REPORTS WE COULDN’T MAKE UP
1 DROPPED
36-year-old veteran Giorgio Chiellini might have thought he’d heard every excuse in football, but even he must have been surprised to hear why he’d missed out on Italy’s Nations League clash with Bosnia & Herzegovina.
When asked after the game why he’d chosen to drop the World Cup winner, Azzurri boss Roberto Mancini told Football Italia: “It was my fault. They showed me the line-up, I didn’t have my glasses on and just said it was fine. I didn’t notice Acerbi was there rather than Chiellini.”
2 CZECH B TEAM
COVID-19 once again had a big impact on a football match, this time in the UEFA Nations League clash between Czech Republic and Scotland.
The Czech’s first-choice squad was quarantined after two players tested positive for coronavirus, forcing them to call up an entirely new selection. All 23 players were domestically based, and only two had previous international experience. In spite of this, the Czechs scored first, before eventually going down 2-1.
3 UNITED CITY FC
No, this isn’t an ill-fated plan to try to combine the strength of the two Manchester clubs, but a response to the coronavirus pandemic by MMC Sportz Asia. The sports marketing firm created the Philippines-based club after purchasing Ceres-Negros FC, champions for the last three years, and renaming them.
4 THE CASE OF THE MISSING TROPHY
While outlining plans to build a museum that would showcase their greatest achievements, the Egyptian Football Association came across a problem: they have lost their AFCON trophy.
After winning the competition for the third time in a row in 2010, the North Africans were allowed to keep the trophy, yet a decade on it is nowhere to be found. Both CAF and the EFA are conducting an investigation into the case.
In 1966, the World Cup trophy went missing ahead of the tournament, before being found in London by a dog called Pickles.
5 HEROES IN A HALF SHELL
Istanbul Basaksehir are the latest club to announce a new signing with an unusual video.
The player in question is former Manchester United defender Rafael, with the theme of the video inspired by the cartoon, Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles. With the Brazilian fullback (almost) sharing a name with one of the shelled crime-fighters, Raphael, the Turkish champions revealed their new addition to the sound of the programme’s theme tune, and got the new boy involved by giving him an eye-mask.
In England, Tottenham new boy Matt Doherty’s reveal was more downplayed, with the signing announced via a video of him deleting an old tweet saying: “I love Arsenal forever and ever and ever.”