Struggling team’s saviour turns out to be just another sex pest

If Rafa Benitez is feeling gloomy about his lot at the moment, he should spare a thought for the manager of his former club Valencia, Ronald Koeman, who must be pinned immobile to the floor with Churchillian depression right now.

His team plays as if unfamiliar with the game’s rules, and after identifying three of his most senior players as trouble makers and kicking them out of the squad, his much-despised president failed to back him publicly and said they were “having a rest”. Midfielder Manuel Fernandes, a player Koeman couldn’t stomach at Benfica, was arrested at the weekend in a nightclub for stealing a watch, and now to round off a miserable few weeks his star signing, the $26 million Argentinian teenager Ever Banega, has been exposed pleasuring himself on a webcam.

Banega was widely believed to be the best player active in Argentina when Valencia somehow prised him away from Boca Juniors. Presumably he was too busy interfering with himself live on camera to notice just how awful the team he’d signed for were. It’s not the first time he’s been caught doing bad things on film, however. He was also one of the Argentina under-20 squad whose hotel-wrecking skills were recently featured on Youtube.