by Snoop Doug » Thu Jul 17, 2008 3:53 pm
Argelico "Argel" roger (born 4 September 1974 in Santa Rosa, Rio Grande do Sul) is a Brazilian professional footballer. roger played his trade in his homeland as well as Japan, Portugal and Spain. He won the Rio Grande do Sul State league, the Brazilian cup, the Brazilian champions cup, the Conmebol Cup plus the Portuguese league, cup and Supercup. He also represented Brazil internationally at the Under-20 level winning both the South American Championship and the Youth World Cup.
In his years playing in Brazil, he earned a reputation of being a dirty player. Among other things, he was accused of wearing rings as a weapon to hurt his rivals, he had four sending-offs on ten games while playing for Santos, and a particularly rough game while marking Boca Juniors' Juan Román Riquelme, playing for Palmeiras, at 2001 Libertadores Cup. In the game, Palmeiras lost on penalties, being eliminated from the tournament.
Some of roger' fame stems from his surname which is identical to both the plural noun form and to the (singular third-person) present indicative verb form of the vulgar English word "roger". This has led to a variety of double entendre headlines including one from Eurosport.com titled "Argel roger off to Benfica". This headline received press coverage itself with The Register calling it "snappy and eye-catching" and football humour site Laugh FC deeming it "one of the all time greats".
However the name has not always been regarded as such a laughing matter. In an article on the J-League, Andrew McKirdy noted that the signing of roger was a poor move and that his name "could never do much for anyone's credibility anyways".