ON GAARD!
The Fiver neither knows nor cares what you were doing when you were 16 years old. Chances are, if you were anything like the Fiver at 16, you were drinking yellow-pack rot gut in a bush then furiously chewing gum so that when you walked in the door at 10.30pm, Mr and Mrs Fiver thought you had spent the night playing pool against yourself at the local arcade rather than drinking yellow-pack rot gut in a bush. (They knew, by the way. Oh they knew.)
And chances are, if you are now spending your time reading this, then you were probably not doing what 16-year-old Martin Odegaard was doing today and that is
putting pen to paper for a deal to sign with Real Madrid for a reported £3m with a reported £80,000 landing in his Credit Union account each week. Yes, you read that right. A 16-year-old is signing for Real Madrid for £3m and £80,000 is going to land in his Credit Union account each week. Makes you sick to your back teeth doesn’t it?
Unveiled to a group of hacks today – the number of which could have filled the Bernabéu a few times over and who were kept waiting for a full hour and 15 minutes – here is what the young man had to parp about it all: “It’s a dream come true, it’s unbelievable and it’s incredible that I am ready for the best club in the world. It’s an honour.” Once The Fiver woke up from that torpor-inducing soundbite, it heard one more parp from the prodigy before nodding off again: “Real Madrid was the best option, both from a sports point of a view and also from outside. And the best conditions.”
That last line should calm those who took to a lazy-story generating social media site to express their concern for Odegaard’s future. One of which was not The Fiver, which was playing it cooler than Captain Birdseye skinny-dipping in the Arctic. That was because The Fiver knows. The Fiver knows Odegaard is moving to the sort of club where they take their time with the development of young players and their fragile talents – right, Samuel Eto’o? – and where they have a distinguished history of nurturing said talent into their first team – right, Juan Mata? – rather than, say, just buying the biggest player in the world that year and not giving an eff about the kids. That club, The Fiver reasoned, was the sort of solid basis that should help him navigate the many pitfalls of a career in professional football. Phew!
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It is probably the Hobnob actually as it’s strong in the dunk” – Burnley’s Sam Vokes gets into the spirit of the thing in a Twitter Q&A. The question, by the way, was: “What’s your favourite biscuit?”
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
When the Fiver was told about our new video series we were expecting in-depth coverage of a selection of exciting chops, steaks and cutlets. Instead “Guardian Football meets …” in actuality involves talking to footballers. First up:
Mr Em lets Barry Glendenning into his house.
FIVER LETTERS
“I’ve had some issues with my virus-riddled computer not properly loading pictures in my emails, so woe is me for confusing your cute blank picture from yesterday’s Fiver as another incident and refusing to actually read the email (as if I needed the picture to not laugh at the jokes? I know, it’s all so silly in hindsight). Anyway, I eventually got around to trudging through it, so I hope it’s satisfying to know that I felt really stupid” – Jose Ordonez.
“I was dismayed and concerned for the strength of my Wi-Fi reception when reading Wednesday’s Fiver on my mobile device. The often topical illustration was not loading and all I saw was a blank square, credited to Big Website. Upon further reading I was quick to understand the illustration was indeed topical, and probably the best gag of the whole email. This makes me wonder, if The Fiver were to publish a blank email, would it be funnier than the usual 500 rambling words simply there to bookend the Soulmates plug? And it’s not like Big Website would care too much, I mean look at the sloppy work the photo editor is signing off on” – Jef Diesel.
“If The Fiver really needs space fillers (yesterday’s Fiver), then might I suggest you write about Wednesday’s clash between Equatorial Guinea and Burkina Faso. With 12 syllables in their names combined, this was surely the wordiest meeting of football sides since, er, these two met in 2011. Prior to that, the honour must have belonged to 2010’s Trinidad and Tobago versus Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (15 syllables). Of course, everyone’s dream match in this sort of thing would be a juicy tie between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (26, including the ‘thes’). And perhaps Bosnia and Herzegovina (nine), would get a look in. But for pure place names – no ifs, buts, ands, thes, democratics and republics – the award should go to yesterday’s African combatants. Fortunately for you, Fifa has only seven monosyllabic members, and you’re not likely to see Chad, Laos and Guam cross swords anytime soon. You might see Wales v Greece, though. Or you might get really lucky, with France v Spain” – Trevor Marshallsea.
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BITS AND BOBS
Energiya Nova Kakhova player Volodymyr Kozlenko has been banned after being filmed making calls on his mobile phone during a friendly game against Olimpik Donetsk. “[He] got it out from time to time, called someone and conversed,” fumed an Olimpik statement, which branded his action “anti-football” and “clownery”.
Things got pwopah nawty between Diego Costa and Jordan Henderson in the tunnel after Liverpool’s draw with Chelsea on Tuesday.
So Kevin de Bruyne is heading to Manchester United, right? Wrong! “There is always going to be interest when things have been going so well but I can tell you Kevin is happy where he is,”
chirped his Mr 15%.
Plucky Little Tottenham boss Maurico Pochettino wasn’t best pleased after his side beat Sheffield United 1-0 in the home leg of their Carling Cup semi-final, a game that, if The Fiver is not mistaken, included Michel Vorm playing for time. “We played a very slow tempo,”
he trilled.
Goalkeeper Hope Solo has been suspended for 30 days by US Soccer. “During our current national team camp, Hope made a poor decision that has resulted in a negative impact on US Soccer and her team-mates,” school-guidance-counselored head coach Jill Ellis.
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