....to get excited about the M's. Five in a row!! Granted, three were over the Diamondbacks, but still. Second place, Baby!

Beltre is up to .262, and look at his last seven days .

His 5 for 5 notwithstanding, The Richie Suxson Watch continues, as he tries to come out of that monthlong slump and finally beat the AL strikeout record. At this rate, he only projects to 174 Ks, so he's got some work to do.

Also, somehow while they rank 18th in HRs, the M's rank 1st in the MLB in triples.

And unfortunately, since I don't have the technical savvy of Colbs or Prewett, I can't put up the YouTube.com video directly on the blog, so here's Coco Crisp's amazing catch . He's like Jeremy Reed, but he can hit and inspires confidence since he's not white.

If my questions piss people off, let me know and I'll stop posting them. I'm not posting them to sound smart or deep or any shit like that, just to get a better understanding of what I don't know.

So the other day, I was at Wal-Mart (somewhere, Jason gives a capitalistic cheer). And walking around, it was clear the target demographic does not include much of the college-educated crowd. In fact, it was kind of depressing, as everyone looked pretty glum and unhealthy. The elitist in me was happy I'm not part of that crowd, while the Democrat in me felt sorry for them.
Anyhow, I thought about crime and drugs are typically associated with the poor (white-collar crime and high end drugs excluded). Then I was thinking about the <Tom Leykis show and how my impression of what the typical call-in person was, laughing at beating the shit out of people or cheating on their spouses, and my thought that those are typically lower-class people. I'm sure that's a generalization, but I don't think it's too far off.
I would term these activities (infidelity, crime, drugs, violence) as pretty base an animalistic, and self-destroying in an attempt to maximize present happiness at the expense of the future.

I'm trying to figure out how to view those who are under-class and engage in destructive activities (not all do). Obviously, there should be some compassion for people who are less fortunate (even from you, Prewett), but to what extent? Do you think most people who are in a depressing situation are there because of their choices and are reaping what they have sewn, or do you think people who are in depressing situations make choices they do simply because they lead a life without a lot of enjoyment? And either way, is there a duty to help?

This is probably a shitty post. but it's been on my mind.

Let me know, though, if you hate these, and I'll stop putting them up, and I'll delete this so we can go back to making fun of when Prewett and Steve used to lock me out of my room in the annex junior year, late at night.

In honor of the Mariners actually playing some decent baseball, I was looking for that clip of Ichiro getting a base knock after the pitch bounced in the dirt. I couldn't find it, but I did find this:



Apparently, it was a big home run.

The last post got me thinking about how literally people take what's written in the Bible. Do you actually think that Moses parted the Red Sea, or not?

Ok. So I was listening to the radio as I was driving (Because as you know, I LOVE driving. When suddenly I had to take the biggest pee of my life.....Didn't you say you grabbed him by the buttocks and pulled him closer?....Yes, because I was afraid he might fall. I mean, Doctor, his pants were around his god damned ankles.)

That aside, there was some BS commercial on from a Republican committee talking out against Republican candidate John Tester. And the radio spot said that Tester didn't hold real Republican values because he didn't support the gay marriage ban.

So the question is: Why would anyone support a gay marriage ban? Or gay rights in general in the U.S.?

I'm looking for reasons besides religion. Because while admittedly religion plays a large part in the formation of our laws, a proposed gay marriage ban seems to be completely motivated by religion, completely antithetical to the Establishment Clause.

Also, an argument that it is morally wrong would be good, as long as you can avoid religion as the basis for morals, partly because I don't think it is (although linecutter should feel free to try and convince me otherwise). I kind of believe in the Social Contract Theory as it is.

Maybe a little deep for the blog, but since I can't even see the other side, hopefully you right-wingers (or democrats) can help me out here.

Asspony by Blair

I don't have a television currently in Montana. But last night I was watching the OSU game at a bar, and one of these commercials came on. Whereas at home I would just immediately switch the channel, at the bar I had to suffer through it.
The commercials fucking are stupid. Doesn't Apple get it? Nobody wants an Apple computer. Stick to peripherals. Very few people are willing to put up with Apple computers anyhow, and putting stupid commercials on television with some hippie, piece of shit Jimmy Fallon look-alike isn't going to appeal to anybody, except for members of the metrosexual community.
It's enough to make someone swear off buying iPods and iPod accessories in the future.
I'm a big fan of boycotting companies for shit-ass commercials. Case in point: Snickers. Snickers are dead to me.

