Sporting Madness

So, that was fun . The Whitecaps snapped their USL losing streak last night with a 3-2 victory [ Gary Kingston , The Vancouver Sun ] over Miami FC, but it may well prove to be a Pyrrhic one. The real story of the game was not the victory, but the fight between Whitecaps' teammates Charles Gbeke and Wesley Charles , perhaps the most ridiculous in-game feud between teammates since the Lee Bowyer / Keiron Dyer incident at Newcastle United (story from BBC News ). Compare the videos below. (Incident starts at 7:51 of the Whitecaps' clip). This is not good for the Whitecaps. In fact, it's hard to think of two players whose loss might hurt the team more (except perhaps goalkeeping legend Jay Nolly ). The Whitecaps are very short at central defence at the moment thanks to Jeff Parke 's injury (turf toe) and Justin Thompson 's sudden departure [ Marc Weber , Back of the Net ], so any suspension to Charles (which seems inevitable) will certainly hurt. Gbeke's almost ...

Photo: Former Sunderland manager Roy Keane [Getty Images via The Independent ] It was rather surprising to see Manchester United legend Roy Keane step down [ ESPN Soccernet ] from managing Sunderland last week. Keane achieved some outstanding success with the Black Cats, even though many don't seem to acknowledge that at the moment. When he took the team over in August 2006, they were sitting in the relegation zone of the Championship (for non-English football fans, that's the level below the Premier League). In that season, he took them from the bottom to the top, and earned not only promotion to the Premiership, but also the Championship title. He was named Manager of the Year at the Championship level, and deservingly so. Keane also had success with Sunderland in the Premier League last season and managed to keep them out of the relegation zone for much of the year. They pulled off a 15th-place finish, which is rather good for a just-promoted side (see County, Derby fo...