Why Football Is Sometimes Still Worth It, Or A Guide to Euro 2012 : Eye Candy Edition.

[For whatever reason, Blogger decided to publish parts of this post in the most obnoxious double-spaced format imaginable. I've tried everything I could think of to fix it, to no avail, and I am pissed. Many apologies for how ugly the formatting is here on this post. Let us now look at pictures of hot football-playing persons and be happy.]

The draws have been made, the preliminary matches have been decided, the 16 teams all have their passports and tickets in hand.The Internet will be flooded with article after article of team analysis, tactical breakdowns, strategic predictions, and lists of "Ultimate Up-and-Coming Players to Watch" or some variation thereof. This, however, is not my forte. Not at all. No; I am here to provide football guidance of a very different nature. I am here to tell you all about Players to Watch, indeed. But it's the kind of watching that makes us all that much happier in our ladyparts (or manparts, if we are so inclined).

I must admit that I've sort of given up on football lately - the drama, the corruption, the same famous faces and teams have turned me bored and jaded, and sent me running after the (sometimes literally) greener pastures of rugby . But the idea of an international tournament always gets me pumped up again. Ladies and gentlemen, friends and acquaintances, football(er) lovers and comrades in soccer dude-objectification! Have faith, for here are some delicious reasons why football is sometimes seriously still worth the trouble.

*I've tried my absolute best to include players from as many national teams as possible, spread out across all four groups, but since this list is based purely and entirely on my own personal tastes, you must forgive my heavy biases towards certain countries. And also for completely leaving out the likes of Poland and Greece (you guys just aren't doing it for me, man; buck up).

Group A

Group A, sadly, yields very little in terms of glorious manflesh objectification potential, but all hope is not lost, for we do have ;

Václav Pilař [Czech Republic / Midfielder]

I know very little of Vaclav, and have actually never heard of him before the national squad announcements were made. What little I've seen on Google images seems promising, however, and I look forward to getting to know him better during the course of the competition. And if things go really well, he should start thinking about making some room for me. In his pants.


Andrei Arshavin [Russia / Forward, and also Captain because BAD ASS]

Andrei is on this list purely due to ADORABILITY FACTOR - while I don't necessarily feel the urge to reach through my TV set and dry hump him across several time zones and a continent, I do find him ridiculously sweet and personable, with a tremendously quirky sense of humour, and definitely one of the more memorable footballing personalities around. And that smile! One just feels like grabbing him by the dimpled cheeks and gurgling baby talk at him. It will serve well to counter the extreme horniness induced by other occupants of this list.


Group B

Group B contains Germany, and therefore also the motherload. Being tremendously biased, I could just tell you that the entire 23-man squad is bangable, and leave it at that. But I'll be helpful and point out some of the finer specimens that Deutschland has to offer ;


Mario Gomez [Germany/Forward]


The half-Spanish Mario strikes me as being somewhat of a bimbo sometimes, but his effusive fondness for walking around shirtless for no reason kind of made me warm up to him a great deal. He is usually the first player on the pitch to divest himself of his soccer kit the minute the final whistle blows, and I shamelessly love him for it. Plus, he has great hair! Look at that shit on his head. Dude's working some fine cranial follicular growth up in da hizza. Sometimes, he scores goals. But frankly, the propensity to be shirtless is much, much greater. He's just so good to us.

Mats Hummels [Germany/ Defender]

You may remember Mats from my gushy post in appreciation of the ridiculously dorky-yet-sexy Nutella ads featuring members of the German national team. If you remember that post, I don't need to tell you that Mats is utterly lush. He is what Orlando Bloom could have been with higher quality parts, better production standards, and an extra four to five inches (of height, I'm talking about height, dammit). I spent most of the weekend chewing on my fingernails, wishing most desperately that Mats would be included in the final team list, and joy of joys! He will be playing in the tournament this time. The guy is a fabulously talented defender in his own right, and I wish great things for him in his life. I also wish to one day get in his pants. That should be on his list of career aspirations. Someone call his agent, quick!



Mats is totally down with this plan, you guys. Also I think I finally figured out how to make animated gif images work on Blogger. YES.


