FOOTBALL

🤏 The Art-ful dodger

When Mikel Arteta made the gritty ballad North London Forever Arsenal’s official anthem, we wondered if he fully understood the lyrics about crack dens and “brasses from the brothel”.

But it turns out the Gunners gaffer is on first name terms with the urchins, thieves and guttersnipes who creep the streets of Islington after dark.

At a recent team dinner, Arteta hired pickpockets to steal phones and wallets from his unsuspecting stars while they ate.

As Kai Havertz frantically searched for the pocket watch handed to him by his dying grandmother, a wild-eyed Arteta explained he’d orchestrated the heist to teach his players to be “alert at all times”.

FOOTBALL

🛑 You can see that in an earlier phase of play I was mooning passing cars from a bridge

It’s easy to think of VAR officials as pen pushing, desk bound killjoys, barricaded in an airless bunker on an industrial estate with their ties done up to eleven.

Perhaps that’s why they go so wild when they’re let off the leash.

Like the Polish refs who decided the night before a crunch Champions League qualifier between Rangers and Dinamo Kyiv was the opportune moment to go on a drunken bender and vandalise the local town.

Bartosz Frankowski and Tomasz Musiał were arrested at 2am on Monday night, when cops found them wandering down a street carrying a road sign.

On the day of the match, Polish media reported: “Both referees are now in a sobering-up centre and the police will soon charge them with defacing road infrastructure.”

They didn’t make the game, possibly because they were still in the police station drawing lines on the CCTV footage.

FOOTBALL

👨‍💻 Brazil nuts

Speaking of using VAR’s forensic lens to police loutish behaviour, Brazilian ref Anderson Daronco slightly abused his powers the other night.

After Palmeiras gaffer Abel Ferreira protested a decision by grabbing his balls, the ref turned to the pitchside monitor to watch slow mo replays of the incident.

He sent him off.

OLYMPICS

🔫 Korea change

The Olympics’ great charm is the sense of jeopardy. Ordinary people sacrifice their lives for glory in a sport that normally only attracts an audience of twelve gambling addicts at 3am.

And for every Simone Biles and Keely Hodgkinson landing huge Adidas contracts, there are a hundred regular schmucks whose defeat means returning to their miserable gig in HR at the Milton Keynes branch of Thompson’s Waste Management.

Or in the case of South Korea’s athletes, being dispatched for a 21 month stint on the DMZ, to eat dehydrated kimchi out of a sachet while balloons filled with human shit rain down on you.

Korean medallists are granted an exemption from the military service all men must do before they’re 35, and that was the carrot dangling before the eyes of golfer Tom Kim this week.

Unfortunately, after a promising final round, Kim double bogied on the 18th hole and ended up finishing 8th before bursting into tears in the scoring hut.

Kim’s only 22 though, so he’s got a few more shots at getting out of it. Unlike 34-year-old breakdancer B-Boy Wing who’ll be staring down the barrel of a 1970s Soviet rifle if he doesn’t win tomorrow…

OLYMPICS

🖖 Withered of Oz

Speaking of sacrificing everything for your country, Aussie hockey star Matt Dawson was hailed for his bravery when he amputated the tip of his finger so an injury wouldn’t stop him going to Paris.

Unfortunately, Australia were knocked out in the quarter-finals this week, meaning Matt will return to Canberra without a medal round his neck and struggling to wipe his own arse.

But at least he’s not banned from the closing ceremony like teammate Tom Craig, who was nicked by undercover cops on Tuesday night after trying to buy some horrible street coke in one of Paris’ poshest districts…

💉 Quick hits

🐕 NBC are paying Snoop Dogg $500,000 a day to be at the Olympics.

👑 After winning two gold medals, Philippines gymnast Carlos Yulo will receive a house, a lifetime supply of free ramen, free entry at a local buffet, £1,500 of furniture and unlimited colonoscopies.

🎮 GB skateboarder Andy McDonald had a video game named after him in 1999 - the imaginatively-titled Skateboarding Featuring Andy McDonald.

👨‍👦 5,000m runner George Mills is the son of former England defender Danny Mills.

⚖️ Serious commitment from Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat, who was disqualified for being 100g over the weight limit…

▶️ This week’s Extra Shot podcast is also available on YouTube. Let us know what you think. (Or get it on your favourite podcast platform here)

AND FINALLY

🛹 Old McDonald

We’ve banged on about the age gap between 51-year-old Andy McDonald and the rest of the GB skateboarding team, but here’s a great pic of the squad.

If you’re wondering who the boys are - those are the 12-year-olds Andy beat to qualify for Paris.

That's it for today. Thanks to Daniel, Anthony, Sammy and George.

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