Kasper Schmeichel’s last outing for Denmark, against Portugal in the Nations League quarter-finals, wasn’t, to put it mildly, a happy one. Not only did he concede five goals in a 5-3 aggregate defeat, he picked up a shoulder injury that could keep him out for months.
Alas, Anders Olsen, a journalist with Danish paper Ekstra Bladet, missed the memo about never kicking a man when he is down. Under the heading “Goodbye, Kasper Schmeichel”, he blamed the “plump” Celtic man for three of Portugal’s goals, especially their third which started with Schmeichel failing to punch the ball clear.
“Why didn’t you catch the ball, Kasper?” Olsen asked. “His father caught much more difficult balls with one hand. Instead, Kasper stands on the line and at the last moment runs out and punches like a polio-stricken child.”
Yes, yes, that’s what he wrote. Denmark’s PFA boss Michael Sahl Hansen demanded an apology, saying he hoped that “the journalist is undergoing some serious soul-searching”. Eh, it appears he’s not. “The odds for an apology are long,” said Olsen, “it won’t be in my lifetime.”
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Quote
“I’ll be honest with you, I think he’s a German spy ... he’s been sent over to **** us up. He’s like Lord Haw-Haw in the war: ‘We have your best soldiers captured’ and all that.” And then Harry Redknapp made a Nazi salute when talking about Thomas Tuchel. Apart from that, his appearance at a charity event went well.
By the Numbers: 450,000
That’s how many euros Casemiro earns a week, making him the Premier League’s joint-third highest paid player – behind Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne and level with Mo Salah. Stop laughing at the back.
Word of Mouth
“He can’t take on people, he is not quick enough and he doesn’t want to work hard. So, what is he actually good at? He just seems like a Ronaldo fanboy.” Apart from that, Paul Parker is a mega Alejandro Garnacho fanboy.
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Ant McPartlane: “Bruno, you can have the mic as long as you cut out the swearing. What did you say to the players before the cup final?”
Bruno Guimaraes: “Well, I said to them ‘today, we go to the pitch as players and leave there as f***ing legends!‘” The Newcastle captain, live on BBC News, during the Carabao Cup bus parade through the city.
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“I think it’s the Scottish accent. It comes across very aggressive. I probably need to try and change it and be a little bit more ‘Englified’.” Exeter City manager Gary Caldwell aggressively reckoning that it was his accent that got him sent off last week after having words with the fourth official.
On the blower
Charlie Austin was a more than decent goalscorer in a lengthy career that included stopovers at Burnley, QPR and Southampton, but these days he’s playing his football with English non-League side AFC Totton. He’s 35 now, so he was probably a little surprised to get a phone call from Shamrock Rovers, presumably inquiring about his availability.
Or was it them? “Please X find out who this pretending to be from Shamrock Rovers and giving me prank calls, feel free to call this number for yourselves, much appreciated,” he tweeted, along with an English number.
Last we checked, his tweet had been viewed 550,000 times, so if even a fraction of them rang said number, and it turns out to belong to, say, Rovers’ UK-based recruitment chief, spare a thought for them.
No barber left behind
Most startling revelation of the week by a barber to footballing stars: We’ll go with the one a fella by the name of Senyo shared with The Sun, the London-based hair-chopper a long-time favourite of the Premier League’s elite.
When Ramires was with Chelsea, Senyo was his barber of choice, but then the Brazilian moved to Chinese club Jiangsu Suning. Did he find a new barber? Did he heck. He flew Senyo over from London twice a month for the duration of his time at the club. That was an 11,000-mile round-trip, which meant Senyo travelled a hair-raising total of 924,000 miles before Ramires and Jiangsu parted company. That’s what you call a mobile barber.
