FOOTBALL

😡 Will you switch off that bloody Tracy Beaker and read up on overlapping centre backs

If you’ve ever spent your Saturday morning cowering from the drizzle in a miserable, bog-ridden park, you’ll know all about deranged football dads.

In a leaked Whatsapp exchange this week, one father ripped into the “damn embarrassing” performance of his son’s under-8s team, and their staggering inability to “work in 2 or 3s creating triangles/ vertical possession to move forward.”

Forgetting that his son was probably more interested in setting fire to worms than studying Roberto De Zerbi’s pressing game, he urged them to “watch any football match and assess how everything is trigonometry based in possession”.

The entire thing is utterly mental, and well worth a read.

Mark Manson is the bestselling author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. His newsletter, The Breakthrough, might change your life in just five minutes each week.

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CRICKET

🌹 A Warne-ing from history

As grifting Baroness Michelle Mone goes full Prince Andrew in the media, she can at least draw on her previous experience of public scandal.

Like in 2014, when she was accused of breaking up Shane Warne and Liz Hurley after Warnie rocked up to her hotel room with a bouquet of roses.

Mone later revealed the pair had been exchanging “flirty” calls and texts for months:

So she screwed the British taxpayer instead…

FOOTBALL

⚔️ Please don’t sit beside me, the stench of failure is unbearable

They were supposed to be Belgium’s golden generation, but Eden Hazard, Vincent Kompany and co never lived up to the billing. And it turns out there’s a simple explanation: they fucking loathe eachother.

Last year, the squad’s simmering hatred descended into civil war in Qatar, with Hazard and Leandro Trossard refusing to speak, and Kevin De Bruyne enduring taunts about Thibaut Courtois shagging his girlfriend while they were at Chelsea.

Now, as new gaffer Domenico Tedesco tries to blood a fresh generation of talent, the poison is back.

Belgian hacks are reporting that Courtois had a dressing room meltdown after a recent qualifier, raging he didn’t want to play with players who’d been relegated with their clubs.

Thibaut later explained: “if you fall behind… and you have relegated players in the team who have lost more matches than they have won then it becomes difficult to reverse that situation.”

Considering the dressing room contained Timothy Castagne, Youri Tielemans and Dennis Praet, who all went down with Leicester last season, you can imagine it went down well…

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BOXING

🐜 Best salable product of the world

“Gone are the days when it was for fun”, lamented Anthony Joshua last month, as he discussed his boxing career with Louis Theroux.

That became very clear in a soulless Riyadh hotel this week as AJ engaged in some very tepid trash talk with his old foe Jarrell Miller.

After flouncing past AJ and hissing “I smell pussy”, the 28 stone American then accused him of “ducking” their fight three years ago.

It was a slightly weird jibe considering their fight was cancelled when Miller failed a drugs test, blaming it on a Black Ant pill - one of those dodgy Viagra alternatives you see in the condom machine at horrible pubs.

They look legit - the packet describes them as "best salable product of the world".

And the farcical showdown ended with AJ picking a fight with a robot vacuum.

After the self-driving hoover bumped into him, Joshua told a journalist: “what the fuck is that, I’m gonna knock that robot out.”

TENNIS

🤬 Andrey if you don’t calm down we are going home

As they seek to entice hordes of caffeinated morons, tennis blazers are cooking up ridiculous new gimmicks.

After insisting the players adopt idiotic nicknames like “The Viking”, this week’s Ultimate Tennis Showdown introduced a “triple point bonus card” which lets players treble the value of a point.

Unfortunately, the only over-excited man child it attracted was headcase Andrey Rublev, who climbed the umpire’s chair and gestured in his face like a stroppy 9-year-old harassing his mum for another bag of Wotsits.

UPSHOT PODCAST

🎙️ Steve Bruce: The No.1 Geordies’ Detective Agency

He fights gangs, pens murder mysteries and once served a stint in the slammer.

Steve Bruce is not who you think he is.

From phone box scams to nights behind bars, meet the Premier League’s most misunderstood manager on The Upshot podcast…

AND FINALLY

🦕 How Roud

That's it for today. Thanks to Emyr. Happy Christmas!

Still want more?

🎙️ From run ins with war criminals to assaults with cabbages, dive into the weird world of Steve Bruce on The Upshot podcast.