What's Wrong with Martino?

I mean - besides the obvious. We all know he's a bit of a flopador and in love with his own trickery. You can just picture hardasses like Mastroeni and C.J. Brown pulling the old Indy Jones bit and watching him flash all his Ronaldinho wannabee moves before kicking him in the nether regions and charging away with the ball.

But that's not the bit I've currently got between my teeth though. What I've been wondering is: when did he decide to become such an ass when it comes to tackling? The dude has 2 reds this season already and if you do a bit of freeze-framing on his yellow last night for the tackle on Kljestan, it looks suspiciously like the surgical strike on Fred's ankle that saw him walk in RFK. You know the one, sliding in hard at about 7 or 8 o'clock, studs up, direct to the ankle, with intent to cause some serious damage. Does he practice that little trick? What a little prick!

Did he just decide that while he's busy flaunting the rules offensively with the diving, he ought to give the defensive nastiness a shot? Perhaps he finally snapped. You know the way it goes. Kid has a pretty good set of skills and gets flattened by the bigger, stronger kids who don't like being made to look like fools. Get flattened enough and maybe you start to go a little loco. Next thing you know, you've taken up ankle-breaking as a hobby. Love this pic from his bio on the Gals site - it looks like the ball is chasing the nasty little bugger, doesn't it? Either that, or he's been captured in mid-flop. MLS should do an inverse all-star ballot and let the fans, coaches, and other players choose a Worst XI and fine the hell out of them. I know who'd be pretty close to the top of my ballot.