Benedikt Höwedes [Germany / Defender]

You gotta love a good solid German name with an umlaut. Benedikt is also a n00b to major international tournaments, but has already more than proved his mettle as an athlete and a leader in the German national league. Also he is the most adorable thing I have ever seen with the exception of Russia's Andrei Arshavin.

But my favourite thing about him is that he comes in a bromantic package along with Hummels, and it is too sweet for words.


Let the bro-lovin' commence!



Group C

You can always count on the Spanish national team to come through for you in the hotness department. Always. Though I find most of the players to be far too vain and self-absorbed for their own good, it never hurts to ogle.



Xabi Alonso [Spain/ Midfield]

Xabi Alonso is quite simply the classiest motherfucker to exist in the world of football today. He can rock your standard football jersey and shorts and make it look like a freshly tailored Armani three-piece suit. And he can pull off the real deal pretty well, in case you were wondering. The man just oozes elegance from every pore. And in a sport rife with prima donnas and petty fights and sneaky cheat attempts at every turn, here we have a man of class and principle and intelligence who will not dabble in bullshit of any kind, and also has great hair. It's a hard combination to resist.


Iker Casillas [Spain/Goalkeeper]

This guy - nay, this man, has been on my To Do list since pretty much two weeks after I hit puberty (and I was early, so you can imagine how longstanding this affair has been). This glorious hunk of manflesh has been guarding the posts of the Spanish goal in a magnificent fashion for the last 10 years, and has been getting finer and finer with the passage of time. And if Benedikt Ho(umlaut)wedes can have multiple pictures in one post, then so can Iker.



This shot of Iker bawling his eyes out after Spain clinched the 2010 World Cup is one of my favourite things in life. COME HERE AND LET ME LOVE YOU THE WAY YOU DESERVE TO BE LOVED. 





Jesus Navas [Spain / Forward]

Not entirely my type, but I feel like I have to include him because those eyes. The eyes. You might have noticed them. They are RIDICULOUS and should be illegal. Those ocular receptors probably have the power to stun opposing defenders into immobility, and send goalkeepers swooning away in the wrong direction. Daaaamn, Jesus.



Group D

France has pleasantly surprised me this time, by actually - and for once - living up to their sexy reputation and  providing subjects for dry humping fantasies.


Yoann Gourcuff [France/Midfield]

Yoann Gourcuff almost suffers from being really way too pretty for his own good, but it is rare that we come across such a finely crafted physique in international football. There is an elegant, almost classic quality to his beauty, enhanced by how the coal-black shade of his hair contrasts so becomingly with the paleness of his complexion and how stunningly flattering the lighting is in this shot and what I am basically saying here is that Yoann you are very pretty and we should bone or something, oui? 



Olivier Giroud [France / Forward]

I really know next to nothing about this guy but ooooh la la, OM NOM NOM, get in the pants, and so on.




Euro 2012 kicks off in just about 10 days, and I hope everyone enjoys a month of great football and assorted exquisite specimens of masculinity. I am especially looking forward to the gems and nuggets of sexiness I may have overlooked in the process of putting this post together. BRING ON THE DUDES, EUROPE.

[all composite/collage images of the Euro '12 groups snagged from here]

Here Are Six Really Convincing Reasons To Start Watching German Football. Really.

If you are a fan of the soccerball in Malaysia, like myself,  it's very likely that the British league holds 99% of your attention, with the Spanish and Italian leagues hovering somewhere on the fringes of your sports-related consciousness. It is the English teams that sell the most (fake) merchandise, have the largest legions of fans proclaiming eternal loyalty to a different team every two months, and it is the English game scores that dominate all school and workplace conversations come Monday morning.

   Over the holidays, however, my brother developed an affinity for the German football league, or the Bundesliga, which I did not even know we had on satellite TV. I recognized quite a few members of the German national team from the World Cup, and decided to give one or two games a shot. At the end of that month, I decided that the Bundesliga, despite the slightly hilarious name, was definitely something worth investing in, and here's why;


1. The German league is not astronomically famous, so the concept of having superstars on Beckham-esque levels hasn't really set in. The very German philosophy of "the star is the team" can be seen right down to the jersey designs for most football clubs there, where the players' names are printed on the bottom of the shirts, and the team's name on the top. Or indeed, the fact that the team's name is on the back of the jersey at all. I dig it.



