(no subject)

[of_doom]

• Hey FIFA, fail a little more, I dare you.
  
  "The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has upheld the appeals filed by Schalke 04, Werder Bremen and Barcelona against the decision issued on July 30 2008 by the single judge of Fifa's players' status committee that consequently has been set aside in its entirety," said CAS.
  
  CAS decided that although it was an established custom for players to be allowed to travel to the Olympics, the tradition had no legal foundation and could not be enforced against the clubs' wishes.
  
  "Beijing 2008 is not included in the co-ordinated match calendar and there is no specific decision of the Fifa executive committee establishing the obligation for the clubs to release players under 23 for this tournament. The requirements to justify a legal obligation of clubs to release their players for [the Olympics] on the basis of customary law are not met."
  
  Also, Batista sounds like a creepy boytoucher y/n:
  
  Argentina's coach Sergio Batista, meanwhile, has insisted that Messi wants to play for his country at the Olympics and that, despite the ruling, the coach will select the 21-year-old for the tournament's opening fixture.
  
  "For sure he will be on the start-list for tomorrow from the beginning and I am sure he can be here with us for the rest of the competition," Batista said. "The player will be here and will remain with the team. We have the hope that he will remain with the team for the entire tournament. He told us he wants to stay. He's relaxed and asks the people at Barcelona to understand his situation. The club is relaxed and I was figuring to put Messi in the starting 11."
  
  When asked if Messi's eagerness to play for his country will damage his relationship with the Catalan club, Batista said it was not a factor. "We haven't spoken about the cost of this decision. He's relaxed and he's informed us that he would prefer to be with the team."
  
• James Lawton has written an interesting, though underdeveloped column on the presence of football's superstars at the Olympics:
  
  James Lawton at the 2008 Olympics: Megastars devalue the gold standard
  Wednesday, 6 August 2008
  
  Any diversion triggered by Lionel Messi is bound to be spectacular - he is, after all, football's most mesmerising talent - but whatever he does in Shanghai tomorrow when Argentina open the defence of their football crown against Ivory Coast cannot be more than a rustle in the Olympic bushes.
  
  It is the fate of every extraordinary deed by a Messi, or a Roger Federer, who has dreams of a laurel garland to ease his Wimbledon pain and even a Tiger Woods if golf gets its way and becomes an Olympic sport after a gap of more than a hundred years.
  
  The point of the Olympics, however obscured it can become in the teeth of a drugs controversy, is that they have the power to bestow a supreme accolade. They take an athlete or a swimmer or a rower to their version of Mount Olympus.
  
  They are simply moving too sharply from their classically designated role when they offer a consolation prize to a Messi, so poorly handled by his Argentina coach Jose Pekerman in the World Cup of 2006, or a Federer engulfed by Rafael Nadal - or still another, albeit lesser, prize to the Tiger. Both the superstars and the Olympics are diminished - the superstars by becoming marginal figures in the show, whose formal opening at the stunning Bird's Nest stadium here on Friday is expected to draw an audience of at least a billion television viewers, the Olympics by becoming fatter and more obviously intent on dragging in every penny and dime that can be squeezed out of already mega-earning sports.
  
  If you continue to accept the validity of the Olympics, if you choose to walk on the high wire between hope of stupendous performance and dread that it will sooner rather than later be announced as another fraud, you do want achievement that announces itself as the peak of any sportsman or woman's life.
  
  That is what makes the American swimmer Michael Phelps and Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt such compelling figures here over the next few weeks. It is why Carl Lewis and Steve Redgrave and Sebastian Coe will for ever stand larger in the mystique of the Olympics than a Messi or a Federer or a Woods, if he should ever get to play with the lip-smacking approval of television.
  
  In this sense you could understand the reluctance of Barcelona to see Messi playing Olympic football at a time when they face a huge fight to re-establish themselves as a significant force in the Champions League. Messi is playing, for huge profit, in a game which has its own peaks quite divorced from the extravaganza which begins to unfold here this week.
  
  Two years ago Messi was a key member of an Argentina team which promised to restore the World Cup to artistic heights untouched since Brazil's beautiful triumph in Mexico in 1970. But the striker was critically, some would say criminally, underused and Barça could reasonably question the legitimacy of any redemption here.
  
  Perhaps, though, it was Woods who carried us to the heart of this matter, as is his tendency on most issues that affect his life and the sport he has come to dominate so profoundly, when he was asked his opinion on the Olympic initiative.
  
  "Heck, it would be great to have an Olympic medal," he said, "but would it mean more to any golfer than getting his hands on the Claret Jug or the Green Jacket?" No, of course it wouldn't, and there we have the diminishing of the Olympics whenever they open their doors to sports which have their own historically established marks of excellence.
  
  The greatest festival of sport inevitably proclaims an over-arching ambition that is quite separate from the call to go faster, higher and stronger. It is one to go ever more profitably.
  
  No doubt there will be few complaints in Shanghai tomorrow night if Messi produces the kind of compelling, intricate skill that so overshadowed Cristiano Ronaldo at Old Trafford last season. Or if Federer serves up the exquisite tennis of which he is still capable to win Olympic gold at his third attempt. Messi and Federer bring their own rewards in any circumstances, yet the latter is as candid as the Tiger when it comes to assessing Olympic gold against the silver of Wimbledon or the US Open.
  
  "Winning Olympic gold would be great for both me and my country," he said recently. "It would be something always to have with pride, but no, not as important as winning a Slam event. For a tennis player that always has to be the supreme achievement."
  
  If anything can be certain at the Olympics, it is that when the golds begin to tumble next week, when Phelps reaches out to go beyond the seven Mark Spitz achieved in Munich 36 years ago, when the most compelling stories will be to do with young men and women occupying the highest ground they will ever tread, Lionel Messi and Roger Federer might indeed be buried in the bushes.
  
  I'm not sure how I feel about Lawton's insinuation that Messi is playing at the Olympics as some sort of trophy-hunting exercise (or for money), although I'm sure it doesn't hurt. I also think that a more salient point about the Olympics is that in the grand scheme of global football, it is not one of the most prestigious events out there. FIFA has bigger fish in its freezer, whereas in sports like swimming or gymnastics, the Olympics represents the highest level of competition and the one that will garner its athletes the most recognition.
  
  In this context, Messi, Ronaldinho and others are already household names; they don't need the Olympics in order to make their careers. That being said, Messi is still a U-23 player and he's been playing with some members of the Olympics squad for years. It's completely understandable that he would want a shot at further glory with these kids, with Zabaleta, Aguero and the rest. It's more of a sentimental thing, which obviously can't stand against the CAS ruling, but I'll feel really sorry for Messi if Barcelona forces him to come back.
  
  Barcelona vs. Batista, round one, fai~to!?? Should be hysterical, at least.


• I watched the last fifteen minutes of the U.S. vs Norway game this morning at work. It's sort of strange that they're starting some competitions before the opening ceremony, but I suppose it's a timing thing. The Birds' Nest stadium looks amazing, by the way, both from the outside and from the inside. I can't wait until some of the marquee games, to see how loud it can get. I'm not sure who I'm rooting for -- these days I can feel myself being struck by sudden pride for all things China (I hope the women's gymnastics team kicks the U.S.'s butts), but there are some sports where I've always cheered for the American squads and always will (swimming, for one).
  
  With women's football, there is more confusion, for a variety of reasons I won't bore you with, and I'm still trying to figure out my allegiances. (China's men's team is unwatchable, and there's no point denying that I'm hoping for Argentina to repeat, really.)
  
  I have to say though, I'm just loving the 4am start times for some of these matches. Just superb.