Where did all the Real Men of Genius commercials go?

Hopefully I can get some responses to this. What commercials do you hate with a passion?

... but the M's are on a roll. They have been so hot lately (winning 14 of 19) that Colbs wakes up in the morning with sticky underwear.

Suckson still sucks, but Beltre is proving me right and wrong. First on signing, I thought it was great. Then I thought he would suck forever. But here's what comes off of ESPN.com

"Beltre went 3-for-4 with a walk and scored twice in his second game at Dodger Stadium as a visiting player, lifting his batting average to .250. He went 2-for-3 with a two-run homer, a double, four runs scored and two walks in the series opener.

Beltre, who still lives in nearby Arcadia, said it's been about two weeks since he felt his confidence return. He's hit safely in 18 of 20 games since being moved to second in the batting order."

1 game under .500. For how shitty they had been doing last month, that's remarkable. Hargrove still sucks, but "as Ichiro goes, so go the Mariners."

Get excited!!

Yes, it's true. Our fantasy baseball league is dead. Deader than Prewett's sex life. It was a good run, but all things must end. Ditto for the league.

Check back next year, though, when we try to care about something for more than three weeks.

This is some pretty funny shit. Probably the best since The Chronicals of Narnia: Lazy Sunday.

Seriously. What is to like about the world cup, and soccer in general? Besides hoping that Iran and France get so upset about losing that everyone there commits suicide or the thrill of seeing if players can run fully erect for 80 minutes. No one can use their hands besides the goalie, except for when the ball goes out of bounds and a player throws it back in using the form of a six-year old girl.
It's not a graceful sport. There are very few set plays. Most of the activity is futile. The players flop worse than Karl Malone. What's to like?

And a celebration where a guy puts on a spiderman mask? Wow. Cool.

So far in my list of what is cool about soccer I have:
1. Bicycle kicks
2. Nut grabs/kicks/punches
3. Europeans killing other Europeans
4. I only really have to hear about it every four years
5. There is at least one straight guy that plays it (Beckham, but he paints his toenails)
6. It isn't hockey.

So laying on your stomach on a board trying to catch waves can make you figure out pretty quick where you forgot to put on the sunblock.

Those are some hot legs, huh? Literally.


I went to Pearl Harbor today. Not doing that again. We were in line for 3 hours for something that you can literally get a longer and better view of watching a half hour History Channel documentary. You get a ticket to get in a tour group, sit around for them to call your group, burn in the sun more, look around at the displays, wait 2 more hours, get in to watch a 45 min movie (that I slept through because of heat exhaustion) get on a boat where there is no screwing around, get out, look around on the memorial (the water was pretty choppy so I couldn't see much), 20min later you are forced to get back on the boat and you leave. I am not complaining, in fact it was important to me to see both Pearl Harbor and Ground Zero and now I've done both; but now that I have done Pearl Harbor, I am not doing it again until I have kids and they're 25. It was pure hell for my brothers, I can't blame them it was an agonizing wait for me too, but they're hyperactive as is and this wait in this heat was like a prison sentence.





























If you go to Hawaii and you have a busy trip planned, cross out Pearl Harbor unless it is a must see. It isn't that exciting and you could watch the Histroy Channel and get ten times more info and ten times better view of what is going on, without all the wait in the sunshine.

For sale on eBay - A Ben Roethlisberger replica motorcycle helmet.

Only one ever produced!

Bid now!

Here is a picture from my balcony at the "Outrigger Waikiki on the beach" of the beach. I am going surfing all day!

So today, I was thinking about the blog, and wondering if I was insensitive when
I write shit about other people on this thing. Because when people say stuff about me similar to what I say about them, I don't get pissed off, but some people seem to be on their periods all the time. So it's either that I'm insensitive
or some of you have big gapers.

So I thought of a bitch scale. you can call it a "sensitivity scale," but
that's just a euphemism for being a princess. I decided to rank people.
Both because it's fun, and because it will piss people off.

from least sensitive to most.

ColbS (26 years of bending over and taking it)
Darkness (ditto)
Asspony
Stumpy (anyone that refers to himself as stumpy has a great sense of humor)
Bobby
Oliphant
Hallock
Prewett
Linecutter
Paulson
Phipps
Vanos

Oliphant, I had difficulty placing you.

