Soccer Sorcery

Manchester United completed their leisurely stroll to a record 20th league title with an all too easy 3-0 win over relegation threatened Aston Villa. After the match, Man United players and staff celebrated their title clinching win with the excitement of an accounting realizing a new way to decrease his client's tax bill. In the subdued mix of it all, a fan tossed a fake severed arm onto the pitch, which a smiling Patrice Evra picked up and pretended to bite. It seemed to be a reference to Luis Suarez's second opponent biting incident during the Liverpool-Chelsea match a day earlier from the man Suarez was found guilty of racially abusing last season. Either that or it was the result of the human sacrifices that have brought Alex Ferguson and Man United their success. Coincidentally, Evra has now won a Premier League title for each of the five fingers on that hand during his time with Man United.

Liverpool striker Luis Suarez has apologized to Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic for biting him on the arm during Sunday's match and now he has bizarrely tried to complement him by saying that Serbians taste better than the Dutch. Ivanovic, a Serbian international, is the second player Suarez has bitten during a match. In 2010, while Suarez was playing for Ajax, he bit Dutchman Otman Bakkal of PSV and earned a seven-match ban for it. He has decided to compare the experiences in an unexpected way. "When I spoke to Ivanovic to apologize to him, I also told him that he should be proud because I now know that Serbians are more delicious than the Dutch," Suarez told reporters at Liverpool's Melwood training ground on Monday. "They both had salty flavors, but with Ivanovic there was a smoother aftertaste, almost a nutty quality, and I thought I tasted apricots. I asked him if it is customary in his country for soaps and body washes to contain herbs and spices, but h...

Pelita Bandung Raya earned a 2-1 home victory over Persiwa Wamena in the Indonesian Premier League on Sunday, but the winning goal came courtesy of a pretty controversial penalty. When brilliantly named Persiwa defender O.K. John put in a two-footed lunge in the box in the 80th minute, referee Wasit Muhaimin immediately pointed to the spot. Persiwa players fiercely protested the decision on the grounds that he won the ball, perhaps forgetting that a two-footed tackle from behind with both feet in the air is a pretty dangerous thing to do. Regardless, Persiwa's number ten Pieter Rumaropen was so angry with the decision that he laid a left hook on the official. The game was held up for ten minutes as blood poured down the referee's shirt and Rumaropen was given his marching orders. The incident wasn't quite as disgraceful as, say, biting an opponent , but a sucker punch from behind a referee's back is pretty cowardly and worthy of a lengthy ban. This has been the Dirty Ta...

A product or service simply won't tell in Japan unless it has a completely baffling and slightly terrifying commercial to support it. Like this . With this in mind, telecommunications and internet company SoftBank have acquired the services of Manchester Utd midfielder Shinji Kagawa in their latest run of nonsensical advertisements that seem to have nothing to do with their company. According to the Daily Mail , the premise of the clip is that Kagawa is confused by the fact that his dad has turned into a talking dolphin and his uncle is a goalscoring dog. He isn't the only confused one. Here's another variation of the commercial in which we learn very little else, except that the dog wears a bowler hat and a bow tie during international travel...

You probably don't think of the Romanian fourth division as a place where innovative football technology is born, but it is. During a match between Timisul Urseni and SS Politehnica Timisoara in front of 400 fans, an injured played was picked up in a motorized wheelbarrow. The speedy (for a wheelbarrow) vehicle is the invention of an Urseni villager according to Romania's ProSport and it turned what could've been a boring stoppage of play into a crowd pleasing spectacle. After zipping onto the pitch, the injured player was helped into the wheelbarrow (with an grandmother carrying water close behind) and transported back towards the touchline. Reenergized by the cheers for the noisy wheelbarrow, the injured player decided to stand up as it made its way back to the touchline. His hurt leg might not have been ready to support his weight in a moving wheelbarrow just yet though, and he fell off. Politehnica Timisoara went on to win 9-0. All in all, the Romanian fourth division ...

Perhaps learning from his previously misdeeds and controversies, Luis Suarez was quick to apology to Branislav Ivanovic (via Twitter) for biting him during Liverpool's 2-2 draw against Chelsea on Sunday. The chomp, which went unpunished, took place in the second half of the match, after Suarez was booked for a handball that led to Chelsea's second goal and before he scored Liverpool's equalizer in the 96th minute. Though Liverpool's official website only described the bite as " an altercation " in their match report and manager Brendan Rodgers claimed he hadn't seen the incident , two-time biter Suarez called his behavior "inexcusable." I'm sad for what happened this afternoon, I apologize Ivanovic and all football world for my inexcusable behaviour. I'm so sorry about it!! Luis Suarez (@luis16suarez) April 21, 2013 The FA will likely investigate Suarez's act and could hand down a very stiff punishment. But the Liverpool striker has ...

Fresh off his nomination for PFA Player of the Year, Luis Suarez continued his history of bizarre and vicious in-game violence during Liverpool's match against Chelsea on Sunday by biting Branislav Ivanovic on the arm like a giant, rabid zombie squirrel. Suarez conceded a penalty and earned a yellow card for a handball in the box in the 56th minute, which allowed Eden Hazard to score a go-ahead goal for Chelsea. Less than 20 minutes later, a seemingly innocuous battle for position between Suarez and Ivanovic led to the Liverpool striker burying his face in Ivanovic's arm and taking a bite before the Chelsea defender shoved him off ( gif here ). Despite Ivanovic's brief protest, the referee apparently didn't see the incident, but it will surely be reviewed by The FA in the coming days. Showing the full spectrum of his ugly behavior and undeniable talent, Suarez went on to score an equalizer just before the final whistle to end the game at 2-2. This, of course, isn't ...