WE’RE GOING TO …
There are various notions of what, if anything, differentiates humans from other animals, one being the power of imagination. And, though animals haven’t yet abused that power to dream up horrors such as MK Dons, Pepsi Max mango and the Conservative party, they also haven’t devised inspired names for football clubs – Inter Miami, for example. For those wondering what makes it quite so special, the genius is that it parodies the name of another club, Internazionale, who are known by the unknowing as Inter Milan, but also because “Inter” sounds like “Into”, creating not just a pun but a double pun. There’s playing on the words … and then there’s dancing on them like they’re the soft, fleshy inside of Stephen Hughes’s right thigh.
And as of, er … Tuesday, no one is into Miami like Lionel Messi, who was “unveiled” – sadly not from underneath a tarpaulin – in front of a capacity crowd of enthusiasts at the club’s famous old DRV PNK Stadium. Though, when the deal was first mooted, Big Phil Neville was manager, his recent sacking is not thought to have dissuaded the little Argentinian tax expert from donning the iconic pink and black, its green detailing – between $50m and $60m a year, apparently – assuaging his disappointment at not getting to hone his stepover technique at the feet of the master.
But though it is the job of columns like this to snicker at the above in the manner of the above, it is also the case that supporters of the club – many of them Spanish-speaking residents of a soccer-starved city – are justifiably excited by the arrival of the little genius. So naturally, Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi’s rival and all-round enemy of good vibes, felt compelled to contribute in typically envious fashion, insisting that by moving to Saudi Arabia, he has one over on the man who has spent the last decade-and-a-half besting his every achievement.
“The Saudi league is better than MLS,” he blabbed. “In one year, more top players will come to Saudi Arabia,” … “and if they do, I’ll be as out of time as I was when I was humiliatingly hoofed out of the Manchester United and Portugal sides while the world laughed,” he strangely neglected to conclude. Happily for the rest of us, though, this is not something we need to imagine because it already happened, meaning when the other animals are finally sentient enough to play the humans at football, who’s to say they won’t call their team Inter Ronaldoshumiliation?
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I see him like a lighthouse – that he is willing to put light in others and improve others and make the team better and that is a huge quality. For me, to be a midfielder you have to have that and he’s got it 100%” – Mikel Arteta uses an interesting analogy while praising Declan Rice and has Football Daily wondering what happens if knack causes the light to go out? Do the Gunners hit the rocks and sink without trace?
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
If yesterday’s Football Daily thinks that Declan Rice’s purchase for £105m ‘could ultimately prove a snip’, I wonder what the £35m paid by Liverpool for Alexis Mac Allister, who made Rice Krispies of the midfielder when Brighton beat West Ham 4-0 a few months ago, could ultimately prove. How about ‘snap, crackle and pop’, as penned by the Rolling Stones in 1964?” – John Weldon.
Re: football presents (yesterday’s Football Daily letters). My brother is a Spurs fan and, many moons ago when he was in his early-20s and playing regular Sunday football, he was after a pair of socks that were distinctive and easily identifiable in the dressing room. So obviously I bought him Arsenal away ones for his birthday. Those purple-and-blue-hooped numbers from 1994-95. He opened the present and promptly popped the socks on the barbecue, incinerating them” – Matt Atkinson.
May I be the 1,057th Manchester City fan to remind you that Niall Quinn’s 1999 goalkeeping exploits for Sunderland (yesterday’s Memory Lane, full email edition) were not that strange. On 29 April 1991, Quinn scored for City against Derby County, then went in goal when Tony Coton was sent off for conceding a penalty. Quinn saved the penalty from Dean Saunders and City won 2-1 to confirm Derby’s relegation” – John Caley (and no other Manchester City fans).
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … John Weldon.
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