Football
How to Become an International Soccer Coach
Matthew Conrad was a man with a dream: he wanted to coach an international soccer team. The one tiny issue was that he'd never coached a soccer team before—not a school team, not a squad of paunchy, hungover men slumping their way into a park on a...
Talking to the Bulldozer-Hijacking Soccer Fans About Their Role in the Turkish Uprising
On the night of June 2—the third day of an out-and-out war between police and protesters—Çarşı members hotwired a bulldozer that had been left at the construction site outside Beşiktaş's Inönü Stadium and used it to push the police water-cannon trucks...
Sacrificing Virgins
Back in the day, if you wanted God to bless your crops and make them grow high to the heavens, you prayed for rain. If that didn't work, you built a temple or maybe slaughtered a goat. And if that didn't work, well, then you just hacked up the nearest...
Anna Krien Explores the Dark Side of Australian Football Culture
Anna Krien's book Night Games is primarily about a rape trial of a footballer, and in it somehow Krien manages to pry open a world of tacky nightclubs, gangbangs, and locker-room jokes, by first of all admitting how lost she is in it herself.
Stop Freaking out About the Luis Suarez Bite
Even though Americans typically don't give a shit about soccer, when Luis Suarez tried to take a chunk out of Branislav Ivanovic's arm yesterday, the zombie bite drew national attention. It was bizarre and very funny, but it was also an embarrassing...
Building a Better NFL Draft
The NFL draft takes three days and involves some of the dumber shout-machines on American television applying the same five adjectives to various muscular men over and over. It is very bad. But it can be better, if only because it can't be worse.
The Most Watched Blackout in American History
For a moment there, the nation's most spectacular and overly mediated pastime—the Super Bowl—got really dark.
The Ravens Are God's Favorites
Fifty-three percent of Americans think God rewards athletes who believe in Him with good health and great success. In other words, yesterday, God chose his most-loved, and by default his most-hated, Harbaugh brother.
Your Super Bowl Questions, Answered
Something called the “Super Bowl” is happening this weekend. What a crazy name, right? Sounds like what Super Man smokes when he wants to get stoned! Nah, just joshin’ with you—the Super Bowl is a football game! But what's football?
Super Bowl Media Day… On Acid!
As you may or may not know, tripping balls while in the middle of a gaggle of reporters shouting questions two inches away from your ears is the ninth circle of hell. On the other hand, I did get to talk to Artie Lange.
Notes from a Hitter: How Football Battered My Brain
It wasn’t until months after I played my last football game that the ramifications of the multiple concussions I suffered began to surface. The day after a long night of senior-year boozing, I came to in the back of an ambulance, flailing about as a...
How to Rock It for the Supes' Celebraish
If you’re not some piece of trash, you like to keep it rockin’ for the Supes'. It’s pretty much the biggest celebraish of the year for the USA. Last year was so off the chain. I made my Captain Karl’s Pizza Dip (special recipe). It’s kind of a tradish...