ODE TO BATISTUTA

Your father had to be a butcher to have given you
Omar as a middle name. Omar, the butcher's kid, a
striker of unpardonable efficiency, a Terminator
cleaver made of volcano ore and Skytel metalurgy.
And then his mane made women dedicate themselves
to follicle cults and galloping kerotene chambers.
El Bati scored so many goals that they had to start
designating the prettier ones Batigols. Came up
with Bielsa, locked horns with Passarrella, so you
have definitely come through the Argentine Mythology
Combine. Tecnico Narcisas speaks marvels of your killer,
saying that you don't pardon lives. You can watch the
clips all day, the depots of clips, the terrabytes of
bests of and the duty reels. It's just that Bati can
lambaste the corner of that post with spitfire precision;
and, that's from well outside the box, the ball meteoring
past defensemen, whipping the toothpaste white netting.

NEW TITLE FROM HINCHAS DE POESIA PRESS

This is Amanda Duran's zine, Oskar and Oskar's Autospielen Cafe. I advise you to click on the image because it's hand drawn by Mrs. Duran. Amanda is a high school Spanish teacher in NYC and a native of Los Angeles. Her favorite color is purple, and her favorite movie is Willy Wonka. Over the summer, Amanda was in Germany and was inspired to make this zine by Oskar Schmidt, the gorgeous little mann of Jurgen and Yvon Schmidt. The Schmidt's live in Ravensburg, Germany and like to drive a Volvo station wagon in excess of 200 kilometers per hour on the Autobahn.

ODE TO CANIGGIA

The reason your name doesn't gong more eternal
in the Adirondacks and Denali of 90 minutes play
is because you wore the colors that suited
you when you needed them to matter and the fans
don't have that option. If their hearts bleed blue
and gold then they had you on lock when you were
busy peeling out in the Bombonera, but you were
also very prodigious playing for the Plate? Shit,
you've even played for the Rangers in Glasgow and
the rabid sheiks that run the Qatar Sports Club.
In other words, it is as if you've been Maradonized.
As if Maradona had come down from on high and clipped
those little wingtips of prolonged celebrity quotient.
I mean, Caniggia, had it in spades. It being a dollop
of the demi-god, a reverence reserved for the prettiest
Aryans, those model fucks with luxurious hair bounties.
My man could glide with quickness, I think some Peronists
probably timed him silly in the barn of some futbol club
and the news spread like unmitigated flu purloin. Maybe he
could sprint 100 meters in under 11 seconds, but how much faster
could he go if the sins of Father Maradona were not some
unforeseen dumbbell, some aggregate riposte on the albatross.
Caniggia was possibly the last albatross in the land
where the toilets flush backwards. An ass, no doubt, but
at the same time, he is a manner of the celeste and white
that typifies the Argentine national team. But back to the
bird metaphors, let's just say that Caniggia was largely
believed to be the fastest white soccer player playing in
the world and to watch the clips you would think that
there is no way a man's stride could cut so much distance
could mow down the green continent spread out before him.
Caniggia could run fast, like wow, because he was a stringy
and tall god-like motherfucker that could run like an animal.

ODE TO JAVIER MASCHERANO

After Maradona calls you a monster, what do you do?
Do you: a.) careen feetfirst into the feet of an Inter striker?
b.) sideswipe opponents like a squirrel sumo? c.) chest bump
the referee and push off your coach who has to eyefuck you
so that you shut your mudhole and cool your fool. So you lost
some time at West Ham and blamed London on the your soul cirrhosis.
At least you got to play with Tevez which must have made the team
like a River Plate two-seater. But now, now, you have come into
it thick at Liverpool. The ghost of your own Nike botin follows you
around the training grounds; the gravy train was delayed for a bit
bit it is coming ladden with sports drink endorsements and power
gels, aerobic rocket powders. Your moon is up, son, and remember
that endorsement from Maradona. Him calling you a monster is like
the ball crying that the foot is a brutal counterpart.

ODE TO WAYNE ROONEY

Young-ass, no-neck-having, endorsed out the wazoo
undecipherable governor. Captain England in the gun
range, mumbler, shy statistician, grotesque ducats
in trade ploys and blackmail jousting in the Sunfor libel tournaments when all my man wants
is to field a volley from midfield, absorb it in some
turgidly benign way with swollen gravity and Howitzer
on the poor sap they've sentenced to deflect his meteors.

My man, Rooney, marquees the poise of a physicist
calibrating the Goalie Death Ray. His little black eyes
(almost too small for his cranium) like mediocre poppies
with aftertaste wallop. It's like you can almost spy the
deliberate assessment, the size-up this adolescent-plated
street arab has on his mind. And then he is known for chipping
it over goalies' heads when they venture out too far, forget
themselves in relation to the skirmish in play. And then he is
known for bringing the full hip wrath, the torque shoulder canon
the barrel-down carnivore, the lambasted targets, the pity of the
oxygen tank, the lameness of the metatarsals.