There’s overpaid and then there’s REALLY overpaid.

To say that England football boss Fabio Capello is stealing money from the folks who pay his nearly £10 million per year salary is like saying early European settlers kind of dicked over Native Americans.

Capello, whose Three Lions once again disappointed English fans the world over with another lackluster World Cup performance, makes £5.8 millon more annually than the second-highest paid national team manager, Italy’s Marcello Lippi.

And yes, I’m ashamed to use the Lippi and Capello surnames in the same sentence considering Italy is — at the time of this writing — the defending World Cup champion with Lippi leading the way.

If England had gone down fighting or if the gaffer had tried injecting new blood into a lineup many thought was already getting stale four years ago, Capello’s salary might not be such a big deal.

But his pay is just shocking. Has he been signed to some kind of lifetime contract we don’t know about? Will he be taping Aaron Lennon’s ankles in 2014 as a form of retribution for leaving Lennon to rot on the bench during this World Cup? Will he serve as Wayne Rooney’s water boy and launder Peter Crouch’s sweaty kit in four years (if Crouch gets on the pitch that is, which he didn’t in 2010)?

This much I know: If Capello does return to England’s team, it shouldn’t be as a manager. His missteps as Three Lions boss — either real or perceived — are too many to mention in this space, but suffice it to say that he didn’t seem to do anything more than a man on the street with even a cursory knowledge of England’s team could’ve done.

He used mostly the same players in essentially the same formation the English team has been using for years and got the same result — an early exit from another World Cup. No fresh approach, no new ideas and honestly, no testicular fortitude.

I suppose those who follow England, like me, should have seen it coming, but I guess the millions of pounds Capello makes blinded us.

NOTE: Financial figures taken from just-football.com

There’s certainly no shortage of World Cup predictions out there these days, so I’m not about to bore you, dear reader, with yet another one.

However, I do have some thoughts on the upcoming tournament in South Africa and while I’ve already shared many of these gems with strangers and friends in any number of bars the last few months, my insights — be they brilliant or simply dross — have yet to be written down.

Until now.

Here are five things I’m predicting will happen in the next month of World Cup games — some good, some bad, some weird, some illegal. Enjoy.

1. People who didn’t like football before the Cup won’t like it during and/or after.

Which is just fine. It’s the most popular sport in the world. There are plenty of fans. I don’t think we need more.

2. Football supporters will get into arguments with non-supporters about the appeal of the game.

Again, I support this. I only hope that some of these disagreements escalate into dudes wearing Fernando Torres or Wayne Rooney shirts kicking the shit out of dudes wearing Tony Romo or Eli Manning shirts. And yes, I own the Spain Torres shirt. Bring it on, you Dallas Cowboy rednecks.

3. There will be a handful of truly special goals scored.

I predict these goals will be scored by one or all of the following: Lionel Messi (easy choice), the aforementioned Torres, Steven Gerrard (who needs to reaffirm his status as a world class player), Edson Buddle (star on the rise), Clint Dempsey (as someone was quoted in his Sports Illustrated feature: “(Dempsey) just tries shit”), Didier Drogba (broken arm and all) and Thierry Henry (preferably without using either hand, or just one of his hands twice).

4. Diego Maradona will do something worthy of worldwide headlines.

This could be the result of him leading Argentina to another Cup, or the result of him getting busted with two South African prostitutes and an ounce of narcotics. I’m cool with either scenario. Messi, Tevez and company are fun to watch.

5. Everyone will forget about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“GOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLL!” exclaimed British Petroleum executives.

Flickr photo / illarterate (credit below)

So is it OK to start believing now?

Is it OK to believe — instead of merely hope, wish, long, wonder and beg — that my favorite football club in all the world, Tottenham Hotspur, can actually finish the season in the top quadrant of the English Premier League standings?

After what happened last week, I’m beginning to think it might be.

