Under 21 side make a pig’s ear of scoring opportunity

Scientists who obviously had no diseases to cure recently discovered the technique for a perfect penalty: the taker should approach at an angle 20 to 30 degrees, hit the ball at 65mph, and aim exactly half a metre inside the crossbar and either goalpost.

Clearly, this stunning scientific development has yet to reach Portgual, as demonstrated in the national team’s U21 performance against the mighty Cape Verde yesterday.

Sporting’s midfielder Bruno Pereirinha attempted to recreate Johan Cruyff’s legendary passed penalty, by knocking the ball to Porto’s Rui Pedro. The plan was thwarted when a defender intercepted, and the pair were left looking as stupid as Thierry Henry and Robert Pires did in 2005.

Fortunately, the crappy spot kick had no effect on the result, as Portugal were 2-0 victors.

[Off The Post]

Dutch ace adds strange tale to an already murky history

Until now, it had widely been assumed that Johan Cruyff, in spite of being the most exciting player in the world at the time, missed the 1978 World Cup in Argentina as a protest against that country’s odious torture-happy dictatorship. Speaking on Catalan radio this morning, however, he revealed that a strange incident in 1978 helped make his mind up.

He said that a number of men broke into his home in Barcelona, where he was playing at the time, threatened him and his wife with shotguns in front of their children and tied them to chairs. His wife, however, managed to escape, as did Cruyff before the clearly incompetent kidnappers