Scoring Spurt

Shut out of the sold-out closing night feature at the 2007 Maryland Film festival, I drove home to watch the big Spanish Primera Division soccer match between 2nd-place Sevilla and 3rd-place Real Madrid on Fox Soccer Channel. Down 1-0 to Sevilla at the half, Real Madrid stormed back to go up 2-1 in the 78th minute on an exciting goal by Brazilian star Robinho that was set up by a brilliantly threaded pass from substitute Jose Maria Gutierrez (Guti).

I then witnessed the best goal celebration I've seen since Liverpool striker Robbie Fowler bent down to snort the goal line like he was doing a line of coke against crosstown rivals Everton in 1999...Robinho took his shirt off, kneeled on the pitch, perched Guti's leg on his lap and gave his teammate a post-goal shoe shine. Rather fitting, I thought, to polish the golden boot of the guy who set up your goal. But, just as America's NFL penalizes extravagant touchdown celebrations or players taking off their helmets in between plays, European soccer frowns on players taking their shirts off, so Robinho was given his second tajarda amarillo (yellow card) and ejected from the game.

But what really amazed me wasn't the celebration or the ejection. It was my favorite sportscaster Ray Hudson's commentary of the incident. Hudson (whose colorful commentary is usually peppered with lines like "Ronaldinho is trickier than a squirrel on a telephone wire!", "that was as electrifying as a hairdryer thrown in a hottub," or "that pass was an ingot of pure gold!") defended Robinho's enthusiasm by saying, "After a goal like that, Robinho simply had an orgasm." (And people wonder why Real Madrid's uniforms are solid white.)

I have NEVER heard a sports commentator compare an athletic celebration to an ejaculation of bodily fluids or sexual stimulation. It was a first, ladies and gentlemen, and I'm still amazed. Only Ray Hudson could coin such evocative on-air poetry! Oh, and all's well that ends well: though down to 10 men following Robinho's ejacu - er - ejection, Real Madrid went on to win 3-2 so it was a mutual orgasm for the Whites. So shine on Robinho!

Related Links:
Ray Hudson's Greatest Quotes (Wikipedia)