European Football: Douchey or Extra Douchey?

I was recently in London, the hub of an Empire that is no longer connected to any sort of wheel. As far as tourism times go, it was pretty big. Mid-June, just after the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and just as everyone was ramping up for the Olympics. In the midst of all of this, what would you think would be the biggest event on everyone’s mind?

If you said Euro Cup, then I suppose I should feel really good that someone in the U.K. is reading this.

Americans don’t care at all for the sport they call soccer. In the mind of Americans, if scoring happens less often on the field than it does in a high school prom parking lot, it probably isn’t worth watching. But pretty much everyone else in the world is, like, a really big fan of football. For the sake of clarity I will refer to soccer as football, because most of the world believes that “football” should refer to a sport where the key body part used is the (wait for it) foot, rather than somebody else’s skull.

"I'm sorry, what? I couldn't hear you over all the brain damage."

So I’m in a pub (seriously, step off the plane and you have two choices of places to go: the underground or a pub. I was once convinced that I was actually in a pub within the underground, but it turns out I was just absolutely sloshed and experiencing the spins. Long Live the Queen!) 

Now, this pub is full of people who are adamantly supporting not only England, but Scotland, Ireland and (if they must,) Wales. That's how much the Brits love football. They will support terrible teams, or the teams of people just remotely related to the British Empire, who, I have been assured on separate occasions, shag sheep. It's kind of beautiful, really. Americans aren't like that. We will disavow just about anyone unless we feel that they are worthy of our love. We will forget almost any team that fails us.

Excepting Red Sox fans, who are just insane.

So we all know that England is going to perform terribly in the Euro Cup. We do. But everyone is in a pub anyway, waiting to get way too worked up about it. Everyone is intently, and with the underlying promise of violence, staring at the television screen, waiting for the nations' heroes to bring the pain.

And out come their superstars. 

I used to think there was nothing worse than American Football players: big, thick, and unable to string four words together that weren’t “Yeah” “So” “Um” or “Crazy.” American Football was always my least favorite subject taught in college. Then I was introduced to European Football players.

Football players in Europe, from any team, are the douchiest looking people on the planet. 

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I don't know how this is possible. I used to get mad about American Football players wearing so much padding and such thick helmets when the whole point was to beat the snot out of each other. When I saw the European Football players come out, though, I found myself wishing for helmets with visors, or possibly just a paper bag.

They have dreads. And ponytails. And braids. And weird shit shaved into their skulls. They have tragic soul patches and creeper mustaches. They look weird. Most of them are probably not allowed within 100 yards of a playground. They have bizarre personalities that they're trying to promote, which just seems like a terrible idea. Not one of these men is going to bring the pain, excepting my eyeballs bleeding out of my skull.

I suppose that shouldn't matter so much as their abilities. But the other strange thing is that they're all great athletes with the same annoying tendencies that absolutely ruin the game.

Here is how to become a world famous football player:

1.  Examine your hair in the mirror. Ask yourself, “How could this be douchier?”

2.  Find some gel. Go nuts. 

3.  Get the razor out and shave the sides of your head. Leave the top untouched for women's headbands and stupid mini-hawks

4.  When you get onto the field, focus on the time-honored tradition of tripping people, blocking the ball with your hand, and fouling other players in the dirtiest fashion possible.

5.  Before anyone even calls you on your shit, put on your best “Who, me?” face with your hands raised to prove that you were absolutely not touching anything, possibly ever.

Perfect.

Bonus points if you can convince yourself that you’re really innocent and that everyone is against you.

6.  Get the ball. Act as though you might do something with it.

7. When an opposing player gets within 10 feet of you, fall over and roll on the ground in agony. Clutch your shin for dramatic effect. Hope that this is enough to get them red-carded.

8.  Look around and realize that everyone is rolling around on the ground and moaning in agony and that you have now been scored on 3 times (Don’t worry, none of them will ever count, because of reasons.)

9.  Jump up and yell at the ref for being a biased pig.

10.  Repeat.

There's so much potential for brilliant, brutal, choreographed talent here, when no one's playing opossum. And there might be someone out there who remembers that they’re playing a game of skill rather than a contest of “Who Looks More Like a Meth-Addled Pedophile,” but those people don’t tend to get camera time.

Don't get me wrong. Football is a great sport that occasionally involves people voluntarily smashing their heads into flying objects. Sometimes they kick things upside down. But what is this great ritual that everyone must observe? Why try to milk every foul, every misconceived injury? Why must that keeper from Italy look like he wants to do horrible things to me in his sound-proof basement?

"Of course I own a meat locker in my house."

I hate to say this, but it made me miss the States. I love the game of football, especially when it's beautifully and cleanly executed. But I, unlike my fellow pub patrons, grew very quickly tired of the game stopping every few seconds because a dude fractured his ponytail. At least with American Football, if something gets through 2 feet of padding, 6 inches of fat and another mile of muscle, you know that that man is actually in pain.

And that's all I'm looking for.