Spurs ended a decade of league losses against North London rival Arsenal on Wednesday, then completely outplayed another defeated derby opponent, Chelsea, on Saturday.

There aren’t many teams that can say they’ve beaten Arse and Chels in the same week. The fact that the team I love dearly can hang its hat on that amazing double still hasn’t really sunk in just yet.

But some other, perhaps troubling realizations have.

To wit:

I haven’t slept more than four hours a night since the scintillating 2-1 victory against the hated Gunners, whom Tottenham hadn’t beaten in league play since 1999. When Spurs dominated the pompous Blues a few days later, despite turning what should have been a 4-1 win into the official 2-1 final, I sat in my abode, alone, clapping, singing, cheering and smiling with pride that I’ve only felt after a handful of other sporting events.

Now, questions about the sanity, not to mention the sadness, of a man who would clap, sing and cheer by himself after watching a football match on television are not completely without merit and relevance. I’m certainly given to sometimes unsane (not quite insane) behaviors.

But although I’m not the most superstitious person on Earth, I wasn’t about to do anything differently on Saturday than I did on Wednesday when it pertained to watching Tottenham. I was here alone watching the lads when they dropped Arsenal and didn’t think it a good idea to change anything when the Chelsea game was nigh. That worked out OK, so I see no need to break this wonderful, solitary cycle.

As for the lack of sleep? Well, I guess I’m still buzzing from the most amazing week of Spurs football I’ve ever witnessed.

At some point I’ll come down from this natural high and ask myself once again, “Can Spurs do it?”

For now, I’m floating, the weightlessness is sublime and the question doesn’t even need asking.

I believe.

—

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/illarterate/ / CC BY 2.0

THERE ARE PLENTY of great sporting competitions in the United States, from the high drama of NCAA basketball’s March Madness to the spectacle of the Super Bowl.

There’s the World Series, Stanley Cup Finals, the NBA Finals, the Masters and the Kentucky Derby. Before the rich people in charge of college football insisted they needed to be richer, we had four great bowl games that ended every college football season — the Sugar, Orange, Cotton and Rose.

We have the tennis and golf U.S. Opens, the New York and Boston Marathons, the Daytona and Indianapolis 500s and even the College World Series (which is a total misnomer, just like Major League Baseball labeling our Fall Classic a “World” Series. One thing about us Yanks, we embrace our arrogance.)

But there’s a football tournament in England each year that trumps anything going on in the American sports universe. It doesn’t have a fancy name and many of the teams involved in the early rounds have likely never come up in most Yanks’ discussion of sports.

However, in my opinion, the Football Association Cup is the single greatest sporting competition on Earth.

The first FA Cup final took place in 1872 when Wanderers edged Royal Engineers, 1-0, for the title.

Think the World Series or the Stanley Cup or the Super Bowl have history? The inaugural FA Cup was played a full 20 years before the earliest incarnation of the oldest major American professional sports championship, the Stanley Cup, which was first awarded in 1892.

The first World Series wasn’t held until 1903 and the NFL’s title game is a relative baby. The first Super Bowl kicked off in 1967.

The FA Cup’s history is rich and fascinating. If you support an English team, chances are your favorite club has won the Cup, or at least appeared in a final. Go online and check out the full list of FA Cup winners. It’ll blow your mind.

While the tradition of the FA Cup is worth discovering, it’s also worth noting that this isn’t some ancient competition barely hanging on to its relevance. Sure, the Manchester Uniteds, Chelseas, Arsenals and Liverpools of the English football world have come to dominate the tournament, but each year presents football fans with an opportunity to cheer wildly for an underdog team we rarely, if ever, hear about or see on Sky Sports News.

Leeds United winning at Old Trafford over the weekend is just the latest example of a David knocking off Goliath. It seems there are always one or two minnows not afraid to swim with the sharks during FA Cup play, and that’s what makes it so special.

