It’s hard to come up with a new move in football - The Spoiler has tried many times, using new techniques like “rabbit taps”, “duck walking”, and “the South London switcheroo”. No you probably haven’t heard of them. But you WILL!
Anyway, over in sunny Brazil, the latest football trend is a trick penalty, which involves a pre-shot dummy kick. It hasn’t got a name yet, but something like “air kick” or “oxygen swipe” would probably fit quite nicely.
Above