The Warm-Up: Germany drop Sane, everyone goes absolutely inSane
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Updated 05/06/2018 at 07:39 GMT
Single figures now: Nick Miller begins the countdown with nine days remaining until the World Cup in Russia begins...
Leroy Sane
Image credit: Getty Images
TUESDAY’S BIG STORIES
Löw Goes InSané In The Membrané: Or, Man Who’s Watched These Men At Much Closer Quarters Than Us Doesn’t Pick The Premier League Player
The football world lost their brains for a short spell on Monday when it was revealed that, like a tardy student handing in his dissertation at the last minute, on the deadline for the World Cup squads Jogi Löw had chosen Bayer Leverkusen’s Julian Brandt in the Germany 23 rather than Leroy Sane.
Of course, those of us who watch football in England know Sane to be very good indeed at football, thanks to his dazzling performances for Manchester City over the last couple of seasons. So it was something of a shock that he was omitted: although it perhaps shouldn’t have been quite so alarming that a country who win a lot have great strength in depth.
Still, Löw gave his reasons, and perfectly cogent ones they are too. But that didn’t stop people continue to lose their brains that Germany had not selected the player they had heard of, despite the man doing the selecting having watched said player pretty closely, one assumes, over the last few weeks.
It does seem harsh, and maybe Löw will live to regret it. But this is the manager of the German national team. The German national team who are defending champions. The German national team whose worst – worst – World Cup result in the last 40 years is the quarter-finals. Chances are he knows what he’s doing.
Karius was concussed in the Champions League final
If it was possible to feel more sorry for Lorus Karius after his nightmarish Champions League final, then perhaps the news that he was concussed thanks to Sergio Ramos’s wandering elbow will do it.
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Loris Karius of Liverpool FC
Image credit: Imago
Karius was examined by a specialist in Boston, who determined that:
After carefully reviewing game film and integrating a detailed history – including his reported present and immediate post-contact subjective symptoms – physical examination and objective metrics, we have concluded that Mr Karius sustained a concussion during the match 26 May 2018.
"At the time of our evaluation Mr Karius’s principal residual symptoms and objective signs suggested that visual spatial dysfunction existed and likely occurred immediately following the event. Additional symptomatic and objectively noted areas of dysfunction also persisted. It could be possible that such deficits would affect performance."
So not only did he suffer the most horrendous match anyone can possibly conceive of, but it might not have been his fault either. In fact, it might have been someone else’s fault.
Kanu has $11,000 stolen from his luggage
The headline says it all really. On his way to play in a legends game, Nwankwo Kanu had $11,000 taken from his luggage at Kaliningrad airport, which frankly raises all sorts of questions.
“As soon as I got to the hotel and opened my suitcase, I knew something was wrong,” he told KweséESPN. “When I opened the second bag, it was the same thing, I was in shock.
“I was impressed by the way they handled everything. It didn’t even take up to one day. In some places, they might have been going round and round and nothing would come out of it. But these guys were very professional and I am relieved that they resolved everything so quickly.”
IN OTHER NEWS
Is it too late to start a petition to get India into the World Cup?
Messi and a goat…erm
A recent piece on ESPN suggested Leo Messi was generally extremely reluctant to do promotional and media work, and suggested that he almost walked out of a pre-arranged photoshoot in which he was merely asked to kick a football. So well done to the PR person who persuaded him to pose with a goat. Smiling. And in two different shirts too.
CRRRRRUUUUUNNNNCCCHHHHH
That’s US international Sydney Leroux Dwyer, sticking a reducer on her child. Brutal.
HAT TIP
Southall shows empathy for a fellow goalkeeper in Karius – who endured a nightmarish Champions League final. “You can’t change it,” he says when asked how he would console Karius. “But you can’t let two mistakes define your career. You either keep swimming or you drown. Of course I empathise with his pain. I know exactly what he’s going through. If I made a mistake, and it was my fault we lost, I wanted to kill somebody. I wanted to physically hurt somebody. Not because they’d done anything wrong but because that’s how I felt.
If you’re Piers Morgan, probably best you don’t read Don McRae’s interview with Neville Southall in the Guardian. If you’re someone else, fill your boots.
RETRO CORNER
On this day 50 years ago, England lost to Yugoslavia in the semi-final of the European Championships in Italy, the game when Alan Mullery became the first player to be sent off in a full English international, for booting Dobrivoje Trivic in the…groin region in retaliation for a nasty rake down the calf.
There must be something about this day, because it’s also the ‘anniversary’ of the 0-0 draw between England and Sweden in 1999 when Paul Scholes got himself sent off for a pair of honking fouls.
COMING UP
Not so much the hors d’oeuvres more the bowl of peanuts before the whole thing kicks off, there are a few international friendlies on tonight, but pickings are slim. Russia v Turkey? Romania v Finland? Lithuania v Latvia? Maybe just watch some of those documentaries on the history channel instead.
Tomorrow’s Warm-Up will be brought to you by Alex Chick, whose World Cup fever has reached the point of getting a wall chart tattooed on his chest, like Alan Partridge’s crazy fan.
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