Imagine the Kansas City Royals beating the New York Yankees to win the World Series title. (I know that couldn’t happen because both are in the American League, but I’m trying to make a point here. Hence the word “imagine.”)

Now, imagine the Chattanooga Lookouts or New Orleans Zephyrs or the Wichita Lugnuts — three minor league baseball teams —pulling off the feat. Or imagine the Florida Everblades defeating the Detroit Red Wings for Lord Stanley’s Cup.

The FA Cup gives us the opportunity to see how the minor league teams do against their bigger, richer brethren. Do the minnows break through to win the big prize? Rarely. The last huge upset in the Cup final occurred in 1988, when Wimbledon knocked off Liverpool.

But lower league teams just getting the chance to take on Premier League sides is enough of a reason to love the FA Cup. Watching the minnows survive a shark attack is why I don’t think any other tournament in any sport can beat it.

So, Mark Hughes’ team wins and he gets fired while Rafa Benitez’s club loses to the last-place team in the English Premier League and Benitez keeps his job.

Huh?

That’s the one-word question I kept repeating to myself and my football fan friends last weekend after Manchester City axed Hughes, whose team won a wildly entertaining 4-3 game against Sunderland on Saturday. Hours after the win, Hughes was handed his walking papers.

Meanwhile, Benitez’s Liverpool side is playing as poorly as it has in a long, long time, with Saturday’s 2-0 loss — its eighth of the season — to bottom of the table Portsmouth dropping the Reds to eighth.

While virtually everyone with knowledge of or interest in English football probably expected Benitez to be the one fired, indeed it was Hughes who got canned even though Man City has only two league losses this season, the fewest in the EPL. Granted, the Citizens have only won two of their last 12 Premier League contests and club owner Sheikh Mansour obviously felt his team was spending too much time at the drawing board.

But all those draws, along with seven wins, including triumphs over top-four sides Chelsea and Arsenal, have left City in sixth place in the table with a game in hand. The Citizens are also in the Carling Cup semifinals.

There’s no shortage of teams that would trade places with City in a hummingbird’s heartbeat, but after shelling out millions to essentially build a fantasy football team, the bosses didn’t feel they were getting enough of a return on their investment.

If this happened at the end of the season, it would be somewhat understandable. But in December? Weird.

As for Benitez, one has to think he’s the next manager to go. After the loss to Pompey seemed like a perfect time for him to be shown the door. Hell, I doubt if Benitez would’ve even argued.

But Rafa’s still got a job at Liverpool while Hughes waits for his next opportunity.

Just when you thought you’d seen it all in the Premier League, something happens that makes you say, “Huh?”

WITH THE HOLIDAY season already hitting its top speed, I feel like now is as good a time as any to share with you, dear reader, my football wish list. These are things I hope occur in the second half of the English football campaign.

Top-four Tottenham
Of course my Christmas wish list starts with a longstanding desire for my beloved Tottenham Hotspur to secure one of the top four spots in the English Premier League table by season’s end. Spurs haven’t helped themselves the last two weeks, settling for a 2-2 draw at Everton despite taking a 2-0 lead and having Jermain Defoe in place to win the game late with a penalty kick.

It got even worse last weekend when lowly Wolves came to White Hart Lane, scored in the game’s third minute and made Kevin Doyle’s strike stand up in a hugely disappointing 1-0 result that leaves Tottenham with 27 points this season. That’s good enough for fifth for the time being, but Spurs are already four points behind fourth-place Arsenal and will need to get back on track quickly if they’re entertaining thoughts of Champions League football next season.

Shut it, Sir
I don’t hate Manchester United the way I hate Chelsea or Arsenal, but Red Devils boss Sir Alex Ferguson does top my most-despised managers list.

While there’s no denying Ferguson’s ability to win and bring in the best players on a yearly basis, there’s also little doubting the fact that the man is often a world-class cunt on the sidelines and at press conferences.

