Don't You Know You Need Some Time All Alone

Congratulations to Ms. Stacy Villescas for correctly naming "Winding Wheel" by Ryan Adams as the Wednesday Song of the Day.

Folks, I've been trying to tell you for years now that Ronald Reagan was simultaneously referring to the U.S.S.R., the Yankees, Nickelback, and Manchester United when #40 began speaking of "an evil empire", but a story brought to my attention today by the lady friend takes the cake.

A man "angered" by Manchester United's defeat to Barcelona in the final of the Champions League killed four people when he drove a minibus into a crowd celebrating the Spanish side's victory, police in Nigeria have told CNN.

First of all, this is why soccer is captivating and, at the same time, completely insane. The fact that a group of Nigerians would be crowding into a street to celebrate the victory of a Spanish club in a European competition says much about the worldwide reach of soccer's popularity, particularly the popularity of the large European clubs such as Barcelona, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, and yes, Manchester United.
I'm a huge fan of the NFL, but I don't think anyone was gathering on the street corners of Lagos, Nigeria to celebrate last year when the Steelers won the title. Well, unless they were excited about the influx of Cardinals t-shirts that would shortly be making their way across the Atlantic. Kurt Warner: He's huge in Lagos!!!

More importantly, though, this is the kind of story that continues to give soccer fandom a black-eye. In America, we have the occasional riot/drunken gathering/couch burning expedition by college students when their school brings home a national title or we have an alcohol induced dust-up between Yankees and Red Sox fans in the bleachers on a hot July afternoon. No one gets too worried about things, we all shrug it off as the normal course of events in the sporting world, and we move on without much hand-wringing or blame casting.

Can you imagine, though, if something like this happened in America, if a Patriots fan had run down 4 Giants fans in Cambridge, MA two years ago after Super Bowl XLII? I'm pretty sure Keith Olbermann's head might have exploded, although I'm not so sure that's a bad thing, but I digress.