Germany 1 - Croatia 2

Heh!



And boy, was Ballack useless... :-P

Tomorrow, Holland vs France!

Orange Madness

Since my mate K, in an uncharacteristic expression of EXTREMELY BAD TASTE, decided to praise the German national squad, I feel forced to retaliate.

OK, what's wrong with Germany?

The country itself, nothing much. They're a bit keen on authority and uniforms and fat female customs officials... but I digress. They're a comical bunch abroad, hesitant to speak a foreign language and dead insecure. On the upside, a lot of them mistook me for a native New Yorker even though I did not have a clue where "ze muzeum of ze modern arts" was. God bless them.

There is another battlefield though. And that means it's war! World war 32 or something by now, but anyway, we don't care. As long as they lose.

The dispiriting thing is, they don't really do that. They have no style, hardly any qualities, maybe only one or two star players and a truly frightening goal keeper who recently decided to retire, but they more than make up for that in fighting spirit.

And Germany losing bravely in a squeaker is not really satisfying either. We want to see total humiliation. The Dutch and our friends from across the channel are in total agreement on this. But the facts are horrid: the Germans qualified easily, whereas the four UK nations are sadly missing...

So I'll put this in terms K will understand and dread: the Germans are the Hillary Clintons of international football. Totally dedicated, and they'll never give up. And it usually works, though at Euro 2000 and 2004 they didn't make it past the group phase, partly because no-one can stand losing to them even if winning doesn't really matter.

Problem is, I see no Obama among the other 15 squads. But the Italians, with an average age of about 250, are credible candidates to do a John McCain and take the trophy home. ;-)

I need to finish this in style, so I think I'll need some non-German Euro 2008 eye candy. Shouldn't be too difficult. ;-)





My darling Klaas Jan Huntelaar, who'll probably be spending a lot of time on the bench... :-( Move over, Van Nistelrooy!



An acquired taste, Liverpool's Fernando Torres... but he might become Spain's much-needed powerhouse.



Switzerland's Degen brothers, David and Philipp.

Oranje boven!

More KJH

Just to illustrate how bad my crush is, a few more pics.

Scoring for the national team.

Sexy!

Cocky with the cup.

Swoon.

I wish there were some shirtless shots...

Could it be true?

Lots of rumours about my favourite football player. Klaas-Jan Huntelaar has, allegedly, been spotted at a gay club in Amsterdam's Reguliersdwarsstraat.

Three different, independent sources have told me this. I've been told he's a regular in one particular place. He is, I've been told, at the top of the list of players who should come out.


Much as I want him to be one of us, I don't buy it. According to much of the gay community, everyone's closeted, in denial or at least bisexual with a preference to men. It's an obsession to some to link celebrities to homosexuality.

And it just doesn't make sense. Football is probably the hardest place for a gay guy to survive, I'll acknowledge that, and to my knowledge only one active player has ever come out, I think in England. It ended in suicide.

So unless you're brilliant (which Klaas-Jan in my admittedly biased opinion is) and too good to be ostracised, coming out in that world is no option. Unless a group of players from different teams does it simultaneously, I guess. The player would be fodder for rival teams' cat calls, and arch rivals Feyenoord Rotterdam have some vicious fans.

There must be gay professional players out there, and there are lots of rumours like this one as a result. The hotshots running the league are superficially supportive and tolerant of homosexuality, but trainers, players and fans often are not. Former Ajax coach Ronald Koeman even went on TV a few years ago to deny rumours about two unspecified players. Still, I have a feeling a star wouldn't suffer at the hands of his team's own supporters. If and when homosexuality and football are no longer abstract concepts or subjects of rumour, but have names and faces attached to them, sentiments could well change.

In the mean time, the closet will be the only place for players to survive. I've heard stories of Italian giants AC Milan's closet program. Allegedly, they're well experienced with this problem and take care of everything: a girlfriend, secret visits to clubs, houses etc. Much as it is despicable, it is a very pragmatic way of dealing with one of life's realities whilst keeping the player active and on your payroll.

