Why Don’t You Also Go Bend All Our Rims While You’re At It?

That’s two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash who wants to tear apart Sheep Meadow:

Steve Nash, a two-time most valuable player in the N.B.A., and Claudio Reyna, once a mainstay on the United States national soccer team, were warming up for what was supposed to be a pickup soccer game in the Sheep Meadow between one of Nash’s recreational-league teams and several players for the Red Bulls, Reyna’s professional squad in Major League Soccer.

Nash spends most of the year running the point for the Phoenix Suns, but in the off-season, he can be found playing soccer in rec leagues in New York.

“It’s better for me than just running lines,” he said. “I don’t want to play a lot of basketball until September’s over or I’ll burn myself out. I just shoot, work out and play soccer.”

But not in the Sheep Meadow. The 15-acre patch of grass is for passive recreation only, park officials said as they shut down the game Tuesday between Nash’s team and the Red Bulls players before it started. Employees of the Central Park Conservancy established that the group did not have a permit, then asked the soccer players to remove their cleats — “there is a reason the turf is in such nice shape,” one of them said.

That prompted vigorous but futile protests from Nash’s team, Promotion Factory, which is composed almost entirely of Italian transplants.

“Soccer is not loved,” shouted one player from Nash’s team, winning a round of laughing cheers from his teammates.

“They are always trying to contain it,” said another, insisting that the incident illustrated why soccer was not more popular in the United States.

To appease the park officials, the match was moved to a nearby patch of dirt. But concern about the potential for injury on such the surface led a Red Bulls official to forbid the players from participating. Reyna and his teammates stood by and watched as Nash’s team split into two groups and played on their own.

Location Scout: Sheep Meadow.