Wednesday, June 2, 2010

World Cup Heartbreak

What's worse:

1) Jonathan Dos Santos - Javier Aguirre decided to cut his national team from 30 to 24...meaning 1 guy would be cut at the very last moment. That in and of itself is just plain stupid. Don't just cut 6 guys. You wait to make a final decision all at once!! ...but I digress. Anyway, Jonathan is only 20 years old but he has been at La Masia (Barcelona's famed youth academy) since his early teens. ANYBODY, who steps foot in that academy is special. O, and he was given a number of opportunities to play with the first team this past season and excelled. And on a Mexican national team, which ain't Brazil last time I checked, he is a valuable asset off the bench. Aguirre gave him a full 90 minutes against Gambia the other day. After the game, he pulled him aside and broke the news. They even had a car waiting outside to take him to the airport! Aguirre is a shmuck. A fucking shmuck. I've always respected his coaching abilities since his time with Atletico but this was a new low. He even had the nerve to say later that he knew his final 23 BEFORE the game...playing Jonathan was simply a nice gesture. Well guess what buddy: this useless midfielder just signed a two-year extension with Barcelona who increased the out-clause in his contract to 30 million Euro. Some chump. OR...

2) Theo Walcott - Ever since his hat trick against Croatia, Theo has been Capello's favorite player...or so we thought. A shoe-in for the World Cup, the real issue was sorting through injury plagued Joe Cole, Aaron Lennon, and Shaun Wright-Phillips, and the young Andy Johnson who had yet to be tested on the national level. Expectations were high and while every player will come out and say their spot on the final squad isn't definite, it's safe to assume in the back of Walcott's mind he knew he'd be on that plane to South Africa. All of England did. Instead, he received a phone call the other day on the links telling him he had been dropped from the squad. Shock and awe!! How could this happen?! What makes this hard for young Theo is the fact that everyone, including himself, thought he it was a no brainer he'd feature in the World Cup. Although this author agrees 100% with his omission, it is still sad story for a promising talent.

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