Who wears the pants here?

This story is everywhere today, and a certain nameless operations manager has complained I don't blog about hot ladies enough.

Apparently Dutch soccer "superstar" Rafael Van der Vaart picked up an intentional booking last season so he would be suspended for a game and go to his wife's birthday party.

"Before the match had begun, Huub Stevens (Van der Vaart's former manager) said to his assistant: “Van der Vaart will deliberately pick up a fifth yellow card. His wife is celebrating her 30th birthday and he wants to be there.”
Stevens was right. Van der Vaart kicked the ball away after the referee had blown the whistle and duly earnt a yellow card.
Three days later the team played Hertha BSC in Berlin – without superstar Rafael – where they drew 0-0. And there was one happy WAG, Sylvie van der Vaart, who got to celebrate her birthday with her husband." - build.com

It's hard enough convincing most non-soccer fans that soccer players are serious athletes, you know 'cause most of them're european. This kinda nonsense isn't going to help. Can you imagine a guy like Ray Lewis or Walter Jones skipping a game to play tea party with his wife? Even A-rod doesn't skip batting practice to hang out with madonna, and he's about as wussy an athlete as we've got in the states.

...ok fine she's attractive. Still you're a professional athlete, lucky enough to get paid big time bucks to play a game most of us regular fans are willing to pay money to play. Show some respect to the fans, especially to the season ticket hol.. and to the spor..

...um, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, priorities! Soccer is just a game, but family is what's really important in life. Good for Rafael, I hope things work out for him and Real Madrid.