Afternoon Yellow | 02.10 - The Beautiful Card

Welcome to a special soccer-themed installment of Afternoon Yellow. Yes, I understand it's a bit like wearing the shirt of the band you're going to see.

- Chelsea sacked coach Luis Felipe Scolari this week. Tearing up the former Brazil and Portugal coach's contract is estimated to have eaten a $20M hole in the wallet of Roman Abramovich, the London club's endlessly rich and perpetually unsatisfied owner. Scolari's lineup had been good for fourth place halfway through the current Premiership season. Unfortunately, the club is now looking for its fourth manager in just over 15 months. Chelsea cautioned per Sec. B-1, 4 & 6 for making Real Madrid's coaching carousel look quaint.

- David Beckham came to America, blew out his knee, guided the L.A. Galaxy to the bottom of Major League Soccer, then decided it'd be a good idea to keep loose over in Milan. You know, just for the offseason, then back in March to the ol' U-S-of-A. He wouldn't stay in Italy. Could he? He couldn't. Or, maybe he could. He would, of course, if he could, but he probably couldn't, legally. Or could he? Well, it's decided: yes, he can! Yeesh. Enough already! Beckham's "dreams" and "goals" are as twisted as one of his free kicks -- a curious trajectory, still pretty good-looking, but increasingly irrelevant. David Beckham cautioned per Sec. B-4 for wasting two years of tabloid space that could have been spent on aliens or Victoria Beckham. Or both. Both would be awesome.

David Beckham, left, is likely leaving Los Angeles, but swears it had nothing to do with the Herbalife logo on his jersey. USA vs. Mexico, right, is a football game, not a foreign policy crisis.

- Americans might not be passionate about soccer but boy, oh, boy do we get all hot and bothered about Mexico. And sports. We love and loathe us Mexico and some sports, in any combination. Yet most Americans don't realize that Team USA holds a decade long winning streak over El Tri, and that taunting Mexicans about this fact is largely acceptable, to some degree expected, and not least of all patriotic! After all, it's only soccer.

Our apathy in this sporting conquest might be confusing, but Mexico's complex over the whole thing more than makes up the difference. Blockbuster stores in Mexico are handing out 'voodoo cards' with pictures of American players. All have the name "Gringos" on their jerseys. Instructions read: "Hold a needle firmly between your thumb and index finger and prick slowly the part of the doll where you want to affect the opponent." That's pretty funny. Cause now Mexico's gonna lose to a bunch of pin-crotched gringos! Ha! Mexico cautioned per Sec. B-1 & 6 for a rather creepy obsession. Blockbuster might want to watch it's back, too.

Phil Ball Signs Off

This yellow card is being shown to Phil Ball (and is shown with all the consideration and professionalism one must of course muster when cautioning a giant of the game) for interrupting his seasonal column on La Liga and bidding 'Hasta la vista' to Spain's first division football in favor of the desert sands of the Middle East. Just for the rest of this season, or so Phil says.

However, the whole piece feels like the end of an era. Phil has signed off before with no small flourish of finality, but always with the conviction that a new season will start like clockwork. There's far more reminiscing here. There's talk of his first column (back in 2001), the hardest to write (after the Madrid train bombings), and last season's tribute to Athletic Bilbao (one of Spain's oldest clubs). He mentions seeing Becks come and go, and there's the image of Spain's long-awaited European title. It's all the faces flashing before you, before the finish. And just think--Barca may well now win back the league with not a word from Phil! Conspiracy theorists will surely sink their teeth into that one.

Hopefully, Phil will be back. His Monday morning reports are the stuff more sportswriting should be made of. It's a snapshot of Sunday in Spain, all of consequence and inconsequence up for discussion, but firmly rooted in the ritual of Spanish style. The only question now: is this column too nostalgic to be only an intermission?

Answers on the back of a postcard, please.

Phil Ball cautioned per Section B-1 for a professional take down.