CHEW ON THIS
A couple of years ago the Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch volunteered to coach some kids near his home. Midway through the session he must have felt a hunger pang, because he bent over, reached into his sock, pulled out some fried chicken he’d stored there, and chowed down. “My auntie fried up some chicken and I had my hands full, and I don’t have no pockets on my shorts, so I just had to use what I had,” he explained. The problem wasn’t so much that he ate chicken during a training session – though that was a little unusual – but that humans, prone as they are to storing food in fridges and cupboards, consider socks to be an unconventional larder, particularly if they are being worn at the time.
In 1998 the Atlético Mineiro striker Edmilson scored against América, a team from Belo Horizonte widely known as Coelho, or rabbit. He had planned a celebration for precisely this occasion, which was why he’d spent the preceding 20 minutes playing football with a carrot in his underpants. He pulled it out of his jockstrap and joyfully munched it in front of his fans. “Did I find it revolting to eat it? Of course not,” he scoffed. “I don’t find my own body revolting.” Then there was the game between Manchester United and Charlton in 2006 when Rio Ferdinand fell to the turf. The physio ran on, fumbling in his bag. But instead of bringing out a bandage, magic sponge or anything with acknowledged medical benefit, he produced a couple of Jaffa Cakes, which the defender ate before getting on with the game. Tom Ince has admitted occasionally eating Fruit Pastilles mid-match. There are probably others.
So it’s not unheard of for sportsmen to eat while playing, nor for them to have kept said stuff in their undercrackers. But all these cases involve identifiable foodstuffs, not secret tiny mystery performance-boosting miracle mystery things. So what did Lionel Messi pull out of his socks and gobble after nine minutes of Wednesday night’s win over Olympiakos? And is it coincidence that it was only after he ate it that he and his team started being actually good? It has been widely described as being “a pill” and Spanish hacks have suggested it contained nothing more sinister than glucose. To The Fiver, it is yet more evidence that Messi is not entirely human. He already possessed many of the attributes of a superhero but the evidence is becoming incontrovertible. Consider this:
1) Spinach capsules are a thing. Popeye gained superhuman strength after eating spinach and while he generally got his from a tin, that was primarily because spinach capsules didn’t exit in the 1930s. He consumed his spinach in the most easily transportable form available at the time, which is now a pill. Messi ate a pill. Messi and Popeye share many characteristics, including … well, mainly becoming more amazing at stuff after eating spinach. If that’s what Messi was eating. Which it might have been.
2) Other superheroes also became powerful after eating particular things, including Bananaman.
3) That’s really all we’ve got.
But this could change everything. Until his sock-snuck snack was spotted, nobody really knew how to stop Messi. Now they must simply get their hands on whatever he keeps down there before the genius himself does. This, The Fiver hopes, will lead to some comic scenes in future Barcelona matches. Though, if he starts keeping his mini mid-match meal where Edmilson hid his, things might start to get really messy.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I know I shouldn’t have done it but I spent a lot of money going to Accrington on Saturday and spend a lot of money watching the club. I explained to Michael Doyle that the club’s in disarray. People are spending a lot of their wages and not getting a performance. I wasn’t abusive. My actions waving my arms might have seemed that way but I just told him I’d had enough. I’m tired of the players not putting in a performance. I’m sick of it … If I get banned then I’ll accept it but it was the only way I could vent my frustrations. I know it’s not right but what other options have I got?” – Darren Kedzierski, who invaded the pitch during Coventry’s 1-0 home defeat by Forest Green for a full and frank chat with Sky Blues players, explains his actions.
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FIVER LETTERS
“After you rubbished social media disgrace LinkedIn (yesterday’s Quote of the Day), I feel compelled to point out that Andrew Durante, skipper of Wellington Phoenix and defender with New Zealand, is on there. How do I know this? I’m linked-in with his dad (who I used to work with) and I subsequently became ‘friends’ with Andrew via this same medium. If the All Whites overcome Peru in the play-offs next month, my LinkedIn pal may even play in next year’s World Cup. Let’s face it, my schoolboy dreams were dashed long ago so this tenuous connection is the closest to international football glory I’m ever likely to get” – Allastair McGillivray.
“As someone who is delivering six sessions to about 150 university students next week on LinkedIn, can I be one of possibly 1,057 pedants to point out that the number of users of this particular social media disgrace in the UK is a bit nearer to 23 million rather than 2? Perhaps Weird Uncle Fiver could try shadowing someone in the real world for a day?” – Paul Sheppard [the banning order precludes this – Fiver Ed].
“In his interview with ShortList, it seems nicest man in Hollywood, Jeff Goldblum, has beef with Portugal’s captain: ‘I campaigned for Hillary Clinton … I share my enthusiasm about her. And of course, I’m concerned about Him’” – Jim Hearson.
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 prizeless letter o’the day is … Allastair McGillivray.
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NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
England interim women’s coach Mo Marley says she would be “100% willing” to consider selecting Eni Aluko after the FA apologised to the striker and her Chelsea team-mate Drew Spence for racially discriminatory remarks made by Mark Sampson.
Antonio Conte angrily told José Mourinho to stop talking about Chelsea when journalists cunningly reignited last season’s feud after the 3-3 draw with Roma. “I never speak about [knack]. Other managers cry and cry and cry. I don’t cry,” parped Mourinho. Oh aye? “If he is speaking about me, I think he has to think about his team and start looking at himself, not others,” sniffed Conte.
Arsenal and Liverpool fans will be able to enjoy Christmas Eve with their families after the suits at Sky bowed to the backlash and instead switched the game to the evening of 22 December, aka Black Eye Friday. Premier League suits have also confirmed there will be no games on 24 December.
Ronald Koeman reckons he still retains the confidence of the Everton board, but only if he can turn things round sharpish. “Maybe I am in the crisis already,” he tooted. “They came to see our new building and of course they had a good lunch and yes, they spoke about football.”
Ron Atkinson will presumably be the next manager to say no to Leicester City’s alphabetically-minded job hunt after Sam Allardyce and Carlo Ancelotti distanced themselves from it.
And Serie D side Turris have hit out at the Italian league’s disciplinary body after Giovanni Liberti was hit with a five-match ban for “urinating in the direction of the away section, making obscene and vulgar gestures, while showing his genital organ” during the 3-3 draw with Sarnese. “Liberti absolutely did not do what is alleged,” fumed club president Antonio Colantonio. “There’s a fountain near the wall and the player … was drinking and adjusting his shirt which, by regulation, should be inside his shorts.”
THE RECAP
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STILL WANT MORE?
“I commend the two England players [Eni Aluko and Drew Spence] for standing up for their principles when it would have been easier to sweep it under the carpet and not face the public scrutiny and inevitable questioning of their characters that they have been exposed to. They are braver individuals than me and that is how society moves forward – when courageous individuals question the status quo and its hierarchy.” Liam Rosenior’s latest column.
The FA’s shortcomings were horribly exposed at Wednesday’s select committee hearing, and change at the very top is needed, writes Martha Kelner.
You’ve not really done extra-curricular matchday entertainment properly until you’ve worshipped a swede in the centre circle and then kicked it towards the home end, as Hereford once did. This, some 1956 footage of Spurs v Manchester United in New York and many other treats await in this week’s YouTube roundup.
A flirt, four points and a barb. Jamie Jackson on a very Mou week.
Sachin Nakrani reads the vibes as uneasiness descends on Stamford Bridge amid that six-goal belter.
It’s time to put MLS under the microscope in the aftermath of the USA! USA!! USA!!!’s failure to reach Russia, reckons Jeff Rueter.
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