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QUOTE
“I would immediately take away his captain’s armband – Van Dijk is a first-class wimp.”
A reminder that no punditry on earth is more unforgiving than Dutch punditry – in this case, delivered by Gertjan Verbeek after Virgil’s recent displays for his country.
Quirky managerial moves
Until Saturday, we reckoned Hervé Renard was the man who had made the quirkiest moves in the history of coaching careers.
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Ready? From French club SC Draguignan to assistant at Chinese side Shanghai Cosco; from Cambridge United to Nam Dinh in Vietnam; from Cherbourg to assistant for Ghana; from Zambia to Angola.
From USM Alger in Algeria before returning to Zambia; from Sochaux in France to Ivory Coast; from Lille to Morocco and on to Saudi Arabia, who, of course, he led to that flabbergasting win over eventual champions Argentina at last year’s World Cup.
And now, he’s the manager of the French women’s team, having been announced last week as the successor to Corinne Diacre a handful of months ahead of the World Cup.
So, quirky, yes. But then we saw on the tweet machine on Saturday a coaching switch that outquirkied any move Renard had ever made: the current head coach of the University of Galway’s women’s football set-up had been appointed manager of the Philippines’ women’s team who, like ourselves, will make their World Cup debut this summer.
“Amazing news,” the University of Galway football account tweeted. “@furboconnemara [Billy Clery] has been appointed Head Coach of the Philippines WNT and will take charge of the side on a short-term basis for the World Cup before returning to @UniofGalwayWFC after.”
“Have boots, will travel,” replied Clery, the former Galway United player who went on to coach Galway’s women’s team for six years.
Honest, we were about to try to contact Billy to talk about this Renard-esque career-switch, when we noted (1) the University of Galway said “he will be assisted by Olaf Priol”, (2) we then used an Anagram-solver, and (3) we checked the date.
Morto? God yeah.
WORD OF MOUTH
“I love Chinese, man. After every game, I get one. I have Singapore chow mein, I have egg-fried rice, I have salt and pepper chips, I have salt and pepper prawns and then curry sauce. Then I just mix it all in and have a big free for all!”
And there still isn’t a pick on Jack Grealish.
“The vermin and the vultures, taking advantage of their second in glory! I don’t care! I feel proud of my time as a coach!”
How kindly does former Spain coach Luis Enrique take to criticism of his reign? Not very.
“It’s the way they play, for me it’s rubbish, always wasting time, provoking you, always they fall. For me, this is not football.”
Spanish captain Rodri after their 2-0 defeat to Scotland last week. Ally McCoist’s response? “We were a bit too physical for Rodri! Bless his wee Spanish heart!”
NUMBER: 318,219,426
That’s how many pounds Premier League clubs paid to agents in the last two transfer windows, almost a third splashed out by Manchester City (£51.5m) and Chelsea (£43.2m) combined.
Shelvey settles for Jimmy Carr
It was a whole seven years ago that Nottingham Forest’s Jonjo Shelvey married his beloved Daisy Evans, a former all-singing, all-dancing member of S Club Juniors.
What caught the media’s attention at the time – apart from the fact that the couple had 12 (12!) bridesmaids – was the appearance of comedian Jimmy Carr at their wedding breakfast, the gist of the conclusion being that Jonjo and Jimmy were an unlikely mix.
Alas, for Jimmy, it has now emerged that he was Jonjo’s second choice. He wanted John Legend to be the star performer at his wedding do.
“I tried to get him to sing my wedding song. I offered him, like, 50 grand, but he turned it down. And I’m thinking ‘come on mate’, 50 grand to sing one song!”
So Jonjo had to settle for Jimmy.
We used the Google to check Legend’s net worth: it’s currently estimated at $100 million. So that allows him the luxury of turning down offers to sing at (then) Swansea City players’ weddings. That’s what you call the lap of luxury.
MORE WORD OF MOUTH
“Some of my team-mates call me Donkey. It’s not because of my football. From day one, I felt a special relationship with donkeys. It’s a very calm animal: maybe I personalised myself in them because I’m calm too. They chill all day, don’t do much, just want to live their life. I loved them always.”
Just when we thought we couldn’t love Chelsea’s Kai Havertz any more.
Reporter (in the mixed zone after the Netherlands’ 3-0 win over Gibraltar, during which Wout Weghorst failed to score): “Wout, imagine we would have continued this game for another 48 hours – would you have scored a goal?”
“Good question,” replied Weghorst to the cruellest question asked in the history of association football.
“Fantastic. As awesome as it gets. The organisation, 10 points. The experience, 10 points. The match, 10 points. The audience, 10 points. The food, 10 points. The trip, 10 points. The World Cup, 10 points. Everything was 10 points.”
Zlatan Ibrahimovic on his trip to Qatar for the World Cup final. When challenged: “Qatar as a country, I think it is a system that works.” Lordie.
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