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Lionel Messi is incomparable. Even the most ignorant of viewers — say a jury of 12 totally clueless individuals charged with determining the Man of the Match award — would undoubtedly be able to pinpoint his singularity of style and ability after watching 90 minutes. Still, the Argentine’s not without his copycats. 

After all, the sincerest form of flattery is to grow a red beard, work your hair into a short quiff and purchase a $400 Dolce & Gabbana shirt that looks like an Ed Hardy design.

Watching March Madness over the weekend has made me realize that the world of sports is incredibly cruel. Talent is often not enough to defeat an opponent, and sometimes outplaying the other team isn't even good enough to earn a victory. 

In the Premier League, the teams on the receiving end of this bad luck are usually found in the lower reaches of the league table. Generally speaking, the relegation zone contains three of the worst teams in the league, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are the three clubs that deserve to be relegated. 

The soccer world sat captivated as the two biggest names in the sport received the axe in the Champions League Round of 16. When the dust settled both Cristiano Ronaldo’s Juventus and Lionel Messi’s Barcelona had been reduced to rubble at the hands of Porto and Paris Saint-Germain.

Sometimes I wish that, through some glaring administrative error, I had been accidentally registered for the Ajax youth academy, even if it was just for one day. Then, in semi-good conscience, I could exploit that fact to have my own Wikipedia page, Transfermarkt profile and agent, allowing me to bounce around the world on one-year contracts — obviously being found out as total trash time after time — living my best life. 

For a while now, I have touted that college basketball and European soccer, despite an ocean between them, are very much two parallel sports.

The fervor of college basketball student sections, something not found at most professional sports games in the United States, is the closest facsimile to thousands of mad ultras at a European football match, making home advantage so important in each sport.

A couple months before USMNT manager Jurgen Klinsmann announced his final 23-man roster for the 2014 World Cup, I was at a wedding in California, at the bar with a member of the LA Galaxy technical staff. The conversation turned to Landon Donovan, who’d reestablished himself in the national team after being dropped at the start of the Hex.