QUOTE
“I was out running around the mountains of Delgany and I met a woman on crutches and she stopped me for a chat. She’s from Yorkshire and she’s desperate for us to win the league.” Damien Duff on finding the unlikeliest of Shels supporters in the unlikeliest of places.
NUMBER: 3
That’s how many seconds it took Cruzeiro’s Rafa Silva to get sent off (for an elbow) against Athletico Paranaense in Brazil on Saturday. The earliest of baths, that.
One of last week’s more peculiar stories with a tenuous football link was about a €46 million drug seizure by the Australian police after they tracked a 95kg shipment of methamphetamine from Los Angeles to Sydney.
The odd thing about the haul was that each package of the drugs featured a photo of Frank Lampard in his suit, waving goodbye to the fans at Stamford Bridge in 2017. No, really. The police theory is that the person responsible for the packing is a Chelsea fan and, said The Sun, “added the distinctive label in a tribute to their hero”.
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Happily, the police blurred out the face of Lampard when they released a photo of the packages, but no flies on The Sun, they recognised him – and brought the photo to his house to ask for his reaction. “I don’t even know what to say to you to be honest,” he laughed. “I’ve literally no comment on that.”
The Sun, though, under the excellent headline “3 Lines On A Shirt”, wanted to make it quite clear that Lamps was innocent. “There is no suggestion at all that the soccer hero was involved in the drugs ring,” they said. If he had packed the methamphetamine and labelled it with his own photo, you’d have to worry about his capacity for criminality.
WORD OF MOUTH
“When some goalkeepers reach a certain age, they should have the courage to retire.”
Fabio Capello on being asked about the performance of Bayern Munich’s Manuel Neuer in the 4-1 Champions League defeat by Barcelona. Cold.
“That’s how great the fall has been in the last 15 years ... to the abyss of this public execution. FCSB were humiliated. Vaclav Cerny penetrated the defence like cheese through a field. It looked like Rangers were playing some village team in the Cup.”
Romanian paper Gazeta Sporturilor on that 4-0 Europa League defeat by Rangers for FCSB, the artists formerly known as Steaua Bucharest. Not impressed.
“You don’t need a Ferrari if you don’t know how to drive it. A normal car will do. If you buy a Ferrari, you should think about how to handle it.”
Shakhtar Donetsk general director Sergiy Palkin on Chelsea somewhat failing to get the best of Donetsk old boy Mykhailo Mudryk.
Sober as a VAR official
Suspension of the week: The one Uefa handed out to Bartosz Frankowski and Tomasz Musial who were due to oversee VAR operations for the Champions League qualifying game between Rangers and Dynamo Kyiv in Poland in August. But the Polish pair had to be replaced after they got into a spot of bother on the eve of the game.
“At around 1.40am, we received a report of two men carrying a road sign down the street,” explained Kamil Golebiowski of Lublin city police. “The men were intoxicated and were taken to a sobering-up centre.”
So, Uefa have suspended the pair until next June. Frankowski? Gutted. “I realise that with one such violation, I ruined 22 years of refereeing. I should have calmly prepared for the match and not gone anywhere. Looking back, I understand that it was not a very smart idea.”
Why so serious?
Former Liverpool goalkeeper David James got dog’s abuse last week for being a touch too competitive during a charity penalty shoot-out at half-time in the game against Chelsea at Anfield.
“I didn’t want to concede any goals in front of The Kop,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live, defending himself. “There were a couple of lucky shots that went in, but I saved two. I thought I had done well. I got booed from The Kop. But I was proud of the second save, it was one of the best I’ve made in front of The Kop.”
Who did he save against? Eh, an 11-year-old boy. “Kuzey had tears in his eyes,” the little fella’s father told The Liverpool Echo. The Twitter reaction to James? “Shame you didn’t get this close to any at Euro 2004.” “The kid is part of an elite group. Had his shot saved by David (Calamity) James.” Ooh.
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