In Italian, the word chiesa means church. But when a teacher asked their class to draw a picture of a church as part of a lesson on religious buildings, six-year-old Vittorio had a different Chiesa in mind—Fiorentina’s 19-year-old striker Federico Chiesa. So that’s who he drew. A happy looking figure wearing Fiorentina purple and orange boots.
Upon seeing his son’s work (presumably at a hastily arranged parent-teacher conference), Vittorio’s father—a man who has clearly instilled his own priorities into children—knew what to do.
His father, Dario, put the image on social media and it went viral.
It came to the attention of Fiorentina and they invited Vittorio and his father to the training ground to visit the Viola squad.
This includes 19-year-old midfielder Chiesa, who has three goals and two assists in 19 competitive games this season.
And that’s how you get to meet your favorite team. Easy as that. This family is brilliant.
Eccolo qui il piccolo Vittorio con il suo disegno, accompagnato da mamma e papà, a conoscere il suo idolo Federico Chiesa! #ForzaViolapic.twitter.com/MmgzP7unRP
At Euro 2016, 40-year-old Hungary goalkeeper Gabor Kiraly emerged as a cult hero, beloved for his age, his sweatpants, and his undiminished skill. Hungary provided a shock by winning their group before getting blown out by Belgium in the round of 16, but Kiraly had his moment in the sun and, at the time, it seemed that was all a player of such advanced age could hope for. But now along comes 44-year-old Essam El Hadary of Egypt—with his short sleeves and full head of hair—who went over 10 hours of play without conceding a goal and has his team in the Africa Cup of Nations final.
El Hadary handily beat the tournament’s previous record for oldest player, set by former teammate Hossam Hossan in 2006, who was a sprightly 39 years old. But becoming the answer to a trivia question and making a few saves wasn’t good enough for El Hadary. He kept a clean sheet in each of the first four matches he played and didn’t concede a goal until Burkina Faso scored in the 73rd minute of the semifinal. He then made up for this by saving two consecutive penalties in the ensuing shootout to put Egypt in the final
Again, this man is 44 years old. He began his international career in 1996. That’s a year before his youngest teammate, Ramadan Sobhi, was born.
El Hadary has already won the Africa Cup of Nations four times and has been named to the team of the tournament three times, so he isn’t some late bloomer finally making his mark on the international stage before triumphantly slipping into retirement. In 2012, Didier Drogba named El Hadary his “best opponent.” And if you think he’s doing this as a last hurrah of sorts, you don’t know how wrong you are. He’s already thinking about playing at the 2018 World Cup.
Two days after his 36th birthday, Peter Crouch scored his 100th Premier League goal in Stoke’s 1–1 draw with Everton. And to mark the occasion, he brought back one of the game’s most memorable celebrations.
Peter Crouch scored his 100th Premier League goal.
Crouch first did the robot way back in 2006 on England duty and it instantly became a sensation.
Perhaps realizing the importance of keeping people wanting more, Crouch then put the robot away…until his big milestone on Wednesday.
“I’ve been under so much pressure to pull out the robot,” he said after the match. “So to be honest it was a little bit rusty. I think I’ll put that one away now.”
So that’s it. A fitting end to Crouchy’s robot. Now we can only imagine that he went out for nachos after this.
Following Real Madrid’s 3–0 win over Real Sociedad on Sunday, Sergio Ramos made a point of jogging over to a very specific fan in order to complete a very unusual exchange.
The fan had been holding a banner that read “Sergio, if you give me your shirt I’ll give you a tray of lomo en manteca” throughout the match. Lomo en manteca (pork in lard—the perfect post-match snack) is a specialty of Spain’s Andalusia region, which is where Ramos is from. And apparently this offer was too goo to pass up for the Real Madrid captain.
"Sergio, si me das tu camiseta te regalo una bandeja de lomo en manteca".
Fans carrying banners begging for a specific player’s shirt have become quite common at matches these days and they get mixed results. But this man clearly knew his target exceptionally well.
Local media identified the fan as Sergio Sanchez, who is from Vejer de la Frontera in southern Spain, which is known for its pork in lard, or “lomo en manteca,” as it’s called in Spanish.
“He asked for it twice,” Sanchez told channel CSN Cadiz. “He didn’t want to leave without it.”
Diego Maradona shared a letter from Harvard University on his Facebook account, inviting him to speak to a class called “The Global Game: Soccer, Politics and Popular Culture.” It appears to be genuine. And if his “Nice to go to Harvard” comment is any indication, he seems interested in doing .
The letter was written by Mariano Siskind, chair of the department of romance languages and literatures. It reads:
Dear Mr. Maradona,
We would like to invite you to give a talk at Harvard University in the context of the course “ROM-STD 109: The Global Game. Soccer, Politics and Popular Culture”, which is being offered during the Spring semester of 2017. Your presence at Harvard would constitute a formidable opportunity for our students and for the entire academic community to learn about the life and feats of the best player in history, and will serve as the most perfect supplement to our lectures on the history, sociology and aesthetics of soccer.
We hope to be able to arrange a date for your visit between mid-February and late April, but we are open to considering other dates if you are busy over the next three months.
We look forward to your visit, and if you need any additional information or documentation, please do not hesitate to let us know.
Yours sincerely,
Mariano Siskind Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature Chair, Department of Romances Languages and Literatures Harvard University
So what can the academic community at Harvard look forward to hearing in a talk from Maradona? Here are some potential topics:
Lionel Messi is both a gift from heaven and massively overrated
How to get invited to speak at Harvard even after being filmed allegedly committing domestic violence
A blond-streaked Maradona previously spoke at the University of Oxford in 1995, two years before he retired from football. Here’s video from that surreal occasion:
Way back in August, Chelsea midfielder Nathaniel Chalobah attempted to clear up the burgeoning confusion between him and new teammate Michy Batshuayi that popped up during a preseason tour of the U.S.
