Juve fall further off the pace
Ahead of Saturday’s Turin derby against Torino, Juventus were already 10 points behind Inter Milan and not even sure of earning a Champions League spot, never mind retaining their title. They could have done, then, with an incident-free week to prepare for the game. And then a man took his dog for a walk.
“It was 22.30 and I saw a queue of cars inside the gates. There was a group of people. They were not wearing masks. There were many Mercedes, Jeeps and several taxies with young girls arrived. I decided to call the police. I don’t think a famous footballer is above the law,” he said.
The house belonged to Juve’s Weston McKennie and the gathering, which broke Covid rules, also included his team-mates Paulo Dybala and Arthur, all of whom had to be subsequently suspended by the club - so, they missed the 2-2 draw with Torino.
Presumably the police-calling person is a Torino fan? No. “I support Juventus - but maybe they should attend fewer parties and focus more on the pitch.” The neighbour from hell, that lad.
Quote of the week
"If a woman doesn't want to go out with you, you cannot force her. Step back and maybe she will call you." Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel on Timo Werner's ongoing struggles in front of goal, the fella not having a hot date with the scoresheet in his last 11 games.
Number of the week
5 - That's how many career goals Callum Robinson has scored in the Premier League - spookily, all of them against Chelsea (including Saturday's splendid double).
Word of mouth
"It was horrible. I apologise to all the mothers who saw their children get the same haircut." Ronaldo (the Brazilian one) finally says sorry for that, frankly, unforgivable hair-do he sported at the 2002 World Cup. Better late than never.
"Poor Werner is now used as a symbol for Germany and the vaccination failure. That is unfair but the comparison with amateur football works better, although the amateur leagues would be offended by that. Most players from TV Dornholzhausen or SG Bissenberg would have looked better in that moment, even if they had had a glass full of beer in their hand." Oliver Fritsch, writing in Die Zeit, on Timo's open-goal-miss against North Macedonia.
More word of mouth
"I've read a report that the UK is set for a heatwave of 24 or 25 degrees. If that was the temperature here, the players would be wearing overcoats." Newcastle old boy Lee Clark feeling the heat in his latest managerial post - having been boss at Huddersfield, Birmingham, Blackpool, Kilmarnock, Bury and Blyth Spartans, he's now in charge of Sudan's Al-Merreikh. That's one wacky career journey.
"Making room for them in Ligue 1 seems to me an opportunity for Scottish football as well as French football." Jean-Pascal Gayant, a Professor of Economics at Le Mans University, suggesting that Celtic and Rangers should join the French League. He wrote this in Le Monde on March 28th, not April 1st, in case you were wondering.
Ronaldo’s sister has his back
While Cristiano Ronaldo got a fair old chunk of criticism for chucking away his captain’s armband and walking off the pitch after his last gasp ‘winner’ away to Serbia was ruled not to have crossed the line, there was at least a happy end to the saga.
A fireman on duty at the game picked up the armband, gave it to a charity and they raised €64,000 in an auction that will be used to pay for the medical treatment of a six-year-old Serbian boy who suffers from spinal muscular atrophy.
Still, Ronaldo got slammed from left, right and centre for his behaviour, Juventus God Alessandro Del Piero among those to criticise him. How did this go down with Ronaldo’s sister Katia Aveiro whose defences of her brother at tricky moments in his career have often fallen in to the epic category? Well....
“Cristiano is a symbol of the nation. People in their noble wisdom say: ‘He who has no feelings cannot be the son of good people.’ Portugal was robbed with a scandal.... overcome with anger and starting a revolt that engulfed his soul against the motherland that he had defended so many times with teeth and nails, he threw the captain’s armband to the ground.... his intention was to throw the armband at the referee’s face for what he and his assistant had done against all of us. However, even though we are all disgusted by what happened, some ‘experts’ on television dared to criticise Cristiano’s gesture!”
The ref - and the ‘experts’ - should just be relieved they didn’t bump in to Katia after the game.
