It was the craziest 56 hours sport has seen for quite some time. First came the brazen announcement of a new, elite football competition called the European Super League that would feature 15 founding members, who would never face relegation or fail to qualify, and five other clubs lucky enough to be invited into this exclusive cabal each year.
Then followed the backlash as fans, players and even Prince William and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed their outrage at a concept that picked at the very fabric of the sport.
Finally came the implosion as, one-by-one, the clubs started backing away quietly into a nearby hedge, Homer Simpson-style, as the anger from fans grew louder.
Somewhere among all the rage came the memes — frequent, hilarious and deserving.
Heineken, official sponsor of UEFA’s Champions League — the competition the ESL sought to undermine — got the ball rolling with a savage social media attack that suggested the ESL’s architects can’t possibly have been sober.
“Don’t drink & start a league. Enjoy Heineken responsibly.”
Everyone imagined a world in which every ESL club was expelled from their domestic league — a very real possibility at one point.
Wolverhampton Wanderers, who finished the 2018-19 English Premier League season in seventh place — behind England’s six ESL deserters, as it happens — retroactively proclaimed themselves the champions for that season.
Much of the anger in England was directed at Liverpool and Manchester United — two American-owned clubs said to be at the front of the queue when the ESL proposal emerged from Spain. Much of the mirth, however, was aimed at Tottenham and Arsenal — the two clubs who have never, ever won the Champions League but deemed themselves worthy of a place alongside 13-time winners Real Madrid in Europe’s elite.
Arsenal is currently ninth on the EPL table but at least has won the English title a couple of times this century.
Spurs are sixth (they also sacked their coach Jose Mourinho this week) and last finished top of the league in 1960-61.
“Inviting Tottenham to the European Super League is like Bananaman getting called up as an Avenger,” pointed out one fan this week. Possibly the same fan who declared Arsenal the inaugural ESL winners based on a competition table ranked in alphabetical order: “If anyone asks, Arsenal won the Super League … and Spurs came last.”
Finally, one British newspaper listed seven things that lasted longer than the ESL concept.
Among them were:
- Kim Kardashian’s marriage to NBA player Kris Humphries (72 days);
- Anthony Scaramucci’s White House job (10 days);
- The groceries in your fridge (7-10 days).
- The Suez Canal blockage (six days).
Will the ESL conspirators rise again? Possibly. Depends how much Heineken they’ve been drinking.
Mullet maketh the man
Aussie golfer Cameron Smith has tended to blend into the crowd most of his career. Even his name is unremarkable in Australian sporting ranks.
Ever since he grew his mullet out, however, Smith has earned cult status. And he doesn’t seem keen on giving that up any time soon.
Smith is playing alongside compatriot Marc Leishman this weekend in the Zurich Classic’s two-man team format, with the pair well in contention after the first round.
Leishman provides Smith with a steady hand on and off the course after volunteering to trim his locks before the tournament.
“Well, I said I needed to get a cut and I was going to go get one yesterday afternoon. ‘Leish’ said, I can do it, I cut my boys’ hair at home. So I put faith in him, and I think he did a pretty good job,” Smith said.
“I mean, the lines were there. I had a barber do it last year, so all Leish had to do was like a colouring in, just don’t go outside the lines. I had a pretty good template to work with. It wasn’t too tough.”
Leishman was typically unruffled by the task.
“During the quarantine, the start of last year when all the hairdressers were closed, my boys were getting a bit scruffy and I cut their hair,” he said. “I will say I was a bit nervous the first few chunks I took out, but they turned out pretty good, so I was confident I could handle the short sides for Cam.”
Smith’s woeful hairdo could prove his most lucrative asset given this week’s announcement that the US PGA Tour would hand out $50m in player bonuses in a new program to reward players who “move the needle” on and off course.
The system is designed to compensate players who produce the most engagement from fans and sponsors, with the player considered most valuable set to receive more than $10m.
Stat of the week
The NBA’s greatest sharpshooter, Steph Curry, proves that age is no barrier to success after becoming the first player since Kobe Bryant to score at least 30 points in 10 straight games this week. The 33-year-old is now the oldest player in NBA history to score at least 30 in 11 straight games — and most of his points came from beyond the three-point arc where he continues to operate in a world of his own.
Curry hit 78 three-pointers in a record-breaking 11-game stretch that ended on Thursday, breaking the mark for most three-pointers across 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four and three games along the way.
He scored 10 or more three-pointers in four of those games. No other player in NBA history has more than five of those in their entire career. Curry has 21.
BC’s tip of the week
Signore Fox (Randwick Race 5, No 5 on Saturday) made a winning return from a spell in a Group 3 race at Rosehill. The noises coming out of the Peter and Paul Snowden stable suggest the five-year-old can maintain his form. An interesting statistic, jockey James McDonald has yet to be beaten in four rides on the horse.
mcloughlins@
theaustralian.com.au
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