In watching soccer over the years, I have learned to expect the unexpected. Whether it's Liverpool coming back against AC Milan to win the Champions League in 2005, or Birmingham beating Arsenal in the Carling Cup final last Sunday, you can never quite tell what's going to happen next, no matter how unreasonable the outcome might seem. I mean, who would ever think that FIFA would award a World Cup to a country the size of Connecticut with no stadiums built for the event and an average summer temperature of 106 degrees? (I'm still seething about that.)
But over the past few weeks, two incidents in the soccer world have occurred, on opposite ends of the globe, that go far above and beyond the examples I've just given in terms of strangeness.
First, on Feb. 21, Chelsea (and England) left back Ashley Cole was involved in a training ground incident. Sounds pretty harmless, right? Just another vague media report of a fight between players and coaches on the practice field. Except in this case, the incident was a bit more serious — Cole accidentally shot a 21-year old college student with an air rifle.
To add insult to injury, the student was there working for Chelsea as part of a work-study program. Local police are looking into the incident to determine if a crime was committed.
But that only serves to distract from the initial question: What in the world is Cole, who reportedly makes $195,900 a week, doing with an air rifle at his club's training facility?
Has he set up some targets next to the goal to shoot with his gun, hoping that it will improve his shooting accuracy in a soccer game? Is he an amateur Buffalo Bill? Or is he concerned that Armageddon will be coming to West London, so he better be prepared? No reason can justify such utter stupidity.
Fortunately for Cole, though, he was not the stupidest soccer player on the face of the earth over the past few weeks. That title instead lies with Luis Moreno, a Panamanian defender playing for Deportivo Pereira of Colombia. In a Feb. 28 game against Atletico Junior, Moreno spotted an owl on the field near the corner flag that had just gotten hit with the ball. And of course, he then took the most rational course of action — he kicked the owl off the field.
Said owl, which turned out to be Atletico Junior's mascot, subsequently died of shock from the injury on Tuesday.
"I want to apologize to the fans," Moreno said, according to the Associated Press. "I was not trying to hurt the owl. I did it to see if it would fly."
Ah, of course! He wasn't "trying" to hurt the owl; he was just conducting an experiment on the wonder of natural flight. I think most people understand that professional athletes on the whole are not the brightest people in the world, but Moreno takes that to a new level. And as a result of his foolishness, he is facing possible suspension and fines from his own club and from the sport's governing body in Colombia.
What do these incidents say about soccer players or even soccer in general? Probably not much. But what Cole's and Moreno's actions do show is that there is no rhyme or reason to much of what occurs over the course of the long soccer season. I guarantee that just when the interest in these incidents fades and you think things are back to normal, another player will come along with more stupidity to entertain and shock us.
--
David McIntyre is a freshman who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at David.McIntyre@tufts.edu.
