He dived, ref
Friday 25 April 2008
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Aragon Espinoza makes a late bid for the Ecuadorian Olympic diving squad (©Getty Images)
Celebrating a league title is always a knotty conundrum. Just how do you express the emotion of a whole season's work in one brief demonstration of ecstasy?
Taking the plunge
Perhaps, like PSV Eindhoven, you are content to be pulled along in a trailer behind a truck. Or maybe, José Mourinho-style, you can remove most of your belongings from your person and hurl them into the stands. But Aragon Espinoza has found a third way after his goalkeeping prowess helped R. Standard de Liège to their first Belgian championship in 25 years at the weekend. At the start of the season he had promised that, should Standard finish top, he would jump into the Meuse river near their stadium. Sure enough on Monday he donned lycra and hurled himself into the cold and reportedly polluted water to the delight of 300 fans and several watching team-mates, none of who sought to emulate the Ecuadorian. But he himself will. "I'll do it again if we're champions next year," he boasted.
Olimpik ceremony
If FK Olimpik Bakı finish the year top in Azerbaijan it will be their first ever title, and having only conceded three goals in 20 matches this season, their chances are pretty good. But while logic would suggest their impressive record is down to cautious tactics and staunch defending, it turns out more nefarious forces are at work, at least according to Ramin Musayev, the vice-president of second-placed PFC Neftçi, who Olimpik held 0-0 at the weekend. "I have information that Olimpik are using warlocks," Musayev revealed. "I know that there was a meeting before the match involving their coach, the captain and these individuals." Witch is nice (geddit??!!).
Don't know they're born
No comment on this one, we're just going to let John Terry bang on in Chelsea FC's official magazine about how things were so much better when he was knee high to a grasshopper. "The young lads today aren't lumbered with jobs any more like we were," said Terry, 27 and not actually of the 1950s. "I don't want to sounds like one of those players who goes on about how it was 'in my day' because I remember what that used to sound like when I was a young player, But it's true to say that the young lads these days get treated really, really well. When I was in their position I was in at half seven every morning laying out the kit. That was one of my duties. There was only one kit man back then and three of youngsters used to have to help him put everything out – for the youth team as well as the first team. Then after training we had to clean the boots and we had three players' boots each and after that we had to tidy up the hallways and the dressing rooms. It was all part of the job but it meant we didn't leave until about five in the evening. These days the youth team lads are off at one or two o'clock. My view is that they should bring back some of the jobs." Also, you could leave your door open and get a bus into town, see a film and buy some boiled sweets for a penny and still have change.
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