Argentina soccer team praying for victory

[JJM 777]

Maradona has taken the soccer team of Argentina to a church to pray for victory in their next World Cup qualifier match.

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion/blogs/mirror-football-blog/Diego-Maradona-is-praying-for-a-miracle-to-save-his-job-says-Darren-Lewis-article145417.html

The obvious logical dead-end is: Whom can God help, if both teams pray for victory? Will it be a tie then?

Nothing new of course, such prayers have been heard before from various teams. And every other sucker (oops soccer) player publicly makes some religious rite, when entering the field or after an exciting moment in the game.

Superstition in sports would be worth a book, if such haven't been written already.

[madurobob]

The obvious logical dead-end is: Whom can God help, if both teams pray for victory? Will it be a tie then?

Don't be silly. All we have to do is see who wins. The winners are clearly chosen by god for their purity of mind and heart. The losers clearly brought their defeat upon themselves by being dirty, unrepentant sinners and hypocrites.

[fallout]

Praying won´t save Don Diego from the defeat. According to a local motto , "God is brazilian". :D

[Nursefoxfire]

This would be Maradona, the coke-headed, alcoholic Hand-of-God adulterer?

He's so awesome, I wish he was coaching my team :rolleyes:

[JJM 777]

All they need is to pray (or pay) for the referees not to see when goals are made with a Hand of God.

[Hutch]

He needed to add another trip around on the rosary; last I heard Brazil was winning 2:0

[Correa Neto]

God FAIL!

[JJM 777]

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/09/05/sports/sports-soccer-world-argentina.html

Brazil won 3-1. This can be because Brazilian players like Ronaldinho are more faithful to do the holy Catholic gestures as they enter the playing field.

[WGBH]

Ronaldihno was not even selected for the team roster for this game. Brazil were just the better team.

[Skeptical Greg]

This reminds me of the story of the man who found himself sitting next to a priest at a boxing match.

As the fighters met in the center of the ring before the match began, the man noticed one of the boxers making the sign of the cross.

He asked the priest: " Do you think that will help ? "
The priest replied: " If he can box, it will .. "

[Luciana]

Whenever I hear someone claiming that men are more rational than women, I invariably ask - what about sports fans and their superstitions? Because they couldn't be any sillier, and deeply irrational of course.

Getting a slot for the World Cup is good. Getting it while defeating Argentina is beautiful. It's poetry, it's as deep as a starry sky, is the triumph of good over evil on an interplanetary level.

:D

[Correa Neto]

Two quick notes:

Note 1: When it comes down to religion, a number of Brazil's soccer players are from Evangelic pay-per-pray churches, others may be Catholic and at least two would rather have whorehouses as temples...

Note 2: Brazil x Argentina started forty minutes before the nothing (apologies to Nelson Rodrigues - hopefully you are not seeing our team`s performance this year)

[JoeTheJuggler]

I would think the headline would be that day (when pigs fly) that any Latinamerican soccer team refrained from praying to God for victory.

OK. . so maybe going to church as a team isn't all that common. . .