‘AND DON’T CALL ME SHIRLEY’
There’s a scene in N@ked Gun: a murderous doctor has just had his comeuppance on a runaway missile (via a collision with an oil tanker) and Lieutenant Frank Drebin stands in front of an exploding fireworks factory into which said missile and MD have just crashed. Workers run for cover. Explosions rip the roof off. Rockets whizz through the air. “All right. Move on! Nothing to see here. Please disperse! There’s nothing to see here …”
There was something of that ilk about Barcelona’s weekend insistence that There Is Definitely Not A Crisis Of Any Kind At Barcelona And It’s All Absolutely Fine And Lovely. After helping his side to a morale-boosting 3-1 win over Atlético, Lil’ Leo Messi adjusted his halo and adopted his most angelic expression. “I have never demanded anything to stay because I don’t have any intention of going,” he trilled. “I heard people say that my dad had spoken to Chelsea, to City … it’s all lies. I heard all sorts of things said. I never come out and deny [stories] but this time I am. It has been said that I have pushed out lots of people … Eto’o, Ibrahimovic, Bojan, Guardiola … [and] I didn’t ask them to sack our manager.
“It’s not good for people to look for rivalry between me and Luis Enrique because there isn’t any. It hurts because it comes from people who [supposedly] love Barcelona. It’s people who want to hurt the club.” Javier Mascherano was on the same page. “In any group of 40 or 50 people, things happen but that does not mean we’re not united,” shrugged the midfielder. “There is no problem with Messi and Luis Enrique. I don’t want to talk about [institutional issues] but when they stick us in the middle, you have to. It’s not nice for them to try to stain you.”
Still, at least everyone can cheer themselves up with a nice trip to the Ballon d’ … oh. 50-1 outsider you say? Mind you, even the 1-10 favourite Him had a miserable weekend, getting very cross when Gareth Bale failed to pass to him for a tap-in even though Real Madrid were 3-0 up. “Their relationship is fantastic,” cheered Real defender Nacho, as catherine wheels whirled in the background. “We’re a group, we all get on amazingly.”
Even the third and final Ballon d’Or contender had a rough time of it. Manuel Neuer had to take time out from his Big Book Of Very Hard Crossword Puzzles that he keeps handy to occupy him during Bayern matches to actually bend over and pick the ball out of the net. He conceded a goal. An actual real goal. Bayern still won, of course, coming from behind to beat Mainz 2-1 but it means all three contenders arrive in Zurich on a bit of a downer. Mind you, so does everyone. Every year with the Ballon d’Or Fifa pull an inverse Drebin – insisting there really is something to see here while standing in front of an empty space.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE TONIGHT
Join Barry Glendenning from around 4.30pm GMT, aka NOW!, for coverage of Him winning the Ballon d’Or.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
9 January: “It’s social media! It comes from Israel, or something. I heard that somebody else already took over! There’s a lot of rumours, what can I say? The only thing we need is to be positive. I know what our targets were before the season – we had agreements with the chairman – it’s not that because you don’t pick up points now everything is bad. I think the long-term is more important, but when they put things on social media, you can’t do anything about it, and I’m not going to waste energy on it” – Charlton boss Bob Peeters laughs off reports of his impending demise at The Valley.
11 January: Sacked. Pesky old social media. “The board felt they had to make a change at this time,” simpered a club statement.
FIVER LETTERS
“Louis van Gaal is starting to remind me of Lloyd Braun, George Costanza’s successful neighbour in Seinfeld to whom he is constantly compared. In episode 159, the highly recommended Braun is drafted in by George’s dad to turn around the family computer sales business. After a promising start Braun is roundly praised as a natural salesman, however in the end it turned out that Braun was just a crazy charlatan whose early sales were a sham and it ended up bringing Costanza & Sons to the brink of bankruptcy. In this analogy David Moyes is George Costanza, the maligned heir who took all the flack despite his sales figures being just as bad as Braun’s. Serenity now!” – Dan O’Brien.
“Regarding trying to add to the atmosphere as a fan (Fiver letters passim). My local team Brisbane Roar won the Flamin’ A-League for the third time in four years. I went to the parade, where they were handing out rolled-up ribbons to throw as they unfurled. At the presentation I went to throw one of these and failed to hold on to the tail for it to unfurl and instead nailed a tall guy towards the front in the head. Cue me looking behind me as I wandered to a different part of the crowd to hide in shame” – Phil Mercer.
