Pandering to a developing market in celebration of the Chinese New Year
As one of the big clubs that never misses an opportunity to demonstrate a passing interest in a region they’d like to take more money from, Real Madrid put together an odd video to commemorate the Chinese New Year. In it, Cristiano Ronaldo, Sergio Ramos, Marcelo, and Pepe sit down for a meal with a Chinese family, where each player utters an assigned phrase in Chinese.
That’s all fine and good. But what really jumps out as strange is how the kid wearing a Real Madrid shirt at the beginning of the video is apparently so bored that he’s playing drums with his chop sticks. When they get taken away from him, he sulks, apparently oblivious to the fact that CRISTIANO RONALDO, SERGIO RAMOS, MARCELO, AND PEPE ARE SITTING RIGHT ACROSS THE TABLE FROM HIM!
How is he not more enamored by this fact? Are they just over at his house for dinner so often that they’re just a part of the furniture at this point?
That said, I could listen to Sergio Ramos try to speak Chinese all day.
Retired Norway international Brede Hangeland appeared on the Heia Fotboll podcast and shared some truly brilliant tales about modern football’s kings of chill Emmanuel Adebayor and our old pal Dimitar “The Continental” Berbatov.
While discussing the laziest players he came across during his playing days, the former Fulham and Crystal Palace defender shared two anecdotes about Adebayor—one when they were opponents and one when they were teammates at Palace. First, a tale I’m calling “A Valued Opinion” (via ESPN):
“This was incredible … Fulham was attacking and I was standing by the halfway line marking Adebayor, and he says to me: ‘Ah, I’m hungry,’” Hangeland said. “I said, ‘What?’ He said ‘I’m hungry. I can’t wait for the game to finish. I want to go to a restaurant. Do you know a good restaurant in London, Hangeland?’ In all my years, I’ve never had the kind of conversation I had in the centre circle at White Hart Lane.”
This is a stroke of genius from Adebayor for two reasons: 1) He gets a line on a good post-match meal. And 2) He totally mindfucks an opposing defender. This exchange clearly burrowed deep into Hangeland’s head, not just for its strangeness, but for the fact that Adebayor was playing for the home side at the time. This is like if you have a guest to your house and ask them if they can recommend a good restaurant in your neighborhood. While you play Mario Kart against them. It’s going to throw them for a loop.
Hangeland’s second Adebayor story further proves this next-level brilliance.
“When we had strength training, he would sit in the weight room on a chair with a cup of coffee and a muffin,” the Norwegian said. “We knew that he was being paid by three clubs at the same time [Manchester City, Tottenham and Palace] … and he was sitting in the gym drinking coffee.”
Getting paid by three clubs at the same time to drink coffee and eat muffins instead of training. This is a person who has life figured out in a way few people do. But, according to Hangeland, one of those few is Dimitar Berbatov.
“I have never seen a man get so many massages. I’m sure he spent more time getting massages than he did training, guaranteed,” Hangeland said. “Because the guy who would give the massages was a good friend of mine.”
It should come as no surprise that The Berba is someone who enjoys a good, long massage (perhaps using mayonnaise as a sensual body grease). In fact, the only part of this that does surprise me is that he wasn’t smoking while he was being massaged.
Anyway, both Adebayor and Berbatov were members of the Premier League Team of the Year during their careers and Brede Hangeland wasn’t. So let this be a lesson on working hard versus working smart.
Hull City striker and Uruguay international Abel Hernandez has given Ronaldo (the Brazilian one) the highest honor a footballer can give another footballer by tattooing the legendary striker’s face on his leg. OK, so maybe the highest honor would be getting Ronaldo’s face tattooed on his face, but the leg is pretty good too. I guess.
The tattoo was spotted during Hull’s EPL Cup semifinal against Man United and it’s somewhat surprising given that Hernandez is Uruguayan and Ronaldo is Brazilian—neighboring nations that have a long-standing rivalry on the pitch. But Ronaldo’s greatness transcends geographical borders. Just as Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
When your goalkeeper saves a penalty, it’s only natural to want to hug them, but a player in the Turkish second division learned the hard way that hugging the keeper while they’re holding the ball can have disastrous results.
Just watch…
The keeper made the save look easy enough, but when his teammate jumped on him as soon as he got up, it jarred the ball loose and into the net.
Now, I’ve seen a lot of own goals in my time, but own goal by hug is something new to me. And this is how a team-wide ban on hugs was born.
Watching a person watch a match has never been so delightful
A knee injury has kept Yannick Bolasie from playing for Congo at the African Cup of Nations, but it hasn’t stopped him from supporting his team from afar. The Everton winger posted video of himself watching last week’s group-stage match between Ivory Coast and Congo to his YouTube channel, including the moment when he saw Neeskens Kebano give them a lead in the 9th minute.
Bolasie looked like he nearly hurt himself further as his euphoria propelled him off the couch, but thankfully he appeared to make it through the goalgasm unharmed.
The match ended in a 2–2 draw, which was enough to help Congo advance to a quarterfinal match against Ghana, while reigning champions Ivory Coast were eliminated with no wins in the group stage. And now, watching injured players watch their teams play is my new favorite thing.
