International break funnies
(Swiss slash forevar!)
Indubitably the best bit of news this week is that one of the other Uruguayans tried to kill Edi Cavani by setting his trousers on fire (explanation below). There is more, however, so I have aggregated it all.
• America beat Italy for the first time ever (er, sorry, Italy) “even with Landon Donovan unable to play” (Dirty Tackle). Shouldn’t that have given them an advantage?
• Guardian: “the struggles of Ranocchia and Bonucci with their clubs... forced Prandelli to field Ogbonna, who plays in Serie B.” EXCUSE ME, NO-ONE NEEDS TO BE FORCED TO PLAY OGBONNA. EVER.
• Romania drew with Uruguay, which is probably their best result since 2008. Cavani, who is a very nice boy, says Romania were good and might qualify for the World Cup (WHOA THERE!) and that he likes Torje and Nicolita. Bloody hell he’s good.
• Switzerland were beaten 3-1 by Argentina. Shaqiri scored, so his ego, impossibly, is now even bigger. Messi got all the remaining goals, so Blick are calling the match “abend der Zauberzwerge” (Evening of the Magic Dwarves). Genius.
• The BUM’s method of dealing with Messi was to stick him under his arm and run off with him.
And Blick got a picture of it! Nice work, lads.
• Swiss-Argentine interaction was interesting. Benaglio seems hugely suspicious of Campagnaro’s latest head bandage.
• Dzemaili really missed Crespo, it seems. O_o
Like, WHOA. (Blick even did a Crespo interview! They have excellent taste.)
• Behrami presumably didn’t miss the BUM.
• You can tell it’s the Swiss team cos of the Albanian flag. (They had a Napoli one too, of course, but that goes without saying; Bern's no distance.)
• You would assume that Mehmedi’s horrified here, but in fact he always looks like that.
• Fernandez from Napoli played for Argentina! \o/ I occasionally saw him in the background behind Messi.
• Our babies were incredible (apart from Mehmedi, in Blick’s view; I thought he was good...). I suppose that makes sense; the world champion U17 team is growing up and becoming... a non-world-champion adult side. But maybe that’ll change.
• Derdiyok, who appears to be made of cheese, injured his hamstring about two seconds after coming on and spent the rest of the match falling over his feet, missing the ball and being carried off on a stretcher. He doesn’t change, does he?
• I think that was the first time I’ve watched a stream with Messi in it since the 2010 Champions League (in which the commentators were slightly distracted by the fact that Inter were winning). So, tell me: how do you people stand it? My commentator came in his pants every time the bloke touched the ball.
• And about five milliseconds after the final whistle blew, Inler was getting his number. That’s our boy.
Now, I must show you this hilarious sequence of snaps:
The Swiss are attempting to take their official team photo. Sounds straightforward enough, eh? (Even if those staff blokes are already hysterical at the prospect.)
Well, it’s not. Chaos reigns! The goalies are being squished to death, Shaq’s getting pushed off the end and what’s happening at the back there?... Oh, of course, see that nowty little face to the right of No. 5? It’s the BUM, complaining that he can’t fit on.
A new bench was brought in specifically for Shaqiri’s capacious behind.
Ta-dah! You’d never guess what went into taking it. Except that Gelson still can’t stop giggling.
Oh, and I’d better explain the Cavani thing. Using Google Translate and my rather scanty Romanian, I’ve pieced together the following story: at the hotel in Romania, Cavani was sharing a room with Sebastian Abreu. Edi, being a good boy, went to bed early, whereas Abreu stayed up for ages signing autographs (or so the article says). When he finally went to bed, he didn’t want to wake up Cavani, so he sneaked quietly into the room and got undressed in the dark. A couple of hours later they were both woken up by a burning smell, which they traced to Abreu’s trousers. He’d thought he was putting them on a hanger, but in fact he’d left them on a huge lamp (?!) that was evidently hot enough to char the damn things. (Yes, really. I put “lampă” through Goog numerous times and can’t get any other meaning. So unless it had somehow turned itself on, I think we need to ask why Romanian hotels are sticking Uruguayans in these rooms with the dangerous lamps - unless it’s a sabotage tactic, of course.)