More idiot soccer columnism from north of the border. Today’s honoree: Pat Hickey of the Montreal Gazette, with the standard sky-is-falling “David Beckham hates MLS the league sucks let the Impact in no wait we don’t need you” nonsense.

Oh, with a side order of NASL! Tasty!

“When the Galaxy signed Beckham two years ago, my fear was that MLS was headed down the same path that led to the demise of the North American Soccer League. The NASL was stocked with overpriced and over-the-hill superstars like Pele, Eusebio and Franz Beckenbauer. Their salaries eventually bankrupted the league and their presence slowed the development of local talent.“

I don’t know how old Pat Hickey is, but if he thinks that Franz Beckenbauer was “over-the-hill” when he joined the Cosmos at age 31, he’s a bigger idiot than Cathal Kelly. And that’s saying something.

EDIT: Now that I look, Pat Hickey is an old guy, who’s been at the Gazette as long as I have been alive. He should know better, then. Beckenbauer was still a great player when he came to the States, and throughout his NASL career. We can debate Pele all we want, and Eusebio was 32 and didn’t last long. But Beckenbauer? No, sorry, sir.

And “their salaries” didn’t bankrupt the league. It wasn’t what the Cosmos were paying Pele and Beckenbauer. It was what Dallas was paying Klaus Topmoller because of what the Cosmos were paying everybody. You’re an idiot.

Thanks to my man Luis Arroyave, we know that Danny Dichio does, in fact, bite.

The Fire really needs to spring for 10,000 sets of those plastic vampire teeth and hand them out July 7 when Toronto FC comes to Toyota Park.

Something tells me this red card (the suspension for which Dichio will serve tonight when TFC hosts Houston) won’t be Dichio’s only one of the season. Diego Gutierrez, meanwhile, will sit out the Fire’s game Thursday night at home against FC Dallas (7pm CT, ESPN2, but do yourself a favor and buy tickets and just go).

From today’s Toronto Sun:

Toronto FC will not ask Major League Soccer to review Danny Dichio’s expulsion from Saturday’s match with Chicago Fire, coach Mo Johnston said yesterday.

This, in spite of the fact that Johnston feels the one game penalty — after seeing several replays of Dichio’s punch-up with Chicago goalkeeper Matt Pickens and subsequent red card — was too harsh.

“No one ever wins an appeal on a red card,” Johnston said. “We just have to accept the fact that we’ll be without Danny on Wednesday (versus Houston Dynamo).”

You know why no one ever wins an appeal on a red card, Mo? Because you can’t appeal a red card. It’s a FIFA directive. Unless the referee gave the card to the wrong player, there is no recourse. The player leaves the game. The player sits out the next game. It is impossible - IMPOSSIBLE - for the one-game suspension that accompanies a red card to be appealed or circumvented.

UPDATE (5/15): Apparently there will be no further discipline for Count Dichula, as despite the photo above and the video replay that appears to show him biting Matt Pickens, Dichio will serve only the mandatory one-game suspension for being sent off. An MLS source told me that, visual evidence notwithstanding, no one on the Fire mentioned being bitten or witnessing a bite. But Luis Arroyove’s Chicago Tribune blog says Diego Gutierrez WAS bitten by Dichio. Someone’s not telling the truth.