By any measure, Gerard Pique is one of the best central defenders ever, an omnipresent force in the back lines of Champions League-winning Barcelona sides and World Cup and European Championship-winning Spanish sides. Pique announced his decision to retire from the latter following the 2018 World CUp in Russia, and now everyone is talking about his shirts.
The pre-match team photo is so innocuous and brief that it hardly even registers when watching it take place. Like players holding the hands of little child mascots when entering the field, it's just one of those things that happens. Don't question it, don't even think about it, let's just get it over with.
The starting XI gets in two balanced rows, the players in the back drape their arms over one another and everyone stares blankly into the camera for a moment. What’s the point of the exercise? Where does the photo end up? Who’s getting any joy from this photo op?
There's nothing we love more than a stupid transfer decision made by a team we don't support, which is why we were delighted to find out that in 2008 Newcastle tried to buy Bastian Schweinsteiger. Really.
It hasn’t been the dream beginning that many anticipated following three straight victories to open their 2016-17 Premier League campaign, and many within the Manchester United camp are already beginning to feel the heat.
Wayne Rooney has been in dire form, and his inclusion in the starting XI has been relentlessly questioned. Zlatan Ibrahimovic hasn’t scored a Premier League goal since September 10th. Paul Pogba has hardly justified his gargantuan transfer fee, and Jose Mourinho’s personnel choices, including the ostracizing of Bastian Schweinsteiger, have been criticized.
After three consecutive major final losses, Argentina decided to rebuild their squad. Edgardo Bauza became their third coach in just over two years, and everybody is hoping for a fresh start after their heart breaking loss to Chile in the Copa America Centenario.
Former USMNT coach Bob Bradley was appointed manager of Swansea City this week, the Welsh side eliminating Francesco Guidolin like 20,000 emails being wiped from the Clinton Family Server. Having saved them from relegation only a matter of months ago, it feels like a rough deal for Guidolin. The British press, however, have reserved their sympathies for another supposedly wronged man: Ryan Giggs.
Why, you might ask, is a multi-millionaire former footballer with a penchant for other people’s wives receiving the sympathies of Fleet Street?
Just a few days ago Celtic’s Karamoko Dembele was merely the club’s “other Dembele”. Even when he made his debut for the Hoops’ U-20s against Hearts last Wednesday - as a substitute in the 81st minute - he was still second fiddle to first-teamer Moussa Dembele, the recent scorer of a spectacular brace against Manchester City in Champions League play.
Bob Bradley is quickly proving he can hang with the best managers in the Premier League, at least in terms of banter.
Bradley's first press conference as manager of Swansea City included a shot at his successor as USMNT manager, Jurgen Klinsmann.
Here's the excerpt everyone's talking about:
"From the day I got fired from the U.S., I've not said one thing publicly about that team. I don't appreciate the way it was done; I think they made a mistake," Bradley said.
The second time FIFA executives were arrested on corruption charges in Zurich, we laughed at them because they used the same hotel as the first time. If you're wanted for racketeering and corruption and the like, we reasoned, you shouldn't stay in the same hotel you were at when Interpol arrested all your buddies for the same thing.
For one brief moment, let us consider the duck. To the casual observer watching from the riverbank, the duck seems to glide across the water with immaculate ease. The only noticeable deviation from the otherwise placid surface is a slight ripple emerging behind the bird, a sign that the water has been elegantly parted by the smooth feathers before collapsing back to form.
From a distance, the movement of the duck is relaxing, calm and refined.