Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s new Man United shirts have been flying off the shelves since he officially signed with the club on July 1 and at the Community Shield last weekend, fans excited about his arrival were wearing those shirts. But still they had trouble spelling the name on their back.
Chelsea Fans Channel held a new signings spelling bee for Man United fans outside Wembley, with both Ibrahimovic and Mkhitaryan proving difficult for everyone but one young Leicester supporter.
This exercise is billed as the channel pranking Man United fans, but they seem to be the ones pranking themselves by wearing a name on their shirts that they can’t even spell.
The Premier League season begins this weekend and that means you’re probably creating a fantasy Premier League team for reasons you can’t fully explain. Despite being a decidedly unimportant endeavor, the act of putting a fantasy squad together
Adidas is letting fans create and submit third kit designs for Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Flamengo, Juventus, Milan, and Man United. Anytime you ask people on the internet to design something and then publish the results on your site, you’re asking for trouble and this is no different. Man United’s template seems to be getting the most prank submissions, with dozens of Harambe designs in the gallery (a few of them pictured above), but there are so many more — including one featuring a picture of a guy’s ballsack (which is definitely not pictured here). A sampling…
The undisputed king of this transfer window is agent Mino Raiola. He represents three of Man United’s four signings (Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, and Paul Pogba), including the largest deal in the history of football. And the name of the Dutch firm raking in his cut of all this action? Maguire Tax & Legal. As in the 1996 Tom Cruise film about a sports agent.
When Spider-Man attends a match, he sits where he wants. And as we saw during a Sunderland-Man City match back in 2014, sometimes he even invades the pitch. But during a match played by Nelson FC of the North West Counties Football League, he plopped himself down on top of the dugout and no one seemed to mind.
According to the club’s Twitter account, Nelson are the “first English side to defeat Real Madrid away from home.” So there’s your new fact for the day.
Without Cristiano Ronaldo or Gareth Bale, Real Madrid beat 10-man Sevilla 3-2 in extra time to win the UEFA Super Cup, making Zidane one of just four men to win the European Cup and the Super Cup as both a player and a manager (the others: Johan Cruyff, Carlo Ancelotti, Pep Guardiola). After lifting yet another trophy, a group of Real Madrid players invaded Zidane’s press conference and gave him an unexpected shower.
The continued crappiness of the Brazilian men’s team has prompted the people of Brazil to finally recognize the brilliance of Marta, with one young fan even going so far as to cross out Neymar’s name from the back of his replica shirt and write in Marta’s.
Vermaelen arrives in Rome with his suitcase full of winner’s medals. (AS Roma)
In two seasons with Barcelona, frequently injured defender Thomas Vermaelen made 21 appearances and won seven trophies. Two La Liga titles, two Copa del Rey trophies, a Champions League title, a UEFA Super Cup, and even a Club World Cup. That’s one trophy for every three appearances. Even the people who hand out youth league participation medals would find that obscene and excessive.
In two seasons of doing nothing and getting paid handsomely for it, Vermaelen has accomplished more than most footballers can do in a full career of playing match after match. And so, with nothing left to achieve at Barcelona, he has decided to move on to Roma on a season-long loan in pursuit of a new challenge.
Continuing his ungodly trophy haul with Roma while keeping his playing time to the absolute minimum for someone to still be considered a professional footballer will definitely be a challenge, too. But, in his infinite genius, Vermaelen is only going to Roma on loan, so if the task proves too difficult, he can simply reclaim his seat on Barcelona’s bench and get back to letting the trophies fall into his lap for the remainder of his five-year deal.
We really should be inviting Vermaelen into schools around the world to give children career advice. Of course, if we did, he’d probably just be too injured to attend and send someone else to give the talk in his place, then split the money and accolades with them.
It has long been thought that injuries can only ruin a professional athlete’s career, but Vermaelen is proving that they can also benefit it. Had he actually played for Barcelona, he could have underperformed and gotten himself sold off to some third-rate club in a city that can’t compare to the beauty of Rome. Instead, he gets to linger on at Barca and also have a glorious change of scenery for a season.
There are footballing geniuses like Pele and Maradona, Messi and Ronaldo, then there are geniuses of football. And in that class Vermaelen stands alone. Well, sits alone.