Club eager to continue perpetual trend of dreams followed by disappointment
(Liverpool FC)
Philippe Coutinho has agreed to a five-year contract extension with Liverpool, reportedly making him the club’s highest paid player and fueling hopes of future successes that will inevitably be squashed.
“I am very happy to sign a new contract here,” said the 24-year-old Brazilian. “Everyone here always believes it will be the year that we do big things and when we don’t, they just say the same thing about the next year. It’s a wonderful atmosphere.”
“I could go to another club where they win more trophies, but those clubs always have people who doubt you when things go wrong. At Liverpool, everyone always believes in the team, even when they really shouldn’t. I appreciate how rare that is.”
To further prove their intent to maintain the status quo of disappointment, Liverpool were eliminated by Southampton in the EFL Cup semifinal hours after announcing Coutinho’s new deal—marking the first time Jurgen Klopp has lost a semifinal in his managerial career.
“With Coutinho staying put, I’m certain that we can not win many titles that we probably should for years to come,” said Klopp, while doing something endearing that distracts from his less than stellar record.
When reached for comment, former Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers, who first brought Coutinho to the club, said, “They hand out winner’s medals like candy in Scotland. It’s outstanding!”
You don’t enlist a flamboyant rockstar if you want a normal draw
(Sky Sports)
When you’ve been a performer for as long as Rod Stewart has, you know that when someone asks to have Rod Stewart take part in their event—even if it’s just the Scottish Cup draw—they want the full Rod Stewart experience.
So instead of merely picking balls out of a bowl and reading out the numbers like every person who has ever participated in a cup draw before him, the singer and Celtic fan decided to carry out his task with a bit of pizzazz.
Now, you might watch that and say the man is drunk, but I just see Rod being Rod. He knows how to entertain the people and that’s exactly what he’s doing.
Sure, he seems a bit confused at times and completely misses a handshake attempt at the end, but when’s the last time you watched a Scottish Cup draw before Rod showed up? Exactly.
If FIFA’s smart, they’re booking him for the next World Cup draw right now.
He was just pushing the man out of the way of an oncoming train, he swears
Arsenal’s 2–1 win over Burnley was anything but routine (well, by Arsenal standards maybe it was). After Shkodran Mustafi gave them a 1–0 lead in the second half, Granit “Red Is My Favorite Color” Xhaka was sent off, forcing Arsenal to play the last 25 minutes with 10 men. In added time, Burnley were awarded a penalty, enraging Arsene Wenger and allowing Andre Gray to equalize from the spot.
Wenger was sent off, but refused to go. When he eventually reach the mouth of the tunnel and stood his ground there, he tried to shove the fourth official away from him, perhaps mistaking him for Jose Mourinho.
In the EIGHTH minute of added time, Arsenal got a penalty of their own and Alexis Sanchez scored to give them one final lead. After the match, Wenger apologized for the shove, but that won’t be enough to prevent the FA from handing him a touchline ban.
Wenger admits he pushed the fourth official: "I regret everything. I should have shut up and gone home. I apologise for that"
The way Wenger keeps shoving people during matches, a ban might not be enough, though. It might be time to make him swap his puffy coat for a straight jacket on matchdays.
Ligue 1 referees have apparently never seen a David Blaine special
PSG midfielder Marco Verratti was too clever for his own good when he got down on his hands and knees to head the ball back to his own goalkeeper during his side’s 2–0 win over Nantes. The Italian was booked by referee Johan Hamel for the move.
After the match, Hamel took the equally unusual measure of explaining his decision on television. From the AP:
“The player deliberately bypassed the laws of the game. This is trickery whether the goalkeeper collects the ball or not,” Hamel said on Canal Plus.
“The defender (Verratti in this case) should be punished for anti-sporting behavior. He is using improper means to get around the laws of the game. This means an indirect free kick and a booking.”
Verratti headed the ball knowing that if he used his feet, PSG keeper Kevin Trapp wouldn’t have been able to pick it up, but if “deliberately bypassing the laws of the game” is a bookable offense, then every player can be sent off in every game. After all, using your feet is deliberately bypassing rules against using your hands.
Verratti must have cut Hamel off in traffic on the way to match. It’s the only explanation for this.
Chapecoense played their first match since the plane crash that 71 people, including 19 players and staff making their way to the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana final in November. A total of 22 new players and a new manager have been brought in the last month and a half so the club could carry on.
On Saturday, Chapecoense hosted Palmeiras in a friendly and before the match, they had the three players who survived the crash—Neto, Alan Ruschel, and Jackson Follmann—lift the Copa Sudamericana trophy, which was awarded to the club at the behest of their opponents, Atletico Nacional.
Winners medals were also awarded to the players and the families of those who died, who received half of the money raised by the match.
After falling behind early in the match, the rebuilt Chapecoense scored an equalizer in the 14th minute, finally giving the club something to celebrate.
The match was stopped in the 71st minute to honor the 71 people who died in the crash. After resuming, the match eventually ended in a 2–2 draw.
Though the day was more of a reminder of what was lost than a glimpse of what’s to come, inspiration should be taken from how Chape were able to not only survive such an overwhelming tragedy and rebuild so quickly, but to help take care of those who suffered unspeakable losses while doing so.
