind down instantly to rabid depression, like they were yanked back at the shirt collar just as their first pubescent amusements were giving them a cheap thrill in a tree fort.

I know for some of you this has got to hurt.  So better to take your medicine now than get beaten like a rat in a waste-basket.

Peace. Out.