The anger was beginning to well up inside Eddie Guardado.

He felt it, but he wasn't the only one who could see it.

He'd been moved out of the closer's role in early May after a bad April, and he'd never quite adjusted to working in setup relief.

"It's just not the same," Guardado said before Wednesday's game in Oakland. "I think they pulled the plug early. That's just my opinion, but it's the way I felt.

"It's not like I'd just been made the closer in spring training. This is a job I'd had for five or six years. I didn't like the decision."


check out his stats for the year.

What part about giving up six home runs in 19 innings makes you think they pulled the plug early? Does giving up 0-2 walkoff homeruns to Mark Loretta help? Or how about a 5.3 ERA with batters having a .913 OPS against him? 29 baserunners in 19 innings?

Fuck him and his 6.25 million dollar salary.

Asspony's right about Al Gore not "inventing" the internet. What he actually said was that he "created" the internet. Big difference, indeed.

Thanks to his creation and the search engine that was made possible as a result, Google, I can use the "information superhighway" to show that his claim is inaccurate by any stretch of the imagination (technological, fiscal or otherwise).

Here's a great article about it from Prewett's favorite magazine, Wired:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,18390,00.html

It's kind of like the girl that puked on Spicer's wiener when she was giving him a BJ.

Best Party of My Life

Number of times Oliphant thought about his own mom naked today.

In case anyone cared what my GPA was last semester.

This is Ray Bethell, 8-time-Multiple Kite World Champion He is 79 years old, and this is an absolutely stunning film. Spectacular. He's the Blue Angels pilot of kite flyers.
http://www.kitelife.com/videos/demo/bethell_promo.htm

On an unrelated but equally entertaining note... For all of you who believe Al Gore* and think global warming is something to shit your pants about, a bit of good news from real scientists who study this sort of thing.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm

*Inventor of the internet.

Here is my first post on the blog..
So for the past couple weeks I've been quietly watching the blog and your rants about World Cup. I was still trying to decide if the entire world could really be so wrong about a sport that has been around for 400 years. Since moving to Amsterdam, I've watched more "football" than the other times in my life combined - and this includes many high school "football" games where we would scope out the long-haired stoners that played in Oxford.

Why have I watched so much?
A. World Cup is on every single TV screen in Europe, including TV's on sidewalks.
B. Aside from CNN, it's the only thing with English spoken.
C. I was seriously giving the sport a chance.

The most popular ways to support your World Cup team:
1. The Jersey, unless you are a female Brazil fan...

2. The Scarf- I don't understand this one at all. Its 90 degrees out & people are wearing scarves or displaying them like poster board signs:

3. The foghorn, at all hours of the day (I just heard one now at 11 am) and anywhere, the foghorn is entirely appropriate.

4. Singing. Every country has their own songs, although everyone sings "we are the champions" and "Ole! Ole!" And since there are only 1-2 goals a game, the celebration for these goals is extensive.

5. Rioting/Fighting- I witnessed my first hooligans during a celebration parade in our neighborhood for Amsterdam's team that won a lesser division, a police car was trashed with bikes and garbage cans.

6. Decorating your house, building, street like its Christmas. Its rare that you can find a street anywhere in Europe that doesn't have some sort of World Cup decoration. Here is the view from my apartment:

I also watched the Premier League Championship, which is the annual club final (Barcelona won- and has several Brazil players). Club teams are full of international players, and the only time they all play at the same time on their home team is the World Cup. It's like an All-Star game that actually means something to the sport. I can understand that fans get excited to have their players reunite and show national pride.

So up until this point, I though the World Cup was pretty fun. Then, Brazil played their first game. Brazil is like the equivalent of the NY Yankees, they've won the World Cup five times, including 2002. And, it's the biggest bandwagon in the world I've decided. Fans that realize their own country sucks, put on their green & yellow and scream Ole! Basically, they pick the team that they can party with the most - not a bad strategy. They won last night 1-0 over a team that was ranked 20th. You would have thought that the World Cup was over based on the celebrations that went on. Game ended around 10 pm, and the foghorns, singing and partying did not end until 3 am (when it started raining). I think there are 6 more games for them...awesome. They are going to be the team I love to hate (mostly because of the annoying fans).