Or maybe that's just how shirts are traditionally made in Germany, I don't know. But this attitude of never putting an individual player on too high of a pedestal seems to have resulted in a very significant observation ; there appears to be fewer entitled arrogant douchebags on the pitch, and consequently also much fewer occurrences of entitled arrogant douchebag behaviour.


2. After 10 years or so, I would think even the most die-hard follower of the English leagues would be bored and just a little bit jaded by now ; the same famous faces every season, the same teams dominating, the same teams losing, the same drama. If you're new to German football, it really is a very refreshing experience. It's unpredictable and a real competition in every sense ; there have been three different title winners in the last three years alone. It is literally anyone's game in Germany, and the fact that you can never place a sure bet on the same team every season is hella exciting.

3. In the Bundesliga, the fan is king. Ticket prices and fan attendance are the lowest and highest, respectively, of any soccerball league in Europe. Even if you don't watch the sport at all, massive respect is due for the way these people run their business. It's also something that seems to have seeped into the players as well ; I have rarely seen this happen in an English league match.


However insignificant the match is in the larger scheme of things, the winning team goes over to whichever end of the stadium in which their supporters are camped out, and shows some much deserved love and appreciation. I was very impressed when I first saw this happen. Also I may or may not have been completely overwhelmed by warm fuzzies.

4. Mats Hummels . He is the 23 year old defender for Borussia Dortmund, widely hailed as one of the best young players in his position -
Oh no, I'm sorry. Let me just skip ahead to the relevant bit.

This is what he looks like. And don't lie, you know this is what you're here for. 

Hey baby, did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?

Mats is friggin' adorable, you guys. Not that there is a lack of cute players in other national leagues, but I happen to be completely smitten with this young man, and for the next few weeks or so, no other male on the  planet is going to cut it for me. That dimpled smile, that hair you just want to run your fingers through... I bet it has the texture of heavenly clouds shot through with celestial silk woven by the angels or something. I admit I wasn't feeling the love in the beginning - he looked more than a little sleazy. But a few Google sessions later and I was completely sold. This guy has the distinction of quite literally making me squeal audibly every time he smiles, and I don't squeal. Ever. I did not even squeal at Michael Fassbender in that black turtleneck. This is serious business.

Such a goddamn boss. Of adorableness.

To be fair (and less superficial) Mats is also very good at his full-time job (preventing goals from happening) and his part-time job (sometimes making goals happen) and his life-time job (being delicious).

Orlando Bloom, is that you?

Welcome to my ever-growing list of unattainable husbands, Mr. Hummels. I really hope he makes it on the senior German national team by the next World Cup, because he deserves it, and also because we can never have enough hotnessess  to look at during major sports tournaments.

Apparently he's so hot he breathes steam, oh my lord.



5. Mario Gomez. Because that is totally a German name. He is the striker for Bayern Munich and the German national team, which means we have met before, but I never got the chance to really sit down and stare at his German-Spanish (Gernish?) ass until very recently, and I think I like what I see.

Mario Gomez is somewhat disappointing at his full-time job (making goals happen), satisfactory at his part-time job (sometimes stopping goals from happening) and completely ace at his life-time career of being sex on a Deutsche stick (did I use that word right? Does it matter? He's hot).

I have heard a professional male commentator once refer to him as an Adonis. I kid you not. It was hilarious. Also, it's rather easy to spot a Mario Gomez after the match ; he'll most likely be the only one traipsing around with a bare torso, sweat-drenched shirt slung over one shoulder. Not that I mind. Not that I mind at all.

Back away from my man, No.10.

6. I can't really think of a sixth reason, so here are some members of the German national team (including Mats! HI MATS!) indulging in some dorky yet delicious breakfast-themed product placement. Cute footballers and chocolate hazelnut concoctions! But this is ridiculous! That Nutella is spread on all the wrong places here. Bread? For shame. Like, I'm talking Nutella on German footballers. Nutella all over German footballers. A naked filthy goddamned Nutella shower. Am I right? Hells yeah!! You're not doing it right, advertisers.



