Clearly everybody wants a piece of the PFC Kuruvchi action

Arsenal fans who scoffed at yesterday’s suggestion that Cesc Fabregas may be joining Barcelona in the future may want to consider a thin slither of humble pie with their coffee this morning, as the Spanish super sub has followed in the footsteps of Samuel Eto’o and travelled out to give a master-class to Uzbekistani side PFC Kuruvchi.

Joining him were Barcelona Spain teammates Andreas Iniesta and Carles Puyol, and judging by the pictures above, the Tashkent side were handing out honorary degrees from the University of Madeupsville to try and persuade the Spaniards to stay.

Over to the barely-readable scrawlings of our friends at PFC:

Spain national team players Andreas Iniesta, Carles Puyol and Cesc Fabregas shown master-class today in MHSK stadium. As yo know “Quruvchi” PFC have already organised master class with Cameroon national team player Samuel Eto’O and today Uzbek football fans could see master class with Spain football stars. As you can seen on photos boys who study in “Quruvchi” PFC football school were very glad to see world football stars and master class was very useful for them too.

Obviously, the common thread that tiess these players is Spain, but the Barcelona link is also quite prevalent, particularly as Fabregas replaced Xavi on the trip to the former Soviet nation.

[TIET]

Frenchman excluded from promotional duties

Yesterday, Spanish giants Barcelona unveiled their shiny new away kit, using fugly stars including Leo Messi and Carles ‘Captain Caveman’ Puyol.

Superstar players Deco, Eto’o and Ronaldinho were all absent from the launch, as they are fully expected to be plying their trade elsewhere in 2008/09. A semi-surprising absentee, however, was a certain Mr Thierry Henry.

So, if the Frenchman won’t be knocking about in Catalonia next season, where will he be? Well, yesterday he played in a charity match in Americaland, which also included Steve McManaman, Robbie Fowler and New York Red Bulls captain Claudio Reyna. Couple this with the fact that in 2007 he told the New York Times he would like to end his career in the Big Apple, and it looks like the striker could be following David Beckham across the Atlantic to play some Major League Soccerball pretty soon…

[Marca]

The Spoiler considers Euro 2008’s aesthetically challenged stars

If the 1997 Oscar-winning Italian World War II film Life Is Beautiful taught us anything, it’s that beauty can be found even in the darkest of circumstances. Yet sometimes, even the beautiful game is plagued by the ‘handsomely impaired’. What follows is a squad that may be described as ‘ugly’, ‘fugly’ and perhaps most harshly, ‘pug fugly’. Read on if you dare…

1. Rüştü Reçber

The war paint and ‘face art’ are distracting, but not quite distracting enough.

2. Ludovic Magnin

You know life isn’t fair when you grow up to be bald and ginger.

3. Carles Puyol

It’s not 1976 - get a haircut, hippy!

4. Philippe Senderos