Sadly, this was only the beginning.
In November, Batshuayi could only laugh when The Sun mistakenly used a picture of Chalobah on a story about him.
Well, just two days later, the worst error yet occurred when Chelsea’s official Twitter account stated that Chalobah entered their 1–1 draw with Liverpool for Diego Costa when it was actually Batshuayi.
This is insane. Not only should Chelsea’s social media team be able to differentiate every player on the team this deep into the season, but this was during a match, so all the players were wearing shirts with their names and numbers on them just to ensure issues like this do not happen!
If Batshuayi has been unhappy with his lack of playing time this season, this could be enough to convince him to demand a transfer to a club that can properly identify him this summer.
Proving that sign wielding idiots don’t make Ligue 1 stadium admittance policy
During Saturday’s Ligue 1 match between Lyon and Lille, two banners were held up by someone in the Lyon end, who may or may not have time traveled there from the 1920s. One banner suggested that men remain in the stadium and one suggested that women go to a kitchen.
Why this person felt the need to waste their time making these banners instead of doing literally anything else remains unclear, but they made it onto the television broadcast of the match and captain of the Lyon women’s team, Wendie Renard, tweeted “Lyon supporters… Can you give me an explanation on that banner: the men in the stadium, the women in the kitchen? #equality”
Supporters lyonnais… Pouvez-vous me donner des explications sur cette banderole : les hommes au stade, les femmes en cuisine ?? #égalitépic.twitter.com/eo8b43Ipvk
Lille went on to win the match 2–1 and on Tuesday, they came up with the best response to the banners by offering women free entry to their upcoming match against Lorient.
Not only is it a clever response from a PR standpoint, but it’s also an important one. While Lyon’s efforts to punish the perpetrator demonstrate a necessary rejection of this exclusionary sentiment, Lille’s offer goes a step further by actively trying to break down social barriers—both seen and unseen—and make women feel welcome at their ground in a gesture of positive reinforcement. A combination of Lyon’s response and Lille’s should be seen as the ideal course of action for clubs faced with similar incidents in the future.
Bastian Schweinsteiger was a forgotten specter at Old Trafford—an unwanted old shoe that Jose Mourinho hoped would wander away if he was ignored long enough. He was left out of the team photo and forced to train alone simply for committing the crime of being surplus to requirements. But throughout his year of being ignored, Schweinsteiger remained unflappably upbeat and determined to prove himself. And on Sunday his perseverance paid off.
Mourinho decided to throw Schweinsteiger a bone and give him his first start in over a year in Man United’s FA Cup match against Wigan. The former Germany captain made good on this rare opportunity to actually play football by notching an assist and scoring the final goal of the 4–0 win, earning Man of the Match honors for himself. And to cap off the day, Mourinho told reporters that Schweinsteiger will be allowed to stay with the club and will even be added to the Europa League squad.
A great evening with a fantastic win in front of our fans! Thanks to everyone for the great support! ?? #mufcpic.twitter.com/0HIHuxsgXA
This is a series of events that likely has Schweinsteiger thinking that he died of loneliness and crossed over to a heavenly afterlife at the end of last year. It’s a remarkable reversal for a player who was consistently treated like a contagious disease for so long and it has to be incredibly satisfying for him to have his determination (or stubbornness, depending on how you look at it) pay off like this.
That said, I hope no one ruins his euphoria by telling him how much he could be making if he had moved to China.
La Liga’s lack of goal-line technology costs Barca points
Barcelona had a clear goal disallowed late in their 1–1 draw with Real Betis, renewing calls to bring goal-line technology to La Liga. Real Betis shocked the visitors by taking a 75th-minute lead. Even more shocking, however, was when Barca appeared to equalize, but the referee failed to recognize that Aissa Mandi’s clearance was made well inside the goal.
Luis Suarez eventually scored an equalizer that did count in the 90th minute, but Barca will be left to wonder what could have been as they sit four points behind a suddenly unstable Real Madrid in the table.
Unlike the Premier League, Bundesliga, Serie A, and Ligue 1, La Liga does not have goal-line technology, as league president Javier Tebas claims it’s too expensive. After this, Barca might offer to foot the bill for the entire league just to avoid falling victim to the referee’s human failings again. Maybe some Barca players can pool their unpaid tax money to make that happen.
Just after halftime in Queretaro’s match against Chivas on Saturday, Camilo Sanvezzo was forced to endure the thing that all contact lens wearers dread. Chivas defender Oswaldo Alanis accidentally knocked Sanvezzo’s lens out of his eye.
Remarkably, the Brazilian was able to find the fallen lens and he carefully attempted to replace it. But it wasn’t working. As the camera zoomed in on his face, anyone who has had a contact lens pop out at an inopportune time and place could feel the panic that surely took hold within him. With each passing second, that lens would get dryer, dirtier, and more difficult to salvage and replace.
As Sanvezzo struggled to get it to stay against his eye, teammates and opponents alike approached him to offer words of encouragement and perhaps offer to run back to the dressing room to get their own bottles of contact solution for him.
Despite this harrowing ordeal, Sanvezzo was able to play on and finish the match, but Queretaro lost 1–0. Maybe it’s time for Sanvezzo to invest in some Edgar Davids style sports glasses.
