Germany spanked my country’s beautiful women 11-0 yesterday in the Women’s World Cup China 2007. In a game as low-scoring as soccer, this would be the equivalent of a baseball team scoring 28 runs or a football team tallying 121 points. In other words, a slaughter.

As I told , who was quick to remind me of this score this morning, this result would be depressing if i cared about Argentina women’s soccer. But the truth is, our women are not known for their soccer skills; they’re known for their beauty. Ask anyone. Everyone knows German women, though, are men.

I-66 agreed:

“I want HGH tests on the Germans. Word is they all follow Der Hügensprechtheaden religion, which is loosely translated to mean “Barry Bonds is God”, and that they got all the Chinese Gideons to add passages from the Book of Roids to their bibles for them to read between shaving their mustaches and going to bed.”

Don’t believe us? Look at this photo from the match:

Credit: FIFA

That is German player Birgit Prinz towering over — and, I’m assuming, later eating — our minas It is NOT an optical illusion and she is not, by from what I have heard, related to mythical figure Paul Bunyan.

Argentina’s loss is sad but not catastrophic. We still get to lose to play England and Japan before our mujeres can go home and continue to avert men’s gazes.

Besides, the Argentine men beat Australia 1-0 yesterday in a “friendly” in which the score didn’t accurately how dominating our side played. In that game, the men didn’t have to play German men women; but the kangaroos didn’t help.

I hate David Beckham.

Wait. Strike that. I don’t hate him.

I hate English soccer players.

Yes, that’s better. That’s what I mean.

Though the Argentina national team has played England only 11 times, our games have always carried paramount significance surpassed only by those against Brazil. Between the famous “Hand of God” game in the 1986 World Cup to the more recent tournament matches in 1998 and 2002 –- not to mention the ill-fated 1982 Guerra de las Malvinas (Falkland Islands War) — Argentines and Brits have grown to hate each other when it comes to futbol.

My mom even threatened to disown me when I had a British girlfriend during the 1998 World Cup matchup (which Argentina won in penalty kicks).

So with Beckham coming to the U.S., I had to root against him. I went to RFK last night with Baby Bien and other friends to watch soccer’s Golden Boy make his debut against DC United.

Here’s the play-by-play from my night:

5:13pm: Arrive in RFK’s Lot 8. Meet up with , who’s tailgating with his soccer league and Barra Brava. Bust out my River Plate jersey, worn to show solidarity with DC United’s red/black/white colors and animosity against anything English.

5:17pm: Hear first chant in favor of Boca Juniors (River’s rival).

5:18pm: Start drinking 40-oz. Miller High Life I bought at 7-11 before the game. Eat spicy beef jerky. Show how classy I am.

5:43pm: Imoan and Jo-Jo show up. Steal some Heinekens for them.

5:50pm: GoPats shows up, angry. Steal Heineken for him.

5:59pm: Laugh at someone’s home-made sign which will likely be confiscated: Bend Over Like Beckham.

6:17pm: School some random 9-year-old boy at soccer by promising him $1 if he can dribble past me. Boy fails three times. Celebrate alone.

6:40pm: Baby Bien finally shows up. Walk to RFK. Chug fifth beer in a hurry.

6:52pm: Arrive in $43 seats along with 46,686 other fans. Act amazed at what some Mike Tyson-sounding British dude can do for American soccer.

7pm: Game starts. Settle in to watch DC United beat up on the last-place LA Galaxy.

7:01pm: Hear first “Bend it like Beckham” joke.

7:02pm: Hear second “Bend it like Beckham” joke. Realize this will be a pattern throughout the game.

7:03pm: Discuss with Baby Bien attractiveness level of girl in Israel soccer jersey in row in front of us.

7:28pm: Celebrate Luciano Emilio scoring his league-leading 13th goal of the season, giving DC a 1-0 lead.

7:38pm: Watch Beckham jog on the sidelines. Discuss odds of him actually playing in the game.

7:45pm: Get text message from Tits McGee, who is sitting in some other section in RFK: “those shorts make your ass look fat btw”

7:47pm: Take a leak at halftime. Consider tripping some sycophantic kids wearing Beckham jerseys.

8:03pm: Get back to seats to watch second half.

8:10pm: Baby Bien discusses idea to start a DC Jewnited club. I suggest he start it on Facebook first.

8:21pm: Receive second text message from Tits McGee: “I just ate a 12 inch sausage. Does that make me gay?”

8:22pm: Watch every other shot on the RFK jumbotron of Beckham warming up.

8:24pm: Another text from Tits McGee: “is your dick hard yet? Beckhams putting on his cleats…”

8:25pm: Consider the idea that Tits McGee’s level of homophobia is indicative of some deep-seated feelings of sexual guilt.

