Here’s how bad it’s gotten at some soccer matches — an Italian soccer-monitoring body had to ban all soccer fans of the team Napoli from attending Saturday’s game at Palermo because of their incredibly-wild behavior, saying these fans have “a propensity for illegal acts”.  For example, they had to shut out fans at a home game earlier this year for throwing bottles and smoke bombs and displaying lewd banners.  A police officer died during a riot earlier this year, and they just can’t control this crap!  Hard to believe how boneheaded some of these soccer fans can get.

Some of the best stories come from the world of international soccer. Two South Korean soccer players, including their goalie and captain Lee Woon-Jae, were handed a giant suspension of 6 months Wednesday following an incident at the Asian Cup. The captain along with striker Lee Dong-Gook were suspended for getting hammered and making fools of themselves at a bar in Indonesia, where they spent all night drinking, singing karaoke, and hitting on the bartenders and waitresses. Two other players were out with them, violating team rules that stated they were not to leave their base. Sounds like another Friday night for me, but when you represent your country in a major sporting event, I suppose these kinds of things are frowned upon!

More wild news from the soccer world — Russia had a soccer match with England today, and a big supporting cast of Englishmen traveled to Russia to watch the match. But, before the game even got started, two separate incidents caused injuries to a number of English fans. Ten or more were attacked by Russian fans in a fight, and at least 3 others were attacked in a Moscow bar by Russians dressed in black! Russian police claimed the English fans were drunk and looking for trouble.  That’s great.  The kicker was the notice that the British Embassy posted to the traveling fans: “be as inconspicuous as possible,” “be sober” and “leave the vicinity of the stadium as quickly as possible after the final whistle.” Fans shouldn’t have to fear for their safety from other bonehead fans — this is pretty ridiculous!

Another crazy story of lunatic soccer fans — last Friday, there was an African Nations Cup match in Lome between Togo and Mali. Mali won the match 2-0, and that set off a bunch of angry Togo fans. The Mali players and fans were camping at the stadium, and an angry Togo mob attacked their camp with weapons! One Mali player was stabbed in the arm and needed surgery, and another needed stitches after being whipped with a belt! Sixty other Mali fans were injured in the attack. Oh international soccer, when will it end?

Sparta Prague midfielder Pavel Horvath got wound up in an incident with an opponent during Monday’s game against rival Slavia Prague.  His solution was a nice clean boot to the guy.  For the kick, Horvath got a red card, got fined, got suspended 3 games, and lost his status as captain.  Hope it was worth it!  Horvath also got a big fine last month after making a fascist-style salute to the crowd.  This guy doesn’t sound much like a captain to me, but a bonehead for sure!

Apparently some Chinese soccer players were off at a boot camp for behavior training, and two of them thought it would be funny to mouth off to an army officer.  So, they ask him if he’s ever been with a prostitute!  China suspended the two players for the lewd comment, but we don’t yet know for how long.  That defines boneheadedness!

For the second time in two months, Portsmouth midfielder Richard Hughes has received a 3-game suspension for headbutting. The latest 3-match ban came after an incident during Wednesday’s match against Birmingham, where he delivered an intentional headbutt to David Howland. Zidane must have really inspired this bonehead!

Houston midfielder Ricardo Clark got the longest-ever suspension handed down by the MLS for his vicious kick on Carlos Ruiz on Sunday. Clark was suspended for 9 games and also fined $10,000. Clark just decided to take a boot at Ruiz while he was on the ground by the goal, really a boneheaded move. Check this out — it’s pretty ridiculous:

A soccer fan in Scotland who ran onto the field during a match has been banned for life from attending any further Celtic matches. The fan’s name wasn’t released, but he somehow got onto the field, tapped the goalie of AC Milan on the neck or shoulder, and made his way off the field without being caught! Then the idiot goes and turns himself in, so I guess he thought he’d get identified eventually anyway. In any case, that’s one less soccer-crazy bonehead that will be in the stands!

UPDATE — AC Milan goalie Dida was suspended for 2 games for faking an injury at the hands of this crazy fan!

Most people seem to think this was a boneheaded move, and so do we. You have goalie Hope Solo, who hasn’t allowed a goal in like 300 minutes in this tournament (and only 2 goals in 4 games), and then you have Brianna Scurry, who hasn’t played a full game in 3 months. So who does Coach Greg Ryan start against Brazil? Scurry, of course! Well, the U.S. got blasted by Brazil 4-0, and the coaching decision to start Scurry looked horrible. Apparently he thought Scurry would be a better fit for the Brazil match, but it just ended up creating controversy and bad blood between Solo and Ryan. Ryan is trying to reconcile, but Solo is still fired up and believes she would have made those saves. Ouch.

UPDATE — 10/15/07 — Upon further analysis, Solo was the bigger bonehead in the criticism of her coach, who took it amazingly well.  On Saturday night, she issued an apology and decided not to dress up for the opener.