“I liked Conor O’Rourke’s accurate description of Per Mertesacker as a Malay chicken (Friday’s Fiver letters). Expanding on that theme, might I suggest the chihuahua as Mathieu Flamini’s comparative animal. Both are quick, energetic and small enough to be carried around in a bag. Moreover, both are hilariously aggressive for someone of their size and build” – Rigel Barros.
“If we’re comparing Per Mertesacker to animals now, then surely the best comparison is the Greenland shark, an animal that is so slow it needs all of its food to be asleep in order to eat it. It has a top speed of 1mph, so its prey merely needs to be conscious to outrun it” – Daniel Doody.
• Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver. Today’s winner of our letter o’the day is: Dan O’Brien, who wins a copy of Amy Lawrence’s Invincible: Inside Arsenal’s Unbeaten 2003-04 Season. We’ve more copies to give away for the rest of the week, so keep trying, losers.
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BITS AND BOBS
Robin van Persie has been ruled out of attending the Ballon d’Or beano in which he is shortlisted for the Puskás Award because of ankle-knack. “I will be watching it from home and my good friend [Ruud] Gullit will take the honours for me,” he bullishly pre-empted.
Napoli president Aurelio Di Laurentiis has taken losing 3-1 to Juventus with customary good grace, commending the referee’s decision to award Juve’s second goal as “either bad faith or incompetence”, adding: “These six referees should be banned for a long time.” Meanwhile manager Rafa Benítez has got in on the act, though without his trademark ‘facts’. “They taught me a phrase when facing Juventus: ‘It can happen,’” he nudge, nudge, wink, winked.
Halmstad players have greeted their new away shirt with the sort of look local King’s Cross art students regularly offer The Fiver. “Are you joking,” Gok Wan-ed defender Jesper Westerberg after being given the turtle-styled neon yellow and green effort by the club kitman.
China goalkeeper Wang Delai wasted no time in accepting the advice of a ball boy who told him which way to dive before he saved a penalty against Saudi Arabia in the Asian Cup. China went on to win 1-0, while Palestine were thumped 4-0 by Japan in their tournament debut.
The good ship Do One has docked as close to Manchester as it could to have City’s Matija Nastasic ushered aboard it for a loan to Schalke for the rest of the season.
Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri has dented Liverpool fans’ hopes that he is interested in signing Liverpool’s Mario Balotelli. “I think this is a made-up story,” he parped. Meanwhile, Balotelli’s Mr 15% Mino Raiola has defended the striker’s form. “It’s not easy to go abroad and adapt quickly to a new team,” he smokescreened of the player who previously spent nearly three seasons in England.
And good news for The Fiver’s Pope’s Newc O’Rangers naming committee: Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver has pulled out of a bid to take over the club after his £20m offer was blocked.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
WIN! WIN! WIN!
We’ve got a pair of (home) tickets for Aston Villa v Liverpool this weekend up for grabs [second prize two pairs, etc and so on? – Fiver Ed] as well as some for Tottenham v Sunderland too.
STILL WANT MORE?
Like a Marxist at a Nietzschean convention, Falcao is highlighting the problems in Louis van Gaal’s philosophy, writes Dr Daniel Taylor.
Every Premier League game covered, several hundred comments and one or two tasty-looking rows in the comments section that would certainly result in car-park punches being thrown if they were said to someone’s face: it’s Monday’s talking points blog!
From Alan Pardew’s rictus grin to Marko Arnautovic offering Mathieu Debuchy the fastest route to a couple of weeks off: the best photographs of the weekend in The Dozen.
In Paolo Bandini’s Serie A blog this week: how Francesco Totti took the worst selfie of all time and other stories.
In Sid Lowe’s La Liga blog this week: the inaugural Javier Mascherano lecture on the ethics of journalism and Lionel Messi unites Barcelona.
Meanwhile, Takashi Murakami and Damien Hirst have had a go at scrawling Messi, all in the name of cheridee.
What are the wittiest chants you have heard at a football match? WELL!?
And, in case you missed it, Sunday’s Said & Done, which features a half-n@ked Diego Maradona and a tattoo gun.
Oh, and if it’s your thing, you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.
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