8:39pm: Beckham strips off warmup jacket and T-shirt. Puts on LA Galaxy uniform (longsleeve, of course). Goes to the sidelines in preparation for entering the game. Crowd starts to simultaneously cheer and boo.

8:40pm: Beckham runs onto the pitch. The noise is deafening. Cameras flash, little girls wet themselves, grown men capture the historic moment on their Blackberries. Guy in front takes picture on his IPhone. Everyone watches with envy.

8:43pm: Girl in row in front of us flirts shamelessly with Baby Bien.

8:41pm – end of game: Watch Beckham actually play really well, kicking a 40-yard free kick into the penalty area and momentarily scaring me into thinking the Galaxy might tie the game.

9:03pm: DC United wins game. Try to guess what my all-time record at DC United games is. Maybe 17-4-5?

9:30pm: Stuck in HAL’s (formerly known as Luddite) car in the parking lot. Drink Yuenglings in backseat. Eat Wheat Thins. Run to bushes to take a piss.

10:17pm: Finally get out of cramped parking lot.

10:54pm: Get to Columbia Heights Metro.

11:13pm: Miss Fort Totten metro stop because too busy reading.

12:15pm: Finally get home after arguing with cab driver at West Hyatsville over the cost of the fare, taking the Green Line train back to Fort Totten, cursing loudly after missing the Red Line train because someone jackass wouldn’t walk on the left of the escalators, eating at 7-11, and taking bus home, realizing it took me longer to get home than it did to watch the game.

Thanks, Becks, for a great game. You have an open invitation to join our DC Jewnited club.

A soccer-deprived friend recently asked me to help him learn about the most popular sport in the world.

Having been born in the United States of Football, Baseball, and Basketball, he rarely watched “the beautiful game” and never studied its history, strategy, and competitiveness.

I told him I’d take him under my wing. Take him to a soccer bar. Guide him toward some soccer blogs. Explain why “Guatemalan soccer” is an oxymoron.

I’m sure he’ll have a lot of questions. Where was soccer born? (In China, not England.) How often is the World Cup held? (Every four years.) Which is the greatest team in the world? (River Plate.)

But I knew I wouldn’t be able to answer all of my friend’s questions. So I decided to turn to someone who wouldn’t be afraid to spew some verbal vomit. I turned to the homophobic Brazilian judge who just this week ruled that that there’s no place for balls-on-balls action in futbol.

Judge Manoel Maximiliano Junqueira Filho threw out a lawsuit brought by a player against a TV station that intimated that he was gay on the grounds that soccer was for breeders only and so a lawsuit was unnecessary.

Let’s get to the questions:

I have a gay friend who loves soccer and even traveled to Germany last year to watch the U.S. play in the World Cup. Should he travel to Brazil in 2014 where the World Cup is likely to be hosted?

“What is not reasonable is the acceptance of homosexuals in Brazilian soccer because they would harm the uniformity of thinking of the team, the togetherness, the balance, and the ideal.”

How good a soccer player can a homosexual become?

“It’s not that a homosexual can’t play ball. If he wants, than play it. However, form his own team and start another federation.”

So you would be in favor of gay soccer leagues like ? How many games would you attend?

“Jeez, if this fad catches on, soon we will have a quota system, forcing the access of so many of them per team.”

Them? You know, you’re teetering on the edge of sounding like a racist. Do you have a problem with black soccer players, too?

“And don’t say that this opening will be in the same way that it happened when blacks started to be part of the teams. It is a completely different thing. If a black is also a homosexual, he should also avoid being part of heterosexual soccer teams.”

Maybe I shouldn’t be asking you any questions, Judge Bigot. I want my friend to love soccer, not revile it, to enjoy it as much as I have, to…

“Not to mention the uncomfortable feeling of the fan, who wants to go to the stadium, sometimes with his son, and see his beloved team succeeding in the competition, instead of losing oneself in analysis of the behavior of this or that athlete with an obvious personality or existential problem, making it uncomfortable also for the teammates, the coach, the technical commission and the managers of the club.”

Wow, you seem like an equal-opportunity xenophobe, judge. You sure you’re not repressing any deep-seated feelings you’d like to share?

“Each one in their own area, each monkey in their own branch…”

What? Monkeys?

“…each rooster in their own coop…”

Don’t you mean cock?

“…each king in their own deck of cards.”

Now you lost me.

“That is what I think, and because I think like this, in the condition of a judge, I say it!”

Maybe Brazilian judges don’t make the best teachers. I should just take my friend to one of these matches.

Via and here.

They’re synonymous with “vagina bundles” in England and would protect me from evil Guatemalan thieves. But they’re still fanny packs and I’m pretty sure would stop talking to me if I ever owned one.

