TAXING QUESTIONS
In the eight years since He joined Real Madrid, He has won two La Liga titles, three Big Cups, 47 Ballons d’Or, coached Portugal to European Championship glory, become a Hollywood star, scored 1,057 goals, had 4,972 hissy fits, done 4,682,898 push-ups, been pictured with his shirt off 8,563,427 times and earned a side gig as Neil Buchanan’s trusty sidekick in Art Attack. All things considered, moving to the Bernabéu worked out pretty well, even though the £80m Manchester United received for Him allowed them to buy Gabriel Obertan and install some extra fluffy cushions in the directors’ box at Old Trafford. So, y’know, half a dozen of one and six of the other.
He’s entitled to feel that He got the better end of the deal, though, and United have mostly spent their time apart wistfully gazing at His Instachat page, praying for a sign that one day He might deign to agree to a “romantic” return “home”; a post about Fred the Red, say, or perhaps a picture of the time $tevie Mbe did that slip. They’ve had to be brave. It hasn’t been easy. They tried to fill the void by signing Bebé, but even that didn’t work and United were beginning to reach a point when they were wondering if it was time to let go of the past and splurge £100m on someone else.
But over the past few days something magical has been happening. He, it seems, has had it up to here in Madrid and is coyly fluttering those delicate eyelashes at United, who are frantically trying to keep it together lest they come across as a bit tragic and desperate and end up putting Him off, although Real’s protestations about there being nothing to see here haven’t been entirely convincing. “Right now, [He] is a Real Madrid player and something very strange would have to happen for [Him] not to be,” tooted Real’s president Florentino Pérez during a round of interviews on Monday night.
The problem for Pérez, however, is that He has long dreamed of playing alongside Marouane Fellaini. Furthermore He is said to be enchanted with the idea of sacrificing Himself for the good of the team when José Mourinho’s plucky upstarts willingly glue their backs to the wall in a tough away game. There have also been suggestions that mortal offence has been taken about the Spanish state prosecutor’s desire for His alleged tax-knack to be taken to court. “There was a story in the paper that said [He] was annoyed with the treatment given to [His] tax issue,” Pérez acknowledged, although The Fiver prefers to view the situation simply as a case of true love winning out in the end. Have a heart, Florentino. As Sepp Blatter said back when he was portraying himself as football’s answer to Moses, let Him go.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Dani Alves is an idiot. He makes 28 passes and only gets four right. As a right-back, Cafu and Maicon were good. Dani Alves? Poor thing. He speaks because he plays in a position on the pitch where football is not played. They [right-backs] touch the ball three times and make eight fouls per game” – Diego Maradona responds well to Dani Alves’s suggestion that he “deceived everyone” with that handball.
RECOMMENDED LOOKING
David Squires kicks off his off-season series on the Premier League at 25 … with a look back at the whole shebang’s inception.
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FIVER LETTERS
“The title of Proper Journalist David Conn’s new book, The Fall of the House of Fifa, is clearly an homage to Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic horror story, The Fall of the House of Usher. In Poe’s story, the dragon is slain and the House of Usher splits into two and disappears into a tarn. Without giving too much away, can you confirm that PJDC’s book stays faithful to the original and, even as we speak, the dormant volcano that serves as Fifa’s lair lies in pieces at the bottom of Lake Zurich? We won’t mention the dragon” – Robert Darby.
“For anyone who doubted Sepp’s role as villain-in-chief, to borrow from Sean Connery in From Russia With Love: white wine with côte de boeuf? Well, that should have told me something” – James Maltby (and no other oenophiles).
“The picture of Sepp Blatter in Monday’s Fiver showed him to be sporting the beginnings of a silvery-white beard. Is this his attempt to latch on to Jeremy Corbyn’s popularity? Will he next be promising Arsenal’s entry to Big Cup next season?” – Darren Leathley.
“I know Jack Wilshere is an easy target (Monday’s Announcement of the Day) but I for one shan’t be getting on his case, having been in a similar situation myself. It’s bigamy” – Nigel Stubbs.
“I trust that Mike Dunton (Monday’s Fiver letters) used an old Bic, a finest piece of Basildon Bond and a first-class stamp to try to ensure he qualified for Letter o’ the Day, a letter being defined as: “A written, typed, or printed communication, sent in an envelope by post or messenger”. Because if he has emailed then the irony would be too much to take” – Dan Hodge (and 1,056 others).
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 … James Maltby, who gets a copy of Proper Journalist David Conn’s brilliant new book, The Fall of the House of Fifa. Get in touch to claim your prize. We have more copies to give away, so get writing.
NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
Barry Bennell has been charged with 14 more counts of child sexual abuse against four boys from the ages of 11 to 14.
In news that could only have been received with his customary good grace, José Mourinho has been accused of tax-knack in Spain to the tune of £3m big ones.
Liverpool expect to complete the £35m acquisition of Mohamed Salah from Roma later this week.
The Premier League has told Spurs to jog on after they asked to reduce the size of the Wembley pitch so their players could continue to press like fresh and funky bull terriers next season.
A consortium of Newcastle Sunderland fans hoping to offer Tony Adams a key role at the club are among those hoping to hold talks with Ellis Short over the possibility of buying the Championship shambles.
And Swansea chief suit Huw Jenkins has jabbed a pointy stick in the direction of the clubs circling around Gylfi Sigurdsson. “He is priceless and we’ve got to make sure we do everything in our power to make sure he stays with us,” he blathered.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
It’s only bonus Football Weekly action, right here.
THE RECAP
Sign up and receive the best of Big Website’s coverage, every Friday, it says here. Seems to be a curious lack of mentions for The Fiver …
STILL WANT MORE?
Lemmy, Terry Butcher and Paul Di’Anno from Iron Maiden? Paul Doyle finally gets his wish to go deep on the similarities between heavy metal music and the head-banging football of the 70s and 80s.
In the first of a weekly series on women’s football Suzanne Wrack explains the significance for the English game if they were to win the Euro 2017 gong.
So other than stopping it, how do we make football great again? Daniel Harris gets his scalpel out and suggests five cosmetic changes.
Sunderland continue to pay the price for more than 10 years of mismanagement, writes Louise Taylor.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