My opinions of the World Cup (so far):

• It's called soccer, not football.
• I'm going to be pretty annoyed by it by the time its over.
• The U.S. will always suck at soccer as long as it has such a variety of sports to attract athletes, the rest of the world really only has soccer, rugby and cricket.
• Even if your own country sucks, you should not root for Brazil.
• US pro sports leagues need to come up with more creative theme/fight songs than "Who let the dogs out" and "Pump up the volume"
• Any sport event that encourages all day public drinking becomes fun, maybe the world should try football tailgating or Olympic drinking at a baseball game.
• For the world, this is much bigger than any Super Bowl, World Series, or Olympics. And, it's hard not to get caught up in it.

I'd rather tailgate at a Michigan State football game, watch March Madness, or Olympic drink at Safeco anyday rather than watch soccer.

Oh yeah, when you guys are whining about ESPN.com, just think it could be worse. You could actually be submersed in a world where the World Cup is unavoidable on TV, in bars, in conversation, on the streets. I'll just have to smoke more to get through this!

So I voted in an ESPN poll yesterday--Brian referenced the same poll in his crappy post--asking "what was I going to do for the World Cup today?"

The questions were, maybe not worded exactly this way or in this order, but along these lines:

A. Stay home all day to watch.
B. Record it and watch it later.
C. Got to work late.
D. Check in online
E. Don't Care

When I participated and entered my vote of "E. Don't Care" around 6:30pm Sunday Night, I was hardly alone. Thousands of people had voted all day and the majority of people (over 55% nationwide and 51% was the lowest for any state--I think it was Maryland) voted like I did. 20% or so said that they were going to record it and watch it later in the day for the second highest total. Of the remaining three, I think one of the choices had 15% or so.

Around 9:30 pm--three hours later--I checked in again and the turnaround was staggering. The highest was still "E. Don't Care" but it had fallen to 30% and the second highest vote total went to "A. stay home and watch" which was at 27%. The people that were going to record it had fallen to third essentially tied along with people who were going to go to work half of the day.

How can it be that in three hours such a significant number of voters were able to cancel out the earlier votes cast against watching it at all? Well, a few things could explain this. 1. the NBA finals started at 6pm and I am sure there was a surge of votes for people looking online for game stats and updates and 2. the outside of the US voters were waking up to cast their votes. However, that would mean that most of the NBA finals fans are also die hard world cup watchers (anyone who stays home for a sporting event is considered die-hard) which seems unlikely. Plus, the individual state's votes shifted dramatically along the same lines as the overall poll numbers, meaning the outside of the US votes alone couldn't explain the dramatic change.

My conclusion: ESPN/ABC/Disney are full of shit! I believe they saw the results of the poll and decided to falsify the results to generate buzz and make a bandwagon for people to jump on to. Essentially you have all been tricked into thinking the World Cup is cool by gigantic corporations that have spent a lot of money trying to get every last penny from you. The change in the results were too dramatic too quick to lead to any other conclusion other than they were doctored to be more favorable to there huge investment.

Don't buy into the hype, you are all better than that! Raise your fists and voices declaring, "Fuck no soccer! We will never succumb to your tricks!" By making this stand and encouraging others to fight with us, we can end soccer forever! Please look into your hearts soccer fans, there is still good in you, I can sense it. Don't die wondering, "what if I had made a stand against this soul destroying game?"

We can be heroes for the World!

The Mariners: so hot right now!























In case you missed it, King Felix had a 2 run, 4 hit, 9 K, O walk, 94 pitch, complete game today--his first. Uhhhhh....is it now time? This is also his first stretch of 3 straight wins. He is starting to put it together and is looking dominant.














The Mariners are starting to put something together as well. Adrian Beltre in the 2 hole is starting to resurrect his season and Ritchie Sexson hit a grand slam after the Angles walked Ibanez for the second time to get to him. Right strategy, bad payoff. Ichiro has been hitting lights out with several multi-hit games this last week and Ibanez has been solid. Jose Lopez, though, wow is he going to be a good one. How many doubles does this guy have to hit until people take notice and put him in the All-Star game? He won't get voted in, but he is a must as an alternate. Right now he is one of the best second basemen in the game and arguably the best in the AL; you'd be hard pressed to find a better one. Our bullpen has some promise, a few guys are questionable like Guardado and Mateo, but Putz has been solid as our new closer and Soriano is coming around. Some of the guys that have been up and down from the minors all season, like Sherrill and Woods, have posted some good results.