From calling out an official for not being in good enough shape to referee a game (which was completely off base and untrue) to his constant bitching and moaning during matches, Ferguson takes the attention away from his players, who are very good, fun to watch and way less cunty than their boss. At least in most cases. Paul Scholes and Dimitar Berbatov are both tools.

My wish for Ferguson is the gift of silence this Christmas. I doubt old Whiskey Face will use it, but the holidays are all about dreaming big, right?

Tip-top Toffees
This wish goes back two seasons.

For the second consecutive year, Everton’s squad has been absolutely gutted by injuries. No other team in the Premier League has had as many key players miss time with injury as the Toffees who, despite their physical setbacks, have shown their true grit by gaining valuable points with draws against Spurs and league-leading Chelsea the last two weeks.

I’ve written of my admiration for Everton manager David Moyes in this column space before, but it bears repeating: Few EPL bosses could have made lemonade out of lemons the way Moyes has the last two seasons.

While the Toffees’ climb out of the relegation zone isn’t quite complete, Moyes has already proven that he’ll get everything he can out of his squad, even if it isn’t filled with first-teamers.

Here’s hoping Santa Claus delivers the manager a healthier group of players during the second half of the season. Lord knows Moyes could benefit from getting some shiny new toys under the Christmas tree instead of the lumps of coal to which he’s grown all too accustomed.

DO PLAYERS ON London teams not practice penalty kicks?

Tottenham’s Jermain Defoe, Arsenal’s Cesc Fabregas and Chelsea’s Frank Lampard all missed PKs during the weekend’s English Premier League action and, in the case of Defoe and Lampard, it cost their teams points.

It took a great save from the best goalkeeper in the Prem to stop Fabregas’ shot. Stoke City’s Thomas Sorensen guessed correctly and made a diving stop to keep up his current outstanding form. True, the Gunners went on to a 2-0 win, but Sorensen shouldn’t be saddled with much of the blame. If he weren’t in goal for the Potters, it could’ve ended 4-0 or worse.

Defoe had an opportunity to give Spurs a win and keep the North London outfit firmly entrenched in the top four after Tottenham’s Wilson Palacios was felled by Everton’s Tony Hibbert in the game’s dying minutes.

Robbie Keane usually takes spot kicks for my beloved Spurs, but he would’ve had a tough time doing that Sunday since he was on the bench the entire match. Defoe, who’d already scored a goal against the Toffees to bring his season total to a league-leading 12, stepped up, but his peno had neither the pace nor the placement required to scoot past Everton keeper Tim Howard.

That left Spurs with a 2-2 draw and kept them just one point ahead of fifth-place Aston Villa.

But the most shocking miss was Lampard’s. The Chelsea midfielder has reached Steven Gerrard status when it comes to converting PKs into goals. Lamps just doesn’t miss from the spot.

Well, he isn’t perfect. Lampard last missed a penalty in September…of 2006.

With that kind of track record, it seems to be a given when Lampard takes a peno, but Shay Given, Manchester City’s stalwart man in goal, had other ideas.

But, much like Defoe, Lampard didn’t strike his penalty with adequate force and, also like Spurs’ No. 18, the placement of the shot left a lot to be desired.

Ipswich manager Roy Keane has hinted that keepers are sneaking off their line just a bit prior to PKs, and the replay of Lampard’s shot did show Given taking a step toward the Chelsea star during Lamps’ run-up.

It’s doubtful Given needed any help saving Lampard’s strike, though, since Lampard left the shot well within Given’s reach anyway. Defoe did the same with his effort against Howard.

Give the keepers credit for making saves under almost unsavable circumstances. But give the shot-takers some blame as well for not finishing these opportunities.

If Defoe and Lampard need a refresher course on taking penalty kicks, all they need to do is watch tape of Gerrard and Man Utd.’s Wayne Rooney. Their shots seem to always find the right or left corners of the goal.

And they almost never find the mitts or feet of a goalkeeper.

