FOOTBALL

🦅 Nazty surprise

Ever since sacking their knob-flashing eagle handler Juan Bernabe back in January, Lazio have been on the hunt for a new falconer to strut round the Stadio Olympico.

And after 11 months furiously dialling jilted employees of Baytree Owl & Raptor Centre, they finally found their man: Giacomo Garrut.

He passed the interview with flying colours, threw frozen mice high into the Rome sky, and best of all, he definitely didn’t have a prosthetic cock and a penchant for showing it off.

But there was one thing they sliiiiightly overlooked… his fascist tendencies.

After his announcement, eagle-eyed supporters scrolled back through Giacomo’s Facebook account, and found a post reading “Italy misses you, Benito”.

And in case you’re wondering, he meant Mussolini, not former Sheffield Wednesday striker Benito Carbone.

Although at Lazio, that’s probably a plus…

CRICKET

🧠 Spin doctor

The build up to this Ashes was remarkably good-natured, but there was one wily fox whose mind games proved simply too irresistible for Australia: Monty Panesar.

In an interview with a random betting site, Monty encouraged England to get in Aussie captain Steve Smith’s head by bringing up his infamous sandpaper cheating scandal.

And so, on the eve of the Ashes, Smith used his final press conference to criticise Monty’s iconic 2019 appearance on Mastermind:

As The Athletic pointed out:

And he’s thrown a kettle over a pub…

FOOTBALL

☂️ Wally wit da brolly

So it’s back to the job centre for Steve McClaren, who failed to “seal it up” as Jamaica manager.

Needing a win to reach the World Cup, the Reggae Boyz drew with the tiny island of Curaçao, who are going to America instead.

Not content with costing poor ol’ Steve his job, Curaçao’s assistant manager, Dean Gorre, later rubbed salt in the wound, by claiming he’d spotted McClaren bawling:

It’s not clear who’ll be picking up the pieces at Jamaica, but with any luck Steve Bruce is already practising his patois.

FOOTBALL

💅 Matcha the Day

Speaking of mastering a foreign language, the middle-aged execs at Sky Sports were slapping themselves on the back last week when they finally found a way of communicating with young, female sports fans.

Last Thursday, the brand announced Halo, a new TikTok channel marketed as “Sky Sports’ lil sis”, which would “bring together a community of women” and “champion female athletes”.

How exactly? By sharing posts plastered with hearts and pink captions, referencing everything from Barbie dolls to “hot girl walks”.

Unsurprisingly, people quickly pointed out the channel was unbelievably patronising…

After three days, the account was axed and Sky’s boss bitch CEO Dana Strong is hoping to get the brand back on fleek by the end of cuffing season.

SPERM RACING

🧬 Max Verfappen

Eric Zhu may be a prodigious tech bro entrepreneur with $20 million in his bank account, but he’s also a 17-year-old boy.

So is it really surprising he’s trying to turn masturbating into a national sport?

Eric is the brains behind sperm racing, a new fad taking over America, where competitors’ sperm samples are analysed and turned into an animated race.

The first event took place in LA earlier this year and, unbelievably, 4,000 people paid upwards of $250 dollars to be there. VIP tickets were $2,500.

To be fair it was a spectacle. There were instant replays, the loser was gunged with white slime, and the winner was awarded $10,000. There was even a boxing-style weigh in:

Guess it beats the Microsoft Excel World Championships…

💉 Quick hits

🏝️ Curaçao has only 150,000 inhabitants and a smaller land area than the Isle of Man.

🇭🇹 Haiti have also qualified for their first World Cup since 1974. They’ve not played at home in four years due to civil unrest and their French manager, Sebastien Migne, as never stepped foot in the country.

🍆 Sky Sports aren’t the only ones misjudging new ventures. The BBC almost named the In Depth analysis section of their website BBC Deeper, which would have produced some interesting Google results.

🔧 Al-Hilal midfielder, Kheira Hamraoui, is claiming £3 million in damages from PSG, for failing to fulfil its safety obligations after she was attacked with an iron bar in 2021.

⚽ Louis Buffon, son of Gianluigi Buffon, scored two hat-tricks in this international break for Czechia’s U19 team.

👊 Borussia Dortmund winger Karim Adeyemi has been fined £396,000 for possession of a pair of brass knuckles.

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AND FINALLY…

🤕 Insult to injury

It was the Expatico on Wednesday, as Hong Kong played Singapore in a spicy Asian Cup qualifier.

And this medic couldn’t help celebrating when a key Singapore player got injured and had to be stretchered off.

To be fair, Hong Kong fans aren’t known for their good sportsmanship.

One of the most popular chants in the terraces at Kowloon’s Kai Tak Sports Park is “Diu Lei Lo Mo”.

Which roughly translates as “fuck your mum”.