FOOTBALL NOTEBOOK
Romanian football’s finest throne-sitting club owner is back, and he’s ready for war on all smartphones
1 NAIVE OFFER OF THE MONTH When a Miami bar offered free shots for every USA goal ahead of their Women’s World Cup group game with Thailand, they probably didn’t expect it to finish 13-0.
Little wonder: last year, Thailand inflicted an 11-0 thrashing on their southeast Asian rivals Cambodia, who had themselves tonked Timor-leste 12-0 days earlier. Suddenly, USA vs Timor-leste is the fixture everyone wants to see. Make it happen, FIFA...
2 MOST MERCILESS TEENAGER Leeds-born Erling Braut Haaland (right) scooped the Golden Boot at the Under-20 World Cup, going full Oleg Salenko and hammering nine goals past Honduras in a 12-0 Norway win. Son of Alf Inge, we have only one piece of advice for the 18-year-old: avoid the offspring of Roy Keane at all costs.
3 MOST DEMANDING OWNER Gigi Becali isn’t your average club owner – he holds press conferences on a throne and renamed Steaua Bucharest as FCSB, claiming it stood for ‘Faci Ce Spune Becali’ (‘Do what Becali tells you’). Among Becali’s bizarre instructions: no smartphones. “You want to play for my team? Use a phone with buttons.”
He might make an exception for Ianis Hagi, son of Gheorghe. Keen to recruit Hagi, Becali (below) offered a contract guaranteeing the 20-year-old would start every match and could never be substituted. With such interference in selection, some managers are wary of working for Becali. Edi Iordanescu said he’d only accept the job if it included a €1 million clause, to be paid if the owner made any demands about the starting line-up or substitutions. Becali appointed Bogdan Andone instead...
4 WEIRDEST SPONSORSHIP DEAL Great news for football: the French top tier will adopt the not-at-all-comical name of ‘Uber Eats Ligue 1’ from 2020, as part of a sponsorship agreement. In even better news, the matchball will be driven onto the pitch before each game by an Uber Eats delivery driver. Don’t mind us, we’re just popping off to buy our French TV subscription.
5 ODDEST FINAL (EXHIBIT A) More Copa America madness: as if holding the tournament in 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2020 wasn’t baffling enough, reports emerged of a bizarre plan for next year’s event. The competition will be hosted by Colombia and Argentina, two nations at the exact opposite ends of South America.
What about the final, you say? Well, deciding has proved difficult, so an idea was floated to play it over two legs, one staged in each country. And when that inevitably goes wrong, maybe the third match can be played at the Bernabeu.
6 ODDEST FINAL (EXHIBIT B) A third game will have to settle this year’s two-legged final of the African Champions League, even though the trophy had already been awarded to Esperance de Tunis.
Visitors Wydad Casablanca had a goal controversially disallowed during the second leg in Tunisia so turned to VAR, only to find out that the technology had suffered a fault and wasn’t working. They stormed off and Esperance were given the trophy, only for CAF to change their mind, demand the trophy back and order a rematch after the Africa Cup of Nations. Sorted...
7 BEST JOB EVER Someone, somewhere is poised to land their perfect job: playing Football Manager for almost 40 hours each week. Sports Interactive advertised the role, with the successful candidate playing the game Monday to Friday, to identify any possible defects. Bad news, though: applications have now closed. Sorry.
8 GREATEST NAME South Ossetia were the winners of June’s CONIFA European Football Cup, for stateless peoples unaffiliated with FIFA. But FFT’S favourite footballer was undoubtedly Marko van Basten Cema (below), who scored three goals for Chameria. All outrageous volleys, we presume...
9 MOST SUITABLE TOURNAMENT FOR EGOMANIACS Are you diminutive, Argentine and tired of being let down by your team-mates? Or perhaps you’re Portuguese and want all the glory for yourself? Then head to Sunderland on July 20 for the Paddy Power One-a-side World Cup. It will feature 64 players, with only one winner. Messi vs Ronaldo, there’s a final we’d like to watch, but can they do it on a cold wet day by the River Wear?