SOMETIMES WE DO THINGS we can never live down.

No matter how much positive change Bill Clinton helped effect during his presidency, to most, he’ll always be remembered as the president who got an Oval Office blow job from Monica Lewinsky.

Michael Jackson was an incredibly talented singer and dancer, but many think of him as only a freakish-looking pedophile (allegedly) who gave his children stupid names and even hanged one of them over a balcony while grinning from ear to ear.

Examples abound in the sports world, too. My favorite basketball player of all time, Allen Iverson, is a seven-time NBA All-Star, four-time scoring champion and Most Valuable Player award winner. He’s the greatest little guy to ever play in the league.

But what is he most famous for in many people’s eyes?

“We talking about practice, man.”

These one-time screwups that live on in the public’s memory forever remind me of a joke that’s been going around for years. It’s not a joke, really, more of a saying, but it’s still kind of funny, and true: A guy can pull all kinds of women his entire life, but he lets a guy jerk him off once and all of sudden he’s gay.

One regrettable incident has forever changed the way the world looks at one of the most talented football players of all time, Barcelona striker and French international Thierry Henry.

If you, dear reader, have any interest in the beautiful game whatsoever, you’ve no doubt heard, read or seen Henry’s blatant handball that led to a game-winning goal during France’s World Cup qualifier against the Republic of Ireland. There’s no defending what Henry did, and I’m certainly not going to try to do so in this space.

Henry cheated. That’s indisputable.

But I think it’s a shame that a career as brilliant as Henry’s has been tarnished quite possibly beyond repair because of a poor decision made in a split second.

I’m aware that I’m in the minority here. Most football fans, particularly those with Irish blood flowing through their veins, have called Henry every name in the book, a few that aren’t even in the book and wished harm upon him and his family.

While the handball incident will wind up being Henry’s Lewinsky, balcony, “practice” moment, he had plenty of other brilliant moments during his career. He’s scored some of the most amazing goals in the history of professional football.

A YouTube search of Henry will no doubt bring up any number of clips showing the handball from every angle imaginable. I’d encourage folks to scroll down a little bit and watch some of his goal-scoring exploits as well.

It’s not exactly like the one Defoe wore when he scored five goals against Wigan last Sunday. Mine doesn’t have the yellow trim featured on the current Tottenham Hotspur home kit and, thankfully, my Defoe shirt lacks the little Puma logos on the shoulders, which look completely out of place in my opinion.

But the name and number — DEFOE, 18 — on the back is the same, only it’s a bit different considering what Defoe and my beloved Spurs did to the poor Latics at White Hart Lane.

A 9-1 football scoreline stands out for obvious reasons. It’s similar to a 22-2 baseball final or a 62-3 NFL result. These scores occur so rarely that they make even a novice fan, or folks completely disinterested in sports altogether, take note.

But when it’s your favorite team putting up that gaudy winning number, as Tottenham did in its scintillating eight-goal victory over Wigan, it becomes even more important. Spurs’ win will undoubtedly be remembered by all football fans for the rest of the season.

Tottenham fans will remember it for the rest of their lives. At least the one writing these words will.

I hesitate comparing any sporting event with truly historic happenings like the Berlin Wall falling or President Obama being elected. But just like those monumental occasions, I’ll remember where I was and what I was doing when Spurs beat Wigan, 9-1.

Is Tottenham’s win as important? Of course not, and I’m not even remotely implying that it is.

I’m simply saying that watching my favorite team score nine goals in a football game will probably prove to be a once in a lifetime experience, and I’m so glad I was able to enjoy every second of it.

When I’m old and gray, or older and grayer, as it were, I may not remember who scored every goal or what the halftime score was or who exactly was in Tottenham’s starting 11.

But if I ever want to recall that amazing game, I can go to the closet, find my Defoe shirt, which will be at least a size too small by then I’m sure, and wait for the memories to come flooding back.