So if you're a closeted football player, a star, a celebrity in your own right and a sometime member of the national team (move over, Van Nistelrooij!), I don't think you'd visit gay bars in your own damn town. But then again, I don't know what it's like to be famous and closeted.

*By the way, even though we screwed up in the run up to the Champions League, had a hard UEFA Cup match in Zagreb (0-1), are plagued by injuries and barely managed to win for the National Cup against an amateur team in extra time (1-2, shameful!), we're back at the top of the league, partly thanks to Klaas-Jan's classy touch. It will be a tough season, because there's just no way to replace midfielder Wesley Sneijder, who now does his brilliant stuff for Real Madrid.

Klaas-Jan, super striker

The Hunter keeps on huntin'. First game of the season, four goals, one assist, 8-1 result. Now I know De Graafschap ain't much, but still a pretty good start of the season. Top of the league, of course, hope it lasts.

Rambling

Great start to what looks like another horrible football season. Selling Wesley Sneijder to Real Madrid for €27 mil was a clever deal, but the team's all broken up now. Just typical, been through this before.

So we lost 0-1 in a home match against lowly Slavia Prague for the Champions League qualifier. It can be fixed in Prague, but it looks bad. And we would be in pot 2 for the draw in the real thing, a virtual guarantee of reaching the second round and lots of lovely €s, prestige and a good chance of joining the elite eight or four of European football. Oh yeah, hottie Huntelaar missed a penalty kick at 0-0. *Sigh* He always does that when it's vital. Just great... League starts this weekend, prospects not good.

On the personal development front, my starvation diet seems to be working. The idea is simple: replace two-thirds of your daily food intake with scotch. Vodka is even better, but I don't dig that. Designated drivers are allowed to replace one scotch with a strong double espresso or two Senseos. The flab on your body will quickly be replaced with a banging head or the biggest caffeine rush of your life.

Had to drive my mom to hospital for minor surgery in Drab Town today. I work near Drab Town, so I know the place, but I still can't get to terms with it. It's poor, ugly, there's nothing to see or do, definitely no classy shopping and so little night life the place is deserted after 10. Yet I love the people there and tend to get on with them really well.

I have lots of friends in and around Drab Town. I once spent a wonderful evening there drinking scotch with a friend and his crazy gang in the worst street of the entire place, and it was great fun. It ended up with me inspecting a kilo of cocaine a drunk tried to sell to me, in the end (being equally drunk) telling him I'd need a sizable sample to peddle it successfully, something I would never really attempt. Somebody then went on to freak me out about alcohol checks so after sobering up a little I took a really twisted route home.

On the other side of the province lies Snob Town, which has everything Drab Town misses. I've lived in Snob Town and never got to enjoy it. It has cool bars, the best stores in the country, Perfection and a nice-looking, lively center. And of course, a crazy carnival. But I can't stand the people, who tend to excel at backstabbing and are fairly cold to outsiders. Also on the downside, the local accent is awful and the place lacks good clubbing.

As I have done my duty as a son and corporate zombie for this week, I am planning to travel back to my place in College Town for a nice ambiguous weekend.

I need to slip out of the closet for a bit. So I just got to get the courage together to do it. Yes, I am intending to visit a gay club this weekend. I think I will need plenty of booze to pull it off, but I need a breakthrough like this. It's kind of risky, downtown is crawling with friends, acquaintances and maybe even coworkers, but that's not a good enough reason to chicken out. I got to start somewhere, and abstention is no longer an option.

For the rest of the weekend I plan to revert to good old Party Boy me, attending a dance parade and probably boozing up at one of my standard joints.

As Heaven is Wide

There is a God.

And He probably favours AZ, the Chelski of the low countries, a fake... I don't want to get sued by owner Scheringa, so I'll just shut up about his toy.

Anyway, clever manager Brands and brilliant coach Louis van Gaal have just managed to sign Graziano Pelle from Italian club Lecce for way too much money for an untested striker. This means I will have something to look at during their games next season.



Still favour Klaas-Jan Huntelaar though. Beats Pelle on character, though maybe not on body. And he plays for a real team, of course. ;-)