This is not a bad team.














Sure, we'll go through some more disheartening power outages again and Meche and Washburn are due for a meltdown or four, but in this division anything can happen. With the first place Rangers hovering over .500 and no one other than the Mariners with a winning record at home, you might not need to win 92 games to win the division this season. No one looks like they are going to pull away and the Mariners have as good of chance of anyone to get hot and take over.

Wishful thinking probably...

Mostly because this is not a bad division at all. The A's just swept the Yankees in the Bronx and the Rangers split with the Red Sox in Boston. I should wait to see how we play against the A's this week and see if we gain any ground before I start making bold predictions that the Mariners have a chance. You can bet that I will be watching, and that's something I haven't done in regards to the Mariners in a while.

This is going to be good baseball season regardless if the Mariners are in it or not. The Tigers have the best record in the game and the world champ White Sox are on their heels. The Wild Card should go to the second place team in that division. It should, but then there are those damn Yankees and Red Sox that tend to find some way to sneak into the playoffs together every season. Plus, at some point you have to think that the Indians are going to bring the Tigers and White Sox down to earth a bit. It will be a great season.

I'm a democrat. And contrary to what people like Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter might tell you, I love the U.S., although the last six years or so has been sort of depressing.

But good news for all the thinkers in the country!
First, Bush's approval rating is almost where it should be. 51% of of the voting public knew that 49% of the voting public made a rediculously bad mistake in the 2000 election. Looks like about half of those 59% are insightful and strong enough to admit they made a mistake.
Cue the Kenny Chesney song.

Second, I looked today at ESPN.com (for a change) and saw something that brightened my day even more.
It's a vote for how the USA's World Cup game will affect workers on Monday.
Choices are:
call in sick (blue)
take a half day (red)
take a two hour lunch (green)
not at all (yellow)
Note that all 50 states lean the same way, even the bible-thumping belt that believes America is "home of the free" so long as you are a white christian.

Too bad there isn't an option for "check Espn.com less than usual." Because that's where I'd be.

What is wrong with this picture?




Does this look like a face of guilt?

Okay, what the hell is up with the weather so far this year. We haven't had a decent week in over a month and a half (come to think of it, it was actually pretty pleasant before Andy got here) and we really haven't had a solid great day in about as long. Rainy, cold, overcast--I haven't even been on the boat in two weeks--it sucks.

I don't know if any of you remember, but the summer of 1995 was the worst of all-time. That was a year that I spent all summer outside working as a landscaper at one of my dad's apartment complexes with my cousin A.J. For the entire summer I think we broke out the sprinklers and hoses (there was no automated system) maybe 15 times--not that I am complaining about that, it was a bitch of a job--because it rained damn near every day.

Now maybe I am overreacting (as I have been known to do time to time), I have predicted this type of summer before and been completely wrong; yet this feels different than other years I've predicted doom and gloom. I this the year that global warming gets the best of us? Could the prediction model of the blockbuster movie "The Day After Tomorrow," starring Dennis Quiad and the Brokeback Mountain gay-cowboy, where global warming triggers a rapid new ice age be true? Probs not, but I might be in the market for walrus hides and ice tools just in case.

Woot is a truly fascinating website. They sell a different item each day, beginning at 10 PM Pacific time (midnight central). You never know what's going to be sold, but it's always at a pretty good discount. It literally could be anything. They've sold bread makers to USB hubs.

Right now, they're rotating items through almost every 20 minutes. Go check it out. Impulse buying at it's best.

What's worse than being Calley?

Being this.

Every day, I walk by a bus stop that always is advertising different movies, iPods, etc. Last week, they decided to advertise the movie "Click," starring Adam Sandler with that smug, shit-eating grin on his face. Since I'm never going to watch the movie, I decided to try to figure out how the plot would play out, so here we go, the entire movie Click in one list!

• Adam Sandler's character finds this mysterious remote control, through some twist of fate (finds it in an odd place, is given to him by some mysterious, unnamed character - I'll assume that's Christopher Walken, since damn nearevery other character he's ever played is mysterious - See The Dead Zone, Joe Dirt, Suicide Kings, The Dear Hunter, etc. I'd go on, but I have a test tomorrow.)
  
