After a series of resignations, firings, and strikes, the French national soccer team ingloriously left South Africa this afternoon after losing to the host nation and scoring only one goal in three games at the World Cup.  Quite a ways for the 1998 champions and 2006 finalists to fall, but they had no business being there, as they were there by virtue of a player knocking in a goal with his hand in a qualifying game against Ireland.  Gallons of ink – both real and virtual – while be spilled in the coming weeks as the navel-gazing French determine what went wrong and the rest of the sporting world laughs at them.  SFL says that Karma is a bitch, you cheese-eating surrender monkeys, and apparently she’s Irish to boot.

On to happier notes, hot soccer players. The South African nation and team have been gracious hosts for the tournament, and their players have been exemplars on and off the field. While they didn’t qualify for the next round despite beating Les Bleu, they are proud of what they have accomplished.  Their captain, Steven Pienaar told The Guardian, “People can never say we didn’t do our best but through football we have brought the whole nation together. We have shown that we are one country and that’s all we need to say.”

And meet Katlego Mphela, their goal-scoring hottie. That’s him above scoring on the Frog goalie.

Read more »

Today’s WCHotD is Chile’s Mark Gonzalez, who came off the bench to score the winning goal in Monday’s game against Chile.

Prior to today’s achievement, his greatest accomplishment was getting fired and sent home in 2006 from the Chilean national team’s tour of Europe after he was found in a Dublin hotel room with three women.

I know SFL will be coming by with some beefcake later, perhaps.  But let it not go unnoticed that today was the day that the people at Korean Central TV wanted to show a game live to the people of North Korea.  The point was to show the North Korean people that they, in fact, could compete with anyone in the world and such.

Whoops.

[ ESPN Flash video not available. ]

Per ESPN: “As the 7-0 loss to Portugal concluded, the North Koreans quickly halted Monday’s coverage. ‘The Portuguese won the game and now have four points,’ the Korean Central Broadcasting commentator said. ‘We are ending our live broadcast now.’ It then cut to factory workers and engineers praising North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.”

Best.  Segue.  Ever.

(Oh, and Kim was supposedly handling the whole strategy thing for the boys in South Africa.  That worked out well.)

European powerhouse teams such as Germany, France, and England are collapsing. The workaday Dutch continue their systematic move forward in the World Cup play.

Today’s World Cup Hottie of the Day is a product of the Ajax training factory recently profiled in the New York Times, plays for Inter Milan, and scored today’s goal in the 1-0 defeat of Japan.

Meet Wesley Sneijder.

Read more »

Alright, due to overwhelming bitching by the str8 boys about the Department of Lady-Bits’ objectification of the men in the World Cup Hottie of the Day series I’m running, today we’ll feature some World Cup ladies.

While I will do you boys a favor, I insist that there must be at least one photo of an actual athlete, therefore, I begin with the iconic image of Brandi Chastain in 1999 when the U.S. won the Women’s World Cup in a shoot-out.

World Cup WAGs and announcers after the jump.  What is a WAG? Well, I’ll explain that too.

Read more »

We understand a bunch of skinny dudes will be kicking around a misinflated ball in a half-hour. Have at it.

Well, he’s not running around shirtless like some of our hotties, but today’s World Cup Hottie has been selected in anticipation of tomorrow’s U.S.-Slovenia game (6:30 am PDT/9:30 am EDT/??:30 Nabeesco Time).

Proving that you can combine brains with brawn, is the USA’s Jonathan Bornstein. Currently starring for LA’s Chivas USA, he plays defense, yet scored one of the winning goals against Costa Rica that helped the US qualify for the World Cup. Weirdly enough, that goal made him a national hero in Honduras, which qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1952 as a result of the extra goal against Costa Rica.

He graduated with honors from UCLA in 2004, and yes, he’s a Member of the Tribe. And he blogs.

And he’s easy on the eyes.  He’s not waxed, so he’s not TommCatt’s type. Couple more pics and alt-text after the jump.

Read more »