WHY Ryan Giggs pinned Cristiano Ronaldo to a wall, the reason Zlatan Ibrahimovic left Manchester United’s hotel, how Antonio Conte finds peace, and Tomi Juric’s great start in Switzerland.
All that and more in Monday Paper Talk!
WHY GIGGS PINNED RONALDO TO A WALL
You wouldn’t think it, but Ryan Giggs once pinned Cristiano Ronaldo against a wall at Manchester United’s training ground.
The surprising revelations claim the future superstar was drinking a can of coke at breakfast, which sent the Old Trafford legend into a fury.
The story has apparently come from former Red Devils striker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, courtesy of Aage Fjortoft’s Twitter account.
Fjortoft claims Solskjaer told him of the training ground bust-up that occurred during Ronaldo’s early days under Sir Alex Ferguson.
He wrote: “Solskjaer: Ronaldo came once to a breakfast with a coke in his hands. Giggs pushed him on the wall and said: don’t ever do that again!”
While doubts have been raised on social media that the story has been made up because it seems out of Giggs’s character, the desired result was achieved. Ronaldo doesn’t drink fizzy drinks for breakfast and won three EPL titles, the FA Cup, two League Cups, the Club World Cup and 2008 Champions League with Giggs at United.
Or maybe it has something to do with this...
WHY ZLATAN CHECKED OUT OF UNITED’S PREFERRED HOTEL
Zlatan Ibrahimovic has only been a Manchester United player for a month, but he’s already in peak Zlatan form for his new employers.
Zlatan’s already declared his intent to become ‘God of Manchester,’ and took his first step towards that end by scoring a bicycle kick goal just four minutes into his debut.
But what good is becoming a deity if Zlatan can’t even relax poolside on his off days? The hotel Man United had arranged for him to stay at while he looks for a place to live doesn’t even have a pool.
That’s simply unacceptable, so Zlatan did what Zlatan had to do, and checked out of the pool-less Lowry Hotel to move his family into the Radisson Blu a half a mile away.
The fact that the Lowry Hotel is Man United’s preferred hotel and for years has been used by the team before every home game, while the Radisson is frequently used by rivals Manchester City? Who cares! A proper God makes up his own rules, and seriously, what kind of “luxury” hotel doesn’t have a pool, anyway?
But how did Zlatan celebrate his first goal for United? A fishing trip of course!
The Swede is a keen outdoorsman and is known to be a fan of fishing and hunting. His latest trip was successful according to his Instagram post:
But if that wasn’t enough, Ibrahimovic was also spotted driving his family to a bowling alley in a car that used to be owned by Louis van Gaal.
Zlatan stopped to take photos with fans after spending the afternoon bowling in Manchester before driving away in the silver Mercedes S500 that was driven by former United manager van Gaal before he was sacked.
ROONEY TRUSTS IN MOURINHO’S POSITIONAL DECISIONS
Wayne Rooney has explained that he wasn’t taken aback by Jose Mourinho’s comments that he wouldn’t be playing in central midfield for Manchester United.
The new manager expressed in his first press conference that Rooney would play a more attacking role, and that’s fine with the 30-year-old.
“But Jose has come in, he has seen me play in another position for 10 years scoring goals, and that’s what he wants me to do,” said Rooney.
“It’s not as if it’s a new position for me. I wasn’t apprehensive at all. I was excited.
“This is one of the best coaches in the world and, sure, I’ve got to impress him. But I’ve always felt I’ve got to impress every manager and you should be able to play different positions.
“No-one spotted this, but during the tournament with England, sometimes in training I’d play the role of the opposition centre half alongside John Stones.
And was he a good centre half? “I was better than Stonesy,” he deadpans, then realises his joke may sound a little harsh in print. “No, I was OK. Good enough. If you watch enough football, you should be able to play different positions.”
HOW ANTONIO CONTE FINDS PEACE
Chelsea manager Antonio Conte has explained that accusations over failing to report an incident of an attempted match-fixing scandal while in charge of Sienna in 2011 almost turned his life upside down.
The Italian served a four-month ban and endured an extensive investigation and he’s revealed why he chose to go through it.
“The story is a bad story for me and I don’t accept this. I fought a lot against this story and I risked myself to go to have a judge,” he said.
“I wanted to be judged. In my heart the story was very bad for me, my family. I saw in that moment a bad situation, many people who wrote bad things without knowing the reality.
“My players know me from Italy, all the people, all the managers. All the people know who Antonio Conte is. In this situation I want always to win, I work very hard to win.”
That is exactly what Conte wants to do at Chelsea. He said the way he finds peace is through winning.
“I find the peace in myself after the game when I win,” he said.
“For this reason I want to work very hard and find different solutions and to give options to my players. Only when I win am I relaxed.
“We know that when you have a season when you finish in tenth place it is not good for all. It means there are problems.
“Now it is not important to say ‘ok we are ready to fight, we can come back very soon and win the title’ - these are just words. It’s important now to do facts, all together, because it is now not a good period for us.”
TOMI OFF TO FLYER IN SWITZERLAND
Australia’s Tomi Juric completed a dream first start for Swiss club Luzern, scoring a double against Grasshopper Club in a 4-3 Swiss Super League win.
The former Wanderers striker converted an early penalty before hitting a late goal to confirm his team’s result.
After playing his first two matches off the bench, Juric made the most of his opportunity and won the man-of-the-match award to help Luzern climb to second on the table.
MYANMAR SCREAMER AGAINST YOUNG MATILDAS
In front of 15,000 fans, the Young Matildas drew 1-1 with AFF Women’s championship host nation Myanmar to qualify for the semi finals.
Australia levelled the scores through Georgia Plessas’ cross-shot that ended in the goal with 13 minutes to play, but it was Myanmar’s 41st minute 30-yard screamer to open the scoring that will write the headlines.
COMICAL U-19S EUROS FINAL PLAYED IN GIANT WATER PUDDLES
How much water has to fill a football pitch before a match should be cancelled? If it’s the UEFA women’s U-19 final, it appears the answer is that anything short of a canoe being able to float on the field is just fine.
Seriously, just look at this video from the game between Spain and France:
Notice how the player kicks the ball with full force and it goes about two inches before it stops dead in its tracks? Yeah, that’s not really how soccer is supposed to be played.
The match in Slovakia was suspended at halftime for about two hours as storms pommeled the field. Grounds crew did make an effort to clean up the pitch but, uh, they were going to need a lot more people and a lot more shovels than this:
It’s unclear whether the water was to blame for this excruciating stoppage-time miss, though. With Spain down by a goal and given a golden opportunity to equalise, captain Nahikari Garcia was right in front of goal and somehow managed to sky it over the crossbar:
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