In life, sometimes you lose. Sometimes you lose big. And sometimes, as in the case of the German soccer team, which made it tantalizingly close to the World Cup final before being defeated by Spain, you lose with millions of people watching from every corner of the world. But that doesn't mean it's a good idea to play the blame game. Yet this a lesson that Michael Becker, who is the manager for the team's captain, has not yet learned. Newser's Mary Papenfuss reports:

The manager for the captain of Germany's national soccer team has blamed "gay players" for the nation's failure to capture a World Cup title, sparking a firestorm of criticism. Michael Becker, who represents captain Michael Ballack, scoffed at the "bunch of gays" on the World Cup team in an interview with Der Spiegel. Becker attributed the team's more elegant and agile play to their homosexuality, and said that style over German teams' more traditional aggressive approach cost the athletes a place in the World Cup finals.

But Becker, who the Atlantic Wire imagines is doing neither his career nor his boss any favors, didn't stop there. He went on to blame pretty much the entire team besides client Ballack, accusing them of jealousy.

Becker also said other players were "jealous" of Ballack, who was photographed for Vanity Fair, because they were "mediocre, ugly, untalented, bureaucratic, provincial, unmanly or gay," noted reporter Alexander Osang. A spokesman for another German team blasted Becker's remarks, saying the club has "absolutely no resentment toward homosexuals."

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