Last week, British magazine Coach published what they contended was an exclusive interview with Lionel Messi, in which the Barcelona star supposedly said he would like to stay at Barcelona.
It turns out they published nothing of the sort.
The "interview" has been taken down and replaced with this message:
We’ve shown you some of the best and most amusing moments the Copa Sao Paulo has had to offer over the past few weeks. However, the latest news coming from Brazil’s top youth competition is nothing short of disturbing. Age fraud has been present in soccer ever since the conception of youth competitions.
What’s your most embarrassing story? Khadim N’Diaye, goalkeeper for the Senegal national team, has a pretty good one. It involves his right leg, his left leg and a degree of shamelessness that’s enough to make the rest of humanity feel humiliated.
N'Diaye performed an atrocious bit of playacting to shave a few seconds off the clock at the end of Senegal’s match versus Algeria at the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations.
Everyone, in lazy idleness, allows their mind to drift. You might start thinking about what a cat’s face might look like on the body of an elephant or if we had arms where our legs should be and legs for arms. The mind just wanders into strange territory.
Life comes at you fast. One second, you're absentmindedly kicking a soccer ball. The next, you're annihilated by some hooligan on a rope swing yelling "COWABUNGA!"
(I assume the person on the rope swing was yeling "COWABUNGA!" because that's just what you yell when you're on a rope swing)
That had to hurt. pic.twitter.com/yxz1KDzNQg
As has been said on many occasions, football is a beautiful game. With it, we laugh, we cry and we sometimes throw things at our television screens, but that doesn't diminish our passion.
What might accomplish that, however, is the constant need for social media to single-handedly try and shatter the illusion that surrounds these overpaid heroes we watch week in and week out.
I love everything about this video, from the "running" around the ball to the Monty Python Ministry of Silly Walks run-up to the swing-and-a-miss at the end.
Please watch this video and love it as much as I do.
If you only watch one muppet today .it's this guy !!! pic.twitter.com/ucjCmOUSgD
To go along with everything else that 2016 conspired to throw in our face, the Major League Soccer season was no less sensational. The teams that contested the 2015 MLS Cup Final both failed to make the playoffs, Landon Donovan made a remarkable return to action and the entirety of the Seattle Sounders season was basically made for Hollywood.
Watch this video of a very guilty dog and meet me on the other side.
Busted pic.twitter.com/8LVVBME3Bt
— Ali (@AliWyland) August 26, 2016
This dog is going to be the next manager of Crystal Palace. Book that sh*t. Just imagine the press conferences:
The FA, in its infinite wisdom, has decided there needs to be more girls playing the beautiful game in England. This in and of itself is a reasonable thing to want. Gender equality is good and the FA should want that.
What is not reasonable or good is the document they made full of suggestions on how to get more females playing soccer.
Specifically, these suggestions were clearly not written by women, or girls, or anyone who has ever met a woman or girl.