TheUNInterrupted:A Sports Odyssey

       We knew Messi could get hurt.  We knew he was human, barely... But the guy almost never gets hurt. We hardly ever see him go down and not jump right back up, anxious to get on with it.       We know Messi has had some rest the last week or so, but up til then, he was being played into the ground, every minute.       So why is this so frustrating? Because  this isn't the type of injury that comes from being mishandled on the training ground...this was a freak version of a fall that happens 7 or 8 times a match, if not more when you're Messi and everyone has to foul you or you'll score on them...      Ever since Salah went down in the Champions league final, I always wondered how Messi would have survived or dealt with an injury like that.       Sadly...now we know..      Messi went to challenge for the ball on the cusp of the right wing, ramming hard into a Sevilla playe...

           The international break will always bring moans, rampant freakouts and anguished cries from 99.9% of futbol fans, still bloodthirstily hungry for the expected league matches to end every week and the cup matches in between with their drama, their vicious intensity that always seems to deliver and the goals that shine down on us all, if only for a brief moment in the grim, abyss called 2018: Earth.         With the international matches comes a lack of playing time for some of our favorite players we are fortunate to see match in, match out, usually every week; It brings 0-0 results and boring, stilted play, even from the best (see France v Germany). These matches also annoy and enrage with big time injuries to some of these players, who after a long, bruising summer campaign involved in the World Cup, will be surely stretched.       But the most annoying culprit of these breaks seems to be the internationa...

            And so we've come thus far in the current NFL season with no clear answers, no obvious teams (well maybe one or two who aren't proven contenders as of yet: see LA and KC) or pathways to the Super bowl laid out in front of us.       All we've got is a bunch of thick mist layered with the daily decisions of Josh Gordon or the earphones of Josh Norman being yanked off his head, prompting his greatest game as a Redskin against his former team, no less; Manning and Wentz wasting away in the doldrums of the worst division  (or perhaps the most fascinating) in football; Tom Brady and Bill Belichick going it alone, without each other, the length of the season and betting on random free agent acquisitions and a myriad of running backs and bootleg players...yes it sounds familiar, but never have these Patriots under Bill and Tom gone this thin in defense...or in the communication department; Aaron Rodgers suffering through injury...