It is my professional opinion that this ad campaign needs less clothes.

So concludes my extremely convincing post on why German league football is worth your time, soccer fans. Shirtless Sexy Rock-climbing Mats says auf Wiedersehen, and promises to grace the rest of our days with his talent and Teutonic beauty.

"Football Is A Very Simple Game; 22 Men Chase One Ball For 90 Minutes, And In The End The Germans Always Win."

Well, maybe that was the case when Gary Lineker was a fit young player himself, 347 years ago or thereabouts. But apparently it doesn't apply any longer.

I wasn't rooting for Spain in particular, but that's not to say I disapprove of them winning. I mean, seriously. 44 years without anything to show for anything? Imagine the magnitude of the inferiority complex there. They even have the word pain in their country's name. Give them a break, no? Plus they played fantabulous football, and I doubt too many people would disagree, unless you're German.
Or Russian.
Pozo-hechos, mis amigos.

BAP's Hottest Men of Euro 08

So Euro 2008 has reached its end ( the final has yet to be played, but whatever-it's over), quite comfortably free of too much drama or controversy, everybody has been basically well-behaved, I can't remember the last time I saw a red card, there hasn't been a properly gruesome injury ( bummer), a brawl, a fistfight or even a slight bit of hair-pulling. Therefore I cannot do what I did for the 2006 World Cup, and draw up another outrageous awards show of sorts (which then included over 23 categories). But what I can do is what I'm best at.
Now, it is posts like this one I'm about to do that justify what boys (and some men) say about how females only watch football (or soccer, if you're that way inclined) to drool over athletic male specimens. But I say footballers aren't stupid. They know they can't wear little shorts and run around and not expect us to look, don't they? And I know exactly why my uncles crowd around the TV to watch Maria Sharapova play tennis for three hours. So knock it off with the bleeding double standards already.


BAP's Hottest Men of Euro 08

Some slim pickings this year, I must say. My standards have not been met. Because there is so little hotness to go around, I decided to post their baby pictures as well. Well, not baby pictures, but still. Back when they were itty bitty.

Iker Casillas ( Spain)

You can kinda see why they made him goalie, no?

I have always found goalkeepers sexy, for some reason. Perhaps it's because of the gloves. Spanish fans are quite enthralled with him. They call him God, The Messiah, and the Second Coming. He's good and all that, but that's kind of pushing it. And I don't really care, as long as he keeps looking hot while he's being the Messiah.
Or just a goalkeeper.


Christoph Metzelder (Germany)


He doesn't deserve to be this hot. Who does he think he is, being this hot? If I were that hot I'd probably internally combust and die. Of internal combustion. Although, currently he needs a shave. He looks like one of the disciples of Jesus, and that's nice, but totally not hot.

Biology is such a wonderful thing, no?


Arne Friedrich (Germany)


He is utter perfection, except for the disgusting habit he has of never taking his shirt off, a common failing of the German team. Ever. Not once. If he ever has, then I have never seen it. He should at least have the courtesy to show some bicep, or a wee peek at a six-pack. Doesn't he know I'm watching?

AWWW! Look at him. Just look at him! All decent and fully-dressed. At every stage in life.
Do not tell me he grew up to be this gorgeous just so he could wear clothes all the time.
The bastard.


All baby pictures courtesy of metric_march's incredibly awesome Footballers: When They Were Young series. Plenty more where the ones on this post came from.

BAP's Guide to Euro 2008

My personal thoughts on all 16 competing teams. At first I thought this would be too much bother, but this competition only rolls around for one measly month every four years, and it is widely considered to be much harder to win than the World Cup. So. Why not?


I warn you that the following may contain traces of horniness, biased opinion, pure ignorance, indifference and very little credible sports analysis.

We shall start with Austria and Switzerland. As co-hosts, these two countries receive automatic qualification.

