The air was thick with shisha smoke and pints of mint tea rained down on the caffeinated hordes at Boxpark Riyadh after minnows Saudi Arabia humbled Lionel Messi’s Argentina with a 2-1 victory yesterday.
And while it wasn’t quite flares up bums time yet, the shock scoreline did trigger some pretty un-Saudi scenes among victorious fans.
Like the bloke above, who ripped the door off his house and lobbed it in the garden while his mates went beserk in the living room.
Out in the countryside, things went up a notch…
https://twitter.com/StokeyyG2/status/1595081290574970882
There was plenty of self-congratulation at Brewdog this week, as they proclaimed themselves “anti-sponsors” of the World Cup in a new ad campaign.
As part of the stunt, CEO James Watts (above) attacked the World Cup hosts for promoting “corruption, abuse and death” and announced, “We’re putting our money where our mouth is, with all the profits from our Lost Lager sold during the tournament going to fight human rights abuse.”
Presumably those profits will include proceeds from the lucrative deal Brewdog struck recently to supply beer to, er, Qatar, as part of an agreement with the state-owned Qatari Distribution Company.
Brewdog signed the deal with the gulf state three months ago – just in time to flog its drinks to the thousands of fans travelling there for the World Cup!
Speaking of forgotten Newcastle signings, Chancel Mbemba scored for Marseille against Tottenham this week.
When he joined the Magpies in the bad old days of Mike Ashley, they spelled his name wrong on the back of his shirt (see above).
Although Mbemba probably wasn’t bothered: he’s not exactly a details man himself.
The Congolese centre back – pictured below arriving for his signing ceremony in full black tie – has officially changed his date of birth no less than four times.
His original birth certificate claimed he was born in 1988. But this then changed to 1990, which a Congolese official later admitted was done so he could qualify as an under 23 for their Olympic squad.
Mbemba then told teammates his year of birth was 1991, before taking bone tests when he signed for Newcastle which said he he was born in ’94.
Speaking about it in 2015, he said: “People in Africa know, me and my family, friends and anyone who knows Chancel Mbemba knows I was born on August 8th, 1994. That is all that matters.”
Good enough for us!
Karim Benzema winning the Ballon d’Or caps off an incredibly strange, sordid 12 years in the sexually-charged world of French football, where you’re never sure if your teammate will stab you or stick their tongue down your throat.
From blackmail to organ harvesting, here’s a recap of the most colourful moments in the sinister sexual psychodrama engulfing Les Bleus since 2010…
2010: A birthday present
On the eve of the World Cup, Karim Benzema and Franck Ribery are accused of shagging underage prostitute Zahia Behar. She claims she was flown to Munich as a “birthday present” from Ribery to himself. They’re later acquitted in court after denying they knew her age, but she becomes a national celebrity.
2010: Mutiny in Knysna
Les Bleus’ World Cup campaign descends into outright mutiny in South Africa. Hated coach Raymond Domenech sends striker Nicolas Anelka home, and the team strike in protest. They storm onto the team bus, draw the curtains, and refuse to train. They finish bottom of their group.
2013: Abidal the organ harvester
Eric Abidal makes a triumphant return to football after a liver transplant. He claimed the organ was his cousin’s, but Barcelona president Sandro Rossell is taped discussing “the purchase of an illegal liver”. Abidal is now under investigation for organ trafficking.
2015: Sex tape blackmail plot
At a France training camp, Benzema slips into the room of teammate Mathieu Valbuena to urge him to pay off a group of his mates, who have got hold of the winger’s sex tape. “Be careful Mathieu. They are big, big thugs,” he warns.
Police wiretaps record the Real Madrid striker telling the blackmailers, “Don’t worry, he has no choice, I’ll make him understand. He’ll pay.”
Benzema is later convicted of blackmail.
2014: Giroud caught with his pants down
Hours before a crunch FA Cup tie against Liverpool, the tabloids leak pics of Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud cheating on his girlfriend in the team hotel with an FHM model. The photos, taken the night before a Premier League fixture, show Giroud in his pants.
2016: Sorcery in Saint-Denis
A star-studded French team lose to Portugal in the Euros final at the Stade de France, in a game mildly disrupted by a “super swarm” of moths. Paul Pogba’s brother later claims the midfielder was to blame, having paid a witch doctor to summon a “plague of butterflies” to sabotage his opponents and win the game for France. Hope he asked for a refund.
2016: The Drip Doctor
Samir Nasri pays a visit to the ‘Drip Doctors’ for an ‘injection of nutrients’. He later posts a string of tweets claiming the nurse “provided me a full sexual service too right after”, before insisting he’d been hacked. He’s then banned for doping.
2017: Harlem knobjockey
Antoine Griezmann is widely condemned after sharing a picture of himself blacked up, and dressed like a 1980s basketball player. “Calm down guys. I am a fan of the Harlem globetrotters… It is a tribute” he claims, before quietly deleting the pic.
2018: A brief moment of glory
In a brief hiatus from unbridled chaos, France lift the World Cup in Russia. But while the Griezmann and co popped champagne, the next generation of talent were whetting their whistles…
2019: The curse of Old Trafford
Paul Pogba allegedly resorts to witchcraft to help Man Utd beat PSG in the Champions’ League. According to his brother Mathias, Pogba hired a witch doctor to curse Kylian Mbappe, and ‘neutralise’ him before the game. Apparently it cost him €4 million. It worked, though.
