The Warm-Up: Will Pep Guardiola continue to wear his ribbon?
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Updated 27/02/2018 at 08:45 GMT
Plus: Neymar's jealousy and injury, a Premier League all-star game and Usain Bolt to play football. Here is your daily warm-up.
Pep Guardiola thanked Manchester City bosses for standing by him (Joe Giddens/PA)
Image credit: PA Sport
TUESDAY’S BIG STORIES
Will Guardiola keep wearing his ribbon?
The FA face quite a dilemma in the coming weeks: what to do about Pep Guardiola’s ribbon? The Manchester City manager was told to get rid of the yellow ribbon, worn in support of two Catalan leaders imprisoned in his home country, but defied those orders at the Carabao Cup final.
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Manchester City's Spanish manager Pep Guardiola watches from the touchline wearing a yellow ribbon, a symbol used by Catalan separatists in Spain, during the UEFA Champions League Group F football match between Manchester City and Feyenoord at the Etihad
Image credit: Getty Images
And it seems he intends to keep wearing it, which leads to the question of what exactly the FA will do. Will they simply keep fining Guardiola for his impertinence? Will they ban him from the touchline? What other punishments could they dish out?
The problem for them is that Guardiola doesn’t seem like the sort of person to back down in this sort of matter, and will almost certainly keep wearing his ribbon, because he genuinely seems to believe in the cause.
His answer when asked on Sunday how he squared supporting these oppressed peoples when he works for Manchester City’s owners and has been an ambassador for Qatar was incredibly weak, but that doesn’t mean his support for a cause close to his heart should be derided in any way. This could be an interesting few weeks.
Neymar jealous of Mbappe already?
We’ll level with you: there are not many hard news stories around today. So let’s go with some scurrilous and almost certainly untrue gossip instead. Diego Torres, the Spanish journalist who writes for El Pais, has written a series of pieces about how Neymar’s PSG honeymoon is well and truly over, wrote an absolute honker this week.
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Kylian Mbappé et Neymar lors de Strasbourg - PSG / Ligue 1
Image credit: Getty Images
The short version is that Neymar is apparently not happy with how good Kylian Mbappe is, that the golden boy of French football is outshining the world’s most expensive player, and such is the Brazilian’s sway at the club, he has persuaded them to get rid of Mbappe.
We know.
The story gets better/more absurd with the claim that not only will PSG get rid of Mbappe, but they will punt him off to Barcelona in exchange for a big hunk of cash PLUS Philippe Coutinho. Philippe Coutinho. The bloke who Barcelona went to a lot of trouble to sign about five minutes ago. It’s a fantastical tale, and one we thought we should share with you.
Still, it might all be a little moot: Neymar was stretchered off at the weekend and PSG have confirmed that he has broken a metatarsal and will thus probably be out for a while. ‘A while’ being a indeterminate period of time that will almost certainly include the second leg of the Champions League against Real Madrid.
Who would win in a Premier League all-star game?
It’s not an especially new suggestion and it has been tried before, but hey, it’s a bit of a slow news day so let’s try it again. Last night, Romelu Lukaku made the following suggestion on Twitter…
Is there any appetite for such a game? In a football consumer world where increasingly people enjoy the game in short, bitesize, YouTubeable chunks, this sort of thing might be just the ticket to keep those people interested. It would be a marquee occasion of sorts, lots of stars, lots of interest – it could work.
One problem is: when would you play it to ensure that all the stars actually played? A quick answer to that would be to replace the Community Shield, but that would be an issue in tournament years, and what about the players that left the Premier League that summer?
Also, would the stars of the Premier League take it seriously? They do in America, but these games have been established and reasonably prestigious for years. Anyway, not that it matters much, but it passed a few minutes, eh?
IN OTHER NEWS
Apart from being handsome, I think you have to like yourself. Having self-esteem, you have to give yourself value. I’m not going to say I look like a Prince, but you have to like yourself. I look in the mirror and I like what I see, and I like to look at myself, of course.
Cristiano Ronaldo is fond of his reflection. Who knew?
HEROES AND ZEROS
Hero: Usain Bolt
You’ll probably have seen that on Monday Usain Bolt announced he would be signing for a football team and it would all be announced on Tuesday morning at 8am.
Well, as it turns out he’s signed up to play in a UNICEF charity game in a team against Robbie Williams and other assorted celebrties. A big build up, but at least it’s for something worthy.
Zero: Usain Bolt
You’ll probably have seen that on Monday Usain Bolt announced he would be signing for a football team and it would all be announced on Tuesday morning at 8am.
Well, as it turns out he’s signed up to play in a UNICEF charity game in a team against Robbie Williams and other assorted celebrties. All that fuss and it was just for a friendly match? What a tease! We wanted Premier League, Champions League – we wanted this to be a self-serving publicity stunt with a little imagination. A charity game? Pfffft.
RETRO CORNER
Goal of the year from the inaugural Premier League season? Goal of the year from the inaugural Premier League season.
HAT TIP
Despite their careers having a significant overlap, the Premier League’s top two scorers never played together for England. By the time a sprightly 17-year-old Wayne Rooney was unleashed in a friendly against Australia in 2003, Alan Shearer had been retired from international duty for three years. Shearer would play on for another four seasons, scoring another 86 goals, but the passing of the baton from one great England centre-forward to another never happened. It very nearly happened at club level, though.
What if Wayne Rooney had joined Newcastle in 2004? On the Set Pieces, Alex Hess wonders what might have happened.
COMING UP
Bits & bobs. You’ve got the FA Cup fifth round replay between Swansea and Sheffield Wednesday, a few Championship games, a couple of Spanish fixtures. Basically you’ll switch one of them on but ultimately flick over to the Premier League Years.
Tomorrow’s Warm-Up will be brought to you by Adam Hurrey. I think. Someone will be here. Don’t worry. Stay calm. Shhhhh.
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