  
• Using the remote control, he creates humorous situations for himself, such as putting an attractive woman in slow motion as she runs by in her spandex top and shorts. "Hilarity" ensues.
  
  
• Eventually, Sandler's character uses the remote control to orchestrate some sort of meeting between himself and the character that I'll call henceforth the "attractive love interest."
  
  
• Using the remote control unknowingly to the love interest, Sandler manages to cater to all of her wishes and desires as evidenced by the following hypothetical script:

  Sandler: What do you think we should get for dinner?
  
  Attractive Love Interest: I don't know, I was thinking of Thai food, but since I'm allergic to peanuts, we should get pizza instead.
  
  Sandler: (Utilizes rewind on remote control, Attractive Love Interest moves in reverse, with corresponding reverse audio)
  
  Sandler: What do you think we should get for dinner? I'd say Thai food, but since many people are allergic to peanuts, maybe we should get pizza. What do you think?
  
  Attractive Love Interest: Let's fuck.

• Sandler's character continues to garner "good luck" through use of the remote control in all aspects of his life; his family, his social life and generally everything about him -- change for the better. Life is good.
  
  
• The Attractive Love Interest eventually stumbles on the remote control as she's digging in Sandler's dresser looking for something and figures out that she's been had - this inevitably causes strife between the couple. REM's Everybody Hurts plays in a display of poignancy from master director Frank Coraci (whose other "gifts" to American Cinema include Around the World in 80 Days, starring Jackie Chan and The Waterboy)
  
  
• The argument escalates to the point where Sandler must either abandon the remote control or lose the girl. Gee, I didn't see that one coming.
  
  
• Sandler's character abandons the remote control and attempts to reconcile with the love interest. Inevitably, a snag is hit that would easily have been cured by the remote control (traffic jam, flat tire, etc.). Again, the viewer is panged by the bitter irony of the situation.
  
  
• Sandler's character finds Attractive Love Interest, kiss, make up and live happily ever after - a complete shocker of an ending.

The other shitty part about all this is that there is going to be one catch phrase from the movie that every 14-year-old boy and Prewett is going to be repeating for the next 7 years. I still hear assholes yell, "You can do it!" ala Rob Schneider from The Waterboy. God that pisses me off.

Don't go see Click.

Espn continues to alienate its core audience of Americans, educated or otherwise.

They already have:

Stuart "Stu" Scott
Chris "10 years past prime" Berman
Bonds on Bonds
NHL highlights
whatever that show with A.C. Slater is called. Espn hollywood?

And when I look on espn's front page today to learn about baseball, golf, or the NBA playoffs, instead I see the above picture. What the fuck?


Update: This could be even worse

This is a pretty funny video clip I came across....

just as I came across Stumpy's mom's face.

http://www.break.com/index/discrimination.html

The World Cup is starting in a week, and I'm stoked.

Why is the World Cup so awesome? List me!

• Damn near every country (almost) in the World watches it, regardless of where it's being played
  
• The passion displayed by the competitors from every team is unparalleled in sports (that includes the Olympics, by the way)
  
• The passion displayed by the fans of each team is unparalleled in sports (ask the family of that Colombian guy who was shot and killed after scoring an own-goal against the US a few years back)
  
• Countries like Iran can have a "Miracle On Grass" moment, like when they beat the "Great Satan" (ie the US) in 1998.
  
• Countries like Brazil, Italy and Germany can have a championship moment if and when they win a World Cup
  
• Oh yeah, the last, and possibly the best part of the World Cup - THE MASCOTS! (cue ESPN Jock Jams music):

  

  

  

  

OK, that last one isn't a World Cup mascot... It's Izzy (as in Whatisit?, his "official" name) from the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, possibly the stupidest, most ridiculous and contrived mascot in the history of sports. Got a stupider one? Post it in the comments.

The best players from the best countries in soccer play for an entire month. You can't say that about any other sport, not basketball, not football, not baseball, not any other sport.

You have tons of different personalities in the tournament - Beckham, Ronaldinho, Ballack, Henry, Figo, Del Pierro. Each are excellent players and recognizable all around the world.... Except the US.

If you consider yourself a real sports fan, learn how to watch soccer and get wrapped up in the World Cup.