The Seven Deadly Sins in Football

The seven deadly sins is a classification of vices that have been used in religion to show man’s nature to sin and to instruct humanity about what is moral and immoral. Now this will not be a religious sermon or a morality class but rather more like an immorality class.

Footballers with their high wages and lifestyles that people would kill for, don’t seem to be the obvious choice for such a topic but in reality, they are the perfect specimen for this sort of topic.

Before I start, in case some of the readers are not well versed with the seven sins they are namely Wrath, greed, sloth, lust, envy, gluttony and pride, not in any particular order. This is what I could remember from playing various games based on the sins. Without further ado, I now present the 7 deadly sins in football.

LustLust is thought of as excessive desire and/or thoughts of a sexual nature. We all have that desires within us as often our primitive instinct kicks in but one footballer in recent time certainly has found the “goal” so as to say.John Terry, the England captain was caught a few months back when it was found that he has impregnated his ex team mate(Wayne Bridge’s) girlfriend of the time. While many will point out that it is not such a big deal, well it actually is when you are the captain of your national side and you have a wife and two kids, this certainly led to a lot of talk on and off the pitch, culminating in the stand off between Chelsea and Manchester City where the said players would not shake hands, City won. Justice?

"NO handshake for YOU!"

WrathWrath is defined as uncontrolled feelings of anger, and our subject for this sin is Craig Bellamy. His list of indiscretions include alleged assaults on women, pitch invaders during games, drunken attacks on teammates and most recently in January 2011 an alleged attack on two men. He however has been cleared of all the above incidents except the famous golf club incident, where a drunk Bellamy attacked then Liverpool teammate John Arne Riise with a golf club.

Water under the “bridge” (yes a pun from the lust sin) , when they played against Barcelona and Bellamy scored a goal at the Nou Camp, out came the infamous Golf Club celebration by the Bells.

Swing when I am winning

GreedGreed is seen as a need or want of excessive wealth and the likes, Gareth Barry was the person I picked out, although you could pick out a ton of other players like Tevez, Eto’o ,Torres and probably half of City’s players right now.

The Barry saga was like an emotional rollercoaster, Liverpool wanted to sign him in 2008 but the then Villa manager Martin O’Neil made sure Barry did not leave. Barry was fined when he criticized O’Neil, stripped of his captaincy and was not sold the following year in 2009 when Liverpool again tried signing him but he went to the new project of Manchester City, claiming he wanted a “new challenge”.

This sin could have been about Eto’o as well, making roughly 52,000 pounds a DAY at Russian club Anzhi , but to be fair to him, if you offered that kind of money to anyone they would have lived in a cubicle all alone for 2 years. I know I would have.

I would be smiling like that if I were paid this well

SlothSloth is defined as a failure to utilize one’s gift or talent. The one player who does come to my mind would be Freddy Adu.

This really is a story for the books and almost has a happy ending, Adu and his mother were living in Ghana and they won the Green Card Lottery and moved to America where he attended school and was spotted by coaches and played football in America, yes this is true from Ghana to America.

He is the youngest sportsperson in America for a 100 years to have signed a professional contract with the MLS “Franchise” D.C United in 2004 at the age of 14. With the world at his feet it seemed inevitable he would reach the stars but he never fulfilled his promise, having unsuccessful loan spells at Benfica , Monaco and some other clubs, he is now playing for the Philadelphia Union and has been part of the US national team since 2006 making only 17 appearances.

Chicken Soup for the almost talented

Gluttony

Gluttony refers to over indulgence or over consumption, Tom Huddlestone would be my pick for this sin. When he first broke into the Spurs side it was seen that the lad was talented and had a thunderous shot but for some reason something seemed off. He was a tad on the bulgy side and since then his managers both for club and country had to make sure he cut out on his snacks , Juande Ramos made sure he would not even take in any ketchup.

Fortunately for him, since he has stopped taking in ketchup in vast quantities he has become slimmer, trimmer and fitter.

He was this fat,not photoshopped

PrideThis is often termed as the most serious of all the sins, referring to an excessive love about oneself, a desire to be more attractive or important than others.

Mario Balotelli certainly fits the bill, from his crazy tirades and tantrums of throwing darts at the Manchester City youth team, to driving around in a sports car with 25000 pounds in the passengers’ seat to going out with a pornstar when his girlfriend was away. Lets not forget he is a very talented player who considers himself only second to Lionel Messi and that he did not know who Jack Wilshire was (Occurred when Balo won the Golden Boy award and Wilshire was second).

Yes Mario, only YOU

EnvyThe last sin to talk about and this time, instead of picking on the players, it is time to look at ourselves. While we all love football and support our team to the hilt, we are often envious about our rival’s glory. Trying to bring them down and not acknowledging the fact that actually did do something good, now I am not saying that we should love our rival and say they are the best but we should learn to accept facts and not moan about how the referee has helped X team or how they were lucky. It is not easy I know, but its something we all can work on.