Austria
The bigshots of Austrian football ( or soccer, whichever suits your fancy) actually requested , or maybe even begged, FIFA to allow them to withdraw from the competition, claiming that their playing standards were nowhere near what is needed for this kind of international gig. But they're here anyway.
Enough said.


Switzerland

They have the dubious honour of being the only national team in the history of the World Cup to have been knocked out at the group stages without having conceded a goal. That's like a compliment wrapped around a sucker punch. Likely to do only marginally better than their co-hosts, Austria.


Spain

The perennial underachievers. It's about time they won something, too. I mean, they have all the pretty players on their side. And they all play pretty football. It's like their own prettiness distracts them at some point, and that's when they start doing things like failing spectacularly and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
But in all seriousness. It's about time. *cough*England*cough*


Czech Republic




I love this team, for various perverted reasons, as some people could testify to. But I do not want them to win this time around. They can go to the finals and everything, they're capable of it, but they mustn't win. Tomas Rosicky is injured and he's not playing. To win the Euros without him isn't exactly impossible, but I would consider it a travesty. Euro 2012 perhaps?




Holland

I never really liked this side. But their shirts are such a terrifically awesome shade of orange that it would be hard to say a word against them.

Germany

My default adopted-country team. I remember being in Standard Six, and being the only person in my entire class who wanted Germany to win the WC final against Brazil, and I even put down what was left of my lunch money on that result (yes, I gambled at age 12. It was only twenty cents anyway). Germany lost, I was to be the butt of future football-related jokes, but I came away from it all with an odd sense of Teutonic loyalty. And five years later, still a pseudo-German, despite stupid things some people say, like "Eeek you're supporting a Nazi team, how could you??". Gosh. Grow up. Half of the guys on that team are Polish anyway.
And let's not forget the German Under-17 team, who are blessed with insane gorgoeusness. I'd go after that bunch but somebody may convict me on a rape charge. So. Give them a couple of years and we'll have some proper eye-candy in the senior team as well.



Italy

They already won the bleeeding World Cup just last year! They don't need another trophy, the greedy little bitches.


France

They're boring. I'm sorry, they may be good, but they've always bored me senseless. If they win, or lose, or all die of food poisoning, or get swallowed up in an avalanche, or score 345 goals in 45 minutes, it simply would not interest me. They're that dull.


Croatia

The red and white check pattern makes me happy. Watching Croatia makes me happy. Their coach is awesome. He has his ear pirced. That makes me happy. If they won, I'd be happy too. Luka Modric looks like an elf crossed with a Hobbit crossed with a mouse . That makes me happy too.





Greece


The winners of the last tournament. I don't know much about them except that their names would make for some killer Spelling Bee tournos.


Romania





I can only think of vampires, for some reason. The thought of Romanians playing football under the sun is a little odd, but they qualified, which is a lot more than a lot of countries could say. *cough*England*cough*.



Russia

They just got flattened 4-1 by the Spaniards this morning, so it's not looking too good. Their names would make for killer Spelling Bees too.









Turkey

Call me an ass, but I was never really ever sure whether Turkey was officially part of Asia or Europe. My doubts have now been assuaged, obviously. There is also some Turk dude playing on the Swiss team. I wonder why he ran away?










Poland



The team that qualifies for everything but leaves without ever making an impact. I don't want to be mean, but the Poles look like they showed up just to make the numbers. Again.




Sweden

I like watching Sweden. They're boring as hell most of the time, but there's something enthralling about watching that many blond people running around together on a field. Capable but unlikely winners.


Portugal





Quite possibly the only team I actually dislike, no thanks to the presence of a certain Christiano Ronaldo. If I have to see his face on another magazine cover I shall projectile vomit all over it.




England



They--oh I'm sorry. They didn't qualify, did they? They have, arguably, the best players in the world, but the sheer weight of their collective and individual ego just drag them down all the time. Maybe after this team are all dead and gone, they can start thinking about trophies. It is very strange to watch a tournament like this without England in it, though.










BAP's Ultimate Prediction
England won't win this either.

edit ; My mistake, Italy won the World Cup two years ago, not last year.
They're still being greedy little bitches though.