Extra Time!

Barely a month goes by without a ridiculous dive coming to our attention and April was no exception. Unbelievably Lucas Neill got a yellow card for this incident against Uzbekistan. Top diving. No doubt that’s a dodgy yellow card, but what about the Sunday League player who was booked for breaking wind?

We’ve all seen videos of referees being hit by the ball and probably laughed at every one. But this one’s a real corker. The ref seems genuinely annoyed with the player, as if he meant to hit him. He must be 30 yards away and the ball is hit full belt, that’s some strike if he meant it.

Footballers are well known for a lack of shame when it comes to using their fame to sell anything, as long as they get a few quid for it. So it was no surprise to see Argentinian international Mauro Zarate taking delivery of a BMW 6 series convertible and Sunderland’s Djbril Cisse being given what looks like a monster truck for a bit of promo work. Footballers and fancy cars, what’s new? Not much really but it did amuse us that the company only saw fit to give David Busst a white van.

April also saw the flukiest goal of the season in Germany with the Karlsruhe player tackling the ball into the net from the halfway line. Rudi Voeller’s face is a picture as well. Meanwhile in Mexico one player turned into a crab to score a bizarre volley. Sort of fluky and brilliant at the same time.

More stupid goals, this time from Portugal, and it’s actually impossible to watch this video without shouting “pick it up, just pick it up, for ***** sake pick the ******* thing up”. Honestly.

But to finish off we’ll give keepers a little credit. It’s not the most glamorous position and when they score it’s pretty big news, the most famous probably being Jimmy Glass’ last minute effort which kept Carlisle United in the Football League back in 1999. Keepers’ goals are normally scrambled affairs but what about this effort? If anyone can find a keeper scoring a better (deliberate) goal we’ll eat our collective hats.

Until next month…