Infidel Soccer

Soccer. I'm not a big fan, sorry. Seems to me that there is a strong correlation between loving soccer and poor economic performance. Nonetheless, my twins have now started playing ... and they're good! Last Saturday they collectively scored a "Hatch-trick" - 2 goals for Joe on breakaways, 1 from Billy, kicking away from the sideline near midfield, clearing the other seven players, and making a b-line right for the goal (there are no goalies). That's pretty much Billy's only hope for a goal - he has feet of clay, so the breakaway is not an option. It's as if they played with a fire inspired by the knowledge that paternal love is highly contingent upon athletic performance. Most kids don't figure that out until they're in therapy two decades later, when it is too late to go kick some ass on the soccer field. Not my kids! They're not only good athletes, they're smart too.

So anyway, I'm starting to warm up to soccer, though I still harbor the hope that my kids will be good at a real sport. Anyway, I was encouraged that maybe I'm too hard on soccer when I read a link sent by a friend to a NYT article that detailed a recent fatwah - one of these religious pronouncements made by mullahs or something. It is hilarious if it is true. It deals with the proper way to play soccer, which must by necessity avoid the arbitrary rules made up by the infidels. Professor Vic, by the way, has been a soccer ref for as long as I've known him, enforcing the infidel rules (he might want to watch his back with the Iranian he recently referenced in a comment). My favorite is number 6 - and these guys are close to getting nukes? It's a good thing we stole math from them centuries ago, because if they still had it in their possession, I'd have scored a lot lower on the SATs.

And here's a bad joke for you: When Castro's Moslem proctologist is giving him an exam, is he technically Infidel?

IN the name of God the merciful and benevolent:

1. Play soccer without four lines because this is a fabrication of the heretics' international rules that stipulate using them and delineating them before playing.

2. International terminology that heretics and polytheists use, like "foul," "penalty," "corner," "goal," "out" and others, should be abandoned and not said. Whoever says them should be punished, reprimanded and ejected from the game. He should be publicly told, "You have imitated the heretics and polytheists and this is forbidden."

3. Do not call "foul" and stop the game if someone falls and sprains a hand or foot or the ball touches his hand, and do not give a yellow or red card to whoever was responsible for the injury or tackle. Instead, it should be adjudicated according to Sharia rulings concerning broken bones and injuries. The injured player should exercise his Sharia rights according to the Koran and you must bear witness with him that so-and-so hurt him on purpose.

4. Do not follow the heretics, the Jews, the Christians and especially evil America regarding the number of players. Do not play with 11 people. Instead, add to this number or decrease it.

5. Play in your regular clothes or your pajamas or something like that, but not colored shorts and numbered T-shirts, because shorts and T-shirts are not Muslim clothing. Rather they are heretical and Western clothing, so beware of imitating their fashion.

6. If you have fulfilled these conditions and intend to play soccer, play to strengthen the body in order to better struggle in the way of God on high and to prepare the body for when it is called to jihad. Soccer is not for passing time or the thrill of so-called victory.

7. Do not set the time of play at 45 minutes, which is the official time of the Jews, Christians and all the heretical and atheist countries. This is the time used by teams that have strayed from the righteous path. You are obliged to distinguish yourself from the heretics and the corrupted and must not resemble them in anything.

6. Do not play in two halves. Rather play in one half or three halves in order to completely differentiate yourselves from the heretics, the polytheists, the corrupted and the disobedient.

9. If neither of you beats the other, or "wins" as it is called, and neither puts the leather between the posts, do not add extra time or penalties until someone wins. No, instead leave the field, because winning with overtime and penalty kicks is the pinnacle of imitating heretics and international rules.

10. If you play soccer, do not appoint someone to follow you called a "referee," since there is no need for him after doing away with international rules like "foul," "penalty," "corner" and others. His presence would be in imitation of the heretics, Jews and Christians and would follow international rules.

11. Young crowds should not gather to watch when you play because if you are there for the sake of sports and strengthening your bodies as you claimed, why would people watch you? You should make them join your physical fitness and jihad preparation, or you should say: "Go proselytize and seek out morally reprehensible acts in the markets and the press and leave us to our physical fitness."

12. If you finish playing soccer, do not talk about your game and say, "We were better than the opponent," or "So-and-so plays well" and so on. Instead be concerned with your bodies and their strength and muscles, and say, "We played only to drill in running, attacking and retreating, and to prepare for jihad in the name of God on high."

13. You should spit in the face of whoever puts the ball between the posts or uprights and then runs in order to get his friends to follow him and hug him like players in America or France do, and you should punish and reprimand him, for what is the relationship between celebrating, hugging and kissing and the sports that you are practicing?

14. You should use two posts instead of three pieces of wood or steel that you erect in order to put the ball between them, meaning that you should remove the crossbar in order not to imitate the heretics and in order to be entirely distinct from the soccer system's despotic international rules.

15. Do not do what is called "substitution," that is, taking the place of someone who has fallen, because this is a practice of the heretics in America and elsewhere.

These are some conditions and precepts so that morally aware youth do not inadvertently imitate heretics and polytheists when playing soccer ... Hell awaits those who die playing soccer according to rules established by heretical countries, at the head of which is America.