At a certain point, legendary business tycoon and aviator Howard Hughes went from thinking it was pretty great to be clean to urinating in jars and wearing tissues boxes as shoes. There’s a line there, between keen interest and crippling obsession, and in his own way, Pep Guardiola might be in the process of crossing it.
Category: Europe
Jose Mourinho just wants to win so young Chelsea fans don’t get bullied
Chelsea finally won a match, beating Dynamo Kiev 2-1 with a superb Willian free kick in the 83rd minute. It was a win Jose Mourinho desperately needed, as reports of him only having a match or two left before he gets sacked intensify. And though fans at Stamford Bridge chanted his name and showed their support for him throughout the game, Mourinho made it clear afterwards that his thoughts are with the kids in this difficult time.
Said Mourinho (via the Telegraph):
“It’s easy for kids to go to school in a Chelsea shirt when Chelsea win every match. It’s not easy for 11 or 12-year-old kids to go to school with a Chelsea shirt when Chelsea are losing matches, when probably they are bullied by other kids whose teams are winning.”
With Arsenal losing 5-1 to Bayern, it’s probably not the Chelsea kids who have to worry about getting laughed at this week.
Liverpool’s first demonstration of Klopp fever in pictures
Jurgen Klopp made his Anfield debut as Liverpool hosted Rubin Kazan in the Europa League. This was an understandably exciting moment for the club’s supporters, but if you were dropped off at Anfield with no idea what was happening, you’d probably assume that this Klopp fellow had given everyone in town their own solid gold sex robot.
Here are some choice images from around the ground as Klopp fever was only mildly tempered by a 1-1 draw against a Russian club that played the final hour with 10 men…
UEFA opens disciplinary case against Man City for fans booing Champions League anthem
UEFA has reached a new level of self-parody by launching disciplinary proceedings against Manchester City after their fans booed the Champions League anthem before Wednesday’s 2-1 win against Sevilla.
Jose Mourinho uses Wenger’s words to criticize referee and prove a point
“The referee was weak and naive!” @ChelseaFC boss Mourinho’s stern assessment of the officials tonight. #UCL https://t.co/CqEM1QAGSE
— BT Sport Football (@btsportfootball) October 20, 2015
Chelsea had to settle for a 0-0 draw with Dynamo Kiev in part because Cesc Fabregas had a penalty shout ignored by the referee. This was just one more frustration for an already frustrated club, but it did provide Jose Mourinho with a chance to try and prove his recent point about Arsene Wenger getting away with things that he doesn’t.
Manuel Neuer makes superhuman save against Arsenal
Even when you manage to prevent Robert Lewandowski from scoring for an entire half hour, you still have to get one past Manuel Neuer to take a lead against Bayern Munich. Which is like asking someone to prevent all human suffering and then discover the meaning of life in order to win three points.
If Theo Walcott sues Neuer for doing this to him, he’d probably win a sizable compensation. Walcott can be thankful that at least he didn’t get reduced to a pile of dust like Douglas Costa did to Hector Bellerin…
Greek stretcher bearers toss time waster around, inspire team to comeback win
Down a goal to visiting Ergotelis in their second half of their Greek second division match, all of AE Larissa began to get a little impatient. Even their stretcher bearers. So when Ergotelis’ Leonardo Koutris went down with an injury in the 66th minute, there were suspicions that he might be faking it to waste time.
The fans whistled and the stadium’s stretcher bearers tried to hurry him off the pitch as quickly as possible, so the match could continue. In doing so, they dumped Koutris onto the stretcher without warning and tried to carry him while running. This proved difficult, however, causing one of the stretcher bearers to fall and drop Koutris in the process. Then, while trying to pick the player back up, he fell again, causing him to drive his head into Koutris’ midsection.
Finally, they got him off to the side with everyone a little worse for wear. Though Koutris seemed more concerned with complaining to the ref and trying to be as much of a dead weight as possible as he was being unceremoniously hauled off, perhaps indicating that he wasn’t actually hurt, he was substituted after this, so who knows.
But the uncoordinated effort from the stretcher bearers did inspire AE Larissa, as they scored twice in the final minutes of the game to win 2-1.
Memphis Depay wears wrong shirt in Netherlands match against Czech Republic
The Netherlands’ disastrous Euro qualifying campaign ended with a 3-2 loss to the Czech Republic, which included an own goal from Robin van Persie. But to illustrate that they truly couldn’t do anything right, Memphis Depay wasn’t even wearing the right shirt for the match.
His top was customized for the Netherlands’ loss to Iceland last month, featuring the date (September 3) and Iceland’s flag just below the crest.
When your kitman can’t even recognize a shirt with the wrong date and flag on it, you know things are going terribly wrong and major top to bottom changes are necessary.
Robin van Persie is in a bottomless pit of despair
A 3-2 loss to the Czech Republic sealed the Netherlands’ failure to qualify for Euro 2016. One of those three goals for the Czechs was an impressively terrible own goal from Robin van Persie.
Hooded Jose Mourinho attends Spain-Ukraine, possibly creeps out Cesc Fabregas
Spain beat Ukraine 1-0 to wrap up Euro 2016 qualifying in a match that happened to mark Cesc Fabregas’ 100th cap. Cesc had the opportunity to make the evening a bit more special with a penalty in the ninth minute, but his underwhelming effort was saved.
One possible explanation for Fabregas’ unsuccessful penalty was the fact that Jose Mourinho, his manager at Chelsea, was in the stands dressed as a Sith Lord/assassin from Assassin’s Creed. Looking up and spotting that as you’re about to take a penalty would unnerve anyone, let alone a player who was underperformed this season, contributing to arguably the darkest period of Mourinho’s career.
And if you’re now imagining Jose Mourinho dressed like this and standing in the shadows outside Cesc’s house, so is Cesc.