...Belgium, the national team’s new No.10 is about to be punched by Captain Haddock
WEIRD WORLD OF FOOTBALL
For the best part of 15 years, you knew exactly what you were getting from Belgium’s number 10: the brilliant Eden Hazard, dribbling past players at will, then inevitably picking up some sort of muscle injury.
Hazard’s retirement, though, has left something of a void for Euro 2024, and the replacement was somewhat unexpected – er, a random bloke, accompanied by Thomson and Thompson, Bianca Castafiore, Professor Calculus and Captain Haddock? It was either that, or give the number to Michy Batshuayi.
This wasn’t actually the squad unveiling for the tournament, but the launch of the Red Devils’ new away kit: a questionable combination of light blue shirts and brown shorts, themed on the outfit of renowned Belgian character Tintin (it looks better in a cartoon than in real life).
The strip was even launched in Louvain-la-Neuve at the Herge Museum, which is dedicated to the creator of Tintin, but the event was marred when sidekick Captain Haddock got drunk yet again and threatened to thump the model in the No.10 shirt.
Tintin was actually a journalist, so let’s hope England don’t opt to follow the same theme this summer: a Three Lions kit based on Piers Morgan probably would be a little awkward, particularly with ‘I HATE MEGHAN MARKLE’ emblazoned across the front.
“OINK WHEN YOU’RE WINNING”
When River Plate fans turned up for the latest Superclasico, they remembered all of the usual essentials: match ticket, lucky pants... and the severed head of a pig.
Painted in the colours of Boca Juniors, said porcine was held aloft for the cameras outside the Estadio Monumental – it’s not the first time something similar has happened, after River supporters brutally attacked the carcass of a pig before a derby in 2018.
The use of the animal stems from River jibes th
