Parrot attack...
Bruna BenitesOut of a job...
GunnersaurusREPORTS WE COULDN’T MAKE UP
1
GONERSAURUS
It wasn’t great PR for Arsenal’s
board when they were forced
to makeJerry Quy, the man inside the
Gunnersaurus mascot suit, redundant,
just days before spending £45 million
on Ghana midfielder Thomas Partey.
With supporters disappointed by the
decision, Quy had an unlikely hero in the
shape of Mesut Ozil. The Gunners’ out-
of-favour midfielder offered to take a cut
from his £350k-a-week wages to ensure
that the club mascot stays in the job.2
SOCIALLY-DISTANCED
DEFENDING
SG Ripdorf/Molzen, a club from
Germany’s district leagues, had an
outbreak of coronavirus ahead of their
clash with Holstenstadt and didn’t want
any more cases. The amateur side
managed to put out a team of seven
players in order to avoid a€200 fine, but
that was as far as they were willing to go:
none of their players risked contact with
their opponents, and spent the entire
match socially distancing.
Did Holstenstadt take it easy?
No. The final score was 37-0.3
ALPACA INTERRUPTION
There have been far too many
interruptions to football this year,
but this is probably the most bizarre.
English non-league side Ilkley Town
were hosting Carlton Athletic in
a friendly when an alpaca named
Oscar strolled onto the pitch.
“Oscar the alpaca is an avid
Carlton fan and often is spotted
engrossed in the games on a Saturday,”
Carlton fan Gavin Shoesmith toldPA.
“This week he’d had enough after a
shocking first half by the referee and
decided he was having none of it and
vaulted the fence.”4
SPEED SUBBING
Spare a thought for Lauri
Suup, a16-year-old who
plays for Nomme Kalju in Estonia.
Every side in the Estonian Premier
League must start each match with
two homegrown players, yet there are
no rules on how long they have to be
on the pitch. That’s why, when the ball
went out after13 seconds in the clash
with FCI Levadia, Suup was instantly
replaced by Ukrainian Vladyslav
Khomutov, making the teenager
one of the earliest substituted
players of all time.5
ATTACK FROM THE SKIES
Remember that enormous
insect that landed onJames
Rodriguez during the 2014 World
Cup? That was nothing compared
to what Bruna Benites experienced
during a recent training session for
Brazil women’s national side. Practice
was brought to a halt when a macaw
landed on the defender’s head, with
a coach using a football to tempt the
neotropical parrot away.GLOBAL FOOTBALL INTELLIGENCE
asset was his understanding of space
and positioning and he has brought that
to bear on his interpretation of the
central attacking role, dropping deep
as Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah go
beyond him. It’s an over-simplification
but their starting position means that
they both are coming from deeper
positions and are naturally occupying
the space between the full-back and
the central defender, naturally hitting
the weak point of an opposing back four
- something facilitated by overlapping
full-backs, who at least partially occupy
the opposing full-back.
But it’s not just Liverpool doing it.
At Arsenal, as Alexandre Lacazette has
adjusted his game to drop deeper in the
middle, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
has thrived from a starting position on
the left, which means a high proportion
of the chances he has fall naturally for
his favoured finish, opening his body to
curl the ball into the far post with his
right foot. Teams as diverse as Sheffield
United and France, have been
successful with non-goalscoring
centre-forwards. Even Manchester
City when GabrielJesus, a far better
presser than finisher, plays centrally,
are reliant on goals from wide.
Kane has always been an unusually
versatile striker, somebody without one
obvious outstanding attribute. He can
be the prime front man, or he can also
play behind him, and as such should be
ideal for springing Son and Bale as they
run beyond him. England, with two of
Jadon Sancho, Raheem Sterling and
Marcus Rashford in the wide roles
may benefit as well.
The front three has undergone
another evolution.
Team man...Olivier Giroud has played
France’s centre-forward role for years