Pop stars, frogs and shocking socks: Ffour famous excuses
After Pep’s pointing at the ball for City not finding the back of the net, Arab News casts its eye over some of the best excuses for poor performances and defeats down the years…
— Many thought Fulham were relegated from the Premier League in 2014 because, among other things, they lost 24 matches, let in 85 goals, only got 32 points and, in short, were not that good. For former owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, however, the reason was quite simple: the decision to remove the statue of megastar Michael Jackson — which he had had erected outside the ground for some reason still hard to fathom — had put a curse on the club. — Ukraine faced Spain in the 2006 World Cup. The eastern Europeans were not as good as their opponents and lost 4-0. All in all it seems that fate had played along with the old adage that generally the better team wins. But according to Ukraine defender Vladislav Vashchuck the thrashing had nothing to do with ability, but was rather down to noisy frogs keeping them awake the night before the match. “Because of the frogs’ croaking we hardly got a wink of sleep. We all agreed that we would take some sticks and go and hunt them,” he said.
— Generally Jose Mourinho is not one to accept blame. There is always a reason why he side lost that has nothing to do with him. Down the years he has accused sides of “parking the bus”, claimed fixture lists were against his teams and pointed the finger at everyone but the man in the mirror. In 2011, when manager of Real Madrid, Mourinho even found the temerity to blame the ball-boys, or lack of them, for his side’s Supacopa defeat to archrivals Barcelona. “There were no ball-boys in the second half, (that is) typical of small teams,” the stroppy manager said.
— Italian players have a reputation for being temperamental, and outbursts are part and parcel of the game. One of the more bizarre flare-ups came after the national team’s disappointing 0-0 draw against Denmark in the 2004 European Championships. Not one, but two Azzurri players blamed their kit. Francesco Totti, the Roma golden boy, went for the blaming of his boots claiming they were “like having your feet on boiling sand” while defender Christian Panucci had a go at his socks, saying that “the thread was too rough.”