If I were to wear a fanny pack, though, it would be this one, recommended to me by Gen, who lives solely to see me in humiliating situations:

Aside from the Brazilian, German, and British flags, I think it’s awesome. If anyone wants to buy it for me, the Buy It Now price on eBay is $2.99 plus shipping.

Because we’re not Guatemala, Argentina beat Mexico last night 3-0 in la Copa América semifinals to advance to the tournament championship against Brazil – a rematch of the 2004 fiasco.

That final game, which I watched three years ago with a gazillion Brazilian fans at Marx Café in Mt. Pleasant, made an atheist out of me. I watched a 2-1 Argentina lead in stoppage time evaporate as Brazil scored the equalizer in the 93rd minute. The 93rd fucking minute! After my friends – who I warned not to razz me at that crucial moment – left the bar, I went home and cried.

You can’t have it both ways, kid.

Seeing my country line up in soccer’s “overtime” for penalty shots causes a dread matched only by my fear of coconut. (Seriously, that stuff is disgusting, how do you people eat it?) We all saw what happened last year in the World Cup against Germany.

The sting of that loss, coupled with my disgust of Americans’ obsequious worship of the Brazilian team, makes me absolutely sure that this Sunday, when the two South American futbol giants meet again, Argentina will win. Unless the ball is five times bigger than my head and the players are made of plastic.

Photo credit.

The Argentina-Brazil rivalry has been unmatched internationally since their first match in 1914, which we won 3-0. The teams have played each other 88 times, with Argentina winning 33, Brazil 34, and including 21 ties. Red Sox-Yankees seems like child play comparatively.

The Copa América, for those who don’t know, is the oldest surviving international football competition in the world, held for the first time in 1916 in Buenos Aires (won by Uruguay). Argentina is the most successful team in its history but hasn’t won a championship since 1993.

Click for a better view.

I’ll be watching the finale in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, with The Princess and her host family, which, I’m told, hates Argentina. Imagine that! who hates Argentina! How odd.

And when los Albicelestes hoist up that trophy, I might cry.

Vamos, vamos Argentina,
vamos, vamos a ganar,
que esta barra quilombera,
no te deja, no te deja de alentar!

The Princess left yesterday for Guatemala, where she plans to spend three weeks learning a dialect of Spanish I will then have to deprogram when she gets back. She’ll be living with a host family in Quetzaltenango, nicknamed Xela (pronounced SHELL-a) and attending a language school.

I’ll be joining her in two weeks for a one-week vacation visit.

Because The Princess is a girl, she likes to plan. She labored over which guidebook to buy, wrote out a long list of items to take, and researched excursions we can take when we’re there.

Because I’m a boy, I did nothing.

“You haven’t read my Lonely Planet book on Guatemala yet,” she told me a couple of nights ago. “I’m leaving on Sunday with the book.”

“I don’t need a travel guide. I already know everything about Guatemala that I need to know,” I explained, pointing to my head.

In truth, everything I know about Guatemala I learned from mi amigo . And El Google. For example:

Everyone in Guatemala has a glorious moustache. Below is a picture I have of El Guapo. As you can see, his moustache truly is beautiful. I will print, cut out, and take this picture with me when I leave for The Land of Eternal Spring so that the locals know we are like hermanos. I’m sorry to break your anonymity, EG, but that moustache should not be kept under wraps.

Guatemalan soccer fans worship Argentina. As you can clearly see in the photo below, the Guatemalan on the left is wearing Argentina’s 2002 World Cup “away” jersey. Can’t blame the kid, though, since his own country has qualified for the most important sporting event in the world a total of 0 times in its 88-year existence.

Guatemalans love “Chicken Buses”. These are retired school buses deemed too unsafe by American school systems and converted for use as public buses. They pimp ‘em out, as the kids say, and pack as many people and luggage as possible inside. A couple of times a month, a bus packed with riders and chickens will go careening over a mountainous cliff. I plan on riding these Chicken Buses.

American women often kidnap Guatemalan children. Many go to Guatemala under the veil of teaching English only to snatch these helpless kids. This is a national epidemic, made worse by the gringas’ use of blankets and whacky facial expressions to take the poor children.

Art in Guatemala is all about Jesus. And, apparently, it’s also all about Jesus groping a white man who looks a lot like Scott Bakula from Quantum Leap.

Cruises are popular in Guatemala. For the price of 25 quetzales ($3.18) , you can take a riverside jaunt along the border of Mexico, a country to which some Guatemalans have been known to illegally immigrate.

That’s all I know for now about Guatemala and Quetzaltenango, but I’m sure I’ll learn more after The Princess reports back her adventures and El Guapo and Miguel pay me a secret visit in the middle of the night to kick my ass.