Rivers Cuomo and Michael Cera Team Up for Charity Soccer Tournament

Posted on Aug 24th 2009 4:45PM by Jonathan Dekel
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In what has to be one of the all-time geekiest parings in athletics, Weezer's Rivers Cuomo and actor Michael Cera took to the soccer pitch in Toronto this past weekend. They joined members of Broken Social Scene, Great Big Sea and Bedouin Soundclash as well as many non-musical sports enthusiasts for the 24-team Athletes for Africa charity soccer tournament held at the city's Cherry Beach sports field.

"I got an e-mail from my publicist telling me that this was going on and could I come out, play soccer and help people. That's really an easy thing to do -- though I'm really terrible at soccer," Cera told Spinner. While not a musician per se, the affable actor is in town filming indie-rock comic book epic 'Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World' in which he sings and plays bass in the fictional band Sex Bob-omb.

"I was really facing a fear coming out here today," Cera said. "I only played for a year when I was, like, 10 and one time I was playing defense and it bounced off my leg and into the net. That was the worst feeling of all time."

Decked in knee-high socks and red shorts, the 'Superbad' star played alongside Weezer's frontman on the celeb-filled Mystery Team which, while not blazing up the scoreboard, certainly held their own alongside some of the more athletically gifted line-ups. "I'm a big Weezer fan and it was really cool playing with Rivers," enthused Cera. "He's amazing at soccer."

As anyone who has seen the video for Cuomo's 'Lover in the Snow' can attest, the singer has a real affinity for the world's most popular sport. Scoring several times throughout the event -- including a near-impossible angled goal against the North-by-Northeast All-Stars -- as well as delighting his fans and bandmate Brian Bell by doing some pre-game pitch-side pushups. Cera later loped over to give Rivers a big post-game hug and ask for passes to the following night's Weezer concert.

"This event was originally going to be held around [Broken Social Scene's] July 11th show, but we figured since Rivers from Weezer and [several other celebrity football enthusiasts] would be in town, today would be a better day to put it on," said Broken Social Scene member and event spokesman Brendan Canning. "Soccer is really happening in this town and, coupled with their participation, we got lots of media coverage and also a bunch of [financial] support."

All told, the event raised $30,000 which will go towards building a youth centre in Gulu, a war-torn area in northern Uganda.