2021: Saliba in the Splash Zone
A selfie video emerges from a France age group camp of Arsenal’s William Saliba, in full team tracksuit, sat beside a naked man who’s masturbating while watching something (porn) on his phone. It’s captioned “Saliba in the splashzone”.
2021: I hope you’re going to scold him
When France throw away a 3-1 lead to crash out of the Euros, Adrien Rabiot’s overbearing mum Veronique turns on his teammates’ families.
The Parisian battleaxe told Kylian Mbappe’s father his son was “arrogant” after his missed penalty, adding: “It is embarrassing how he struck that, for a player of his level. He hit it too lightly. I hope you are going to scold him.”
And she had a 20 minute row with Paul Pogba’s friends and family, after she blamed the Man United midfielder for Switzerland’s late equaliser. It became so heated the stadium stewards had to intervene.
2021: Life’s a gas
Journalist Romain Molina claims “More than half the French squad are addicted to laughing gas.”
2021: L’affaire Hamraoui
PSG Women’s star Kheira Hamraoui is attacked on the way home from training by a group of masked men, who batter her with iron bars, paying special attention to her legs.
Midfield rival Aminata Diallo takes her spot in the team, but is later charged with masterminding the assault.
2021: Abid of a pickle
In the aftermath of the attack, it emerges that Eric Abidal – now fit as a fiddle thanks to his new liver – has been having a secret affair with Hamraoui. The dirty dog begs his wife for forgiveness, but she files for divorce instead.
2022: Speaking of dirty dogs…
French FA president Noël Le Graët is accused of sending filthy messages to female colleagues. “You’re awfully curvy, I would definitely put you in my bed”, the 80-year-old told one employee. As another co-worker put it: “It’s very simple, he jumps on anything that moves.”
2022: Hammer blow
West Ham’s Kurt Zouma is ordered to do 180 hours community service after a video emerges of him booting his Bengal cat across the kitchen, and pelting it with designer shoes. Zouma issues a grovelling apology, but the RSPCA take the cat, and West Ham fine him £250,000. Photos of Zouma clearing rocks from a canal on community service lead to the glorious tabloid headline, “I’m forever throwing rubble”.
2022: Who said crime doesn’t pay?
Karim Benzema wins the Balon d’Or, making him the first convicted sex tape blackmail plotter to be named the best footballer in the world. He dresses as his hero Tupac Shakur for the ceremony.
2022: A man named Bilel
Investigators believe Aminata Diallo, the PSG star accused of masterminding an attack on her teammate, has a split personality disorder. They claim to have recordings of her using a deeper voice and referring to herself as a man named Bilel.
2022: The cherry on top
A glorious 12 years is wrapped up with this bombshell from French hack Romain Molina.
We’ll keep updating this article when more mad shit happens – because you know it will.
In the meantime, you can follow every twist in this simmering psychodrama in our weekly email. It’s a three minute rundown of all the funniest stories in sport: drunken antics, dressing room squabbles and everything else BBC Sport wouldn’t touch with a ten foot barge pole. Sign up here.
As Shoya Nakajima’s mum and siblings boarded the 13 hour flight from Japan to Turkey, they probably dreamt of watching the forward net a spectacular winner on his home debut for Antalyaspor.
Unfortunately it didn’t quite pan out like that.
Just 20 seconds after coming on as a sub, Nakajima dived into a rash two-footed tackle, leaving his opponent writhing on the floor and the ref with no choice but to send him off.
https://twitter.com/Transfersdotcom/status/1571392587117826051
As a red-faced Nakajima slunk past his manager, he cast a sheepish gaze up into the stands, where his distraught mother buried her face in her hands.
On the plus side, Nakajima’s three game suspension means he’ll be able to spend some quality time showing his family around Turkey.
They don’t make sports stars like George Best any more, and that’s probably good news for everyone. But even by his standards, Best’s short stint in Scotland involved some serious hell raising.
Now 35 and past his best, the feted winger shimmied into the Hibernian dressing room to the acclaim of everyone, except his new manager, who described the signing as a “disaster waiting to happen”.
It didn’t take long for him to be proved right. In February 1980 Best went AWOL for days, missing training. Nobody knew where he was until the tabloids published photos of him stumbling out of a London nightclub.
With a big cup game against Ayr United coming up next, the gaffer handed Best a final warning, ordering him to spend the night before the big game in his room at Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel.
But Georgie’s plans for a quiet one were derailed when he bumped into hard-drinking French rugby player Jean-Pierre Rives in the lobby, who insisted they have a sesh.
And things escalated when Debbie Harry, lead singer of Blondie and every 70s teenager’s wet dream, joined them at the bar.
Best has no recollection of what happened next, other than “bedlam”. His next memory came at 10am, when hotel staff carried him from the bar to his bed.
One hour later, a Hibernian coach arrived to pick him up for the game. He found Best, passed out in bed next to a girl (possibly Debbie Harry), unable to say anything except “I’m so pissed.”
Eventually, after a vat of coffee and several slaps, Best opened his eyes, gestured towards his companion, and quipped: “What would you rather do, spend the afternoon with her or play Ayr United?”
He didn’t make the game.
