LOME, Togo -- Togo players are refusing to play a World Cup qualifier in Libya after recent violence there led FIFA to move Friday's game from Benghaz...

Barcelona has all the possessions. Seventy-five percent of the play, hundreds of passes, gold ingots embossed with Messi and his ilk. All that treasure waiting to be robbed. It's a perfect plot for some good old London gangsters to exploit.

Last weekend presented us with an excellent case study in this horrible affliction. The Bernabeu stadium in Madrid can be a noisy cauldron, But last Saturday, 99 percent of them sat for most of the game in depressive silence.

Beckham is the Zen player of the age. His uncanny production of the crossing arc: a string through the emptiness of the sky.

Cruelty in song has always been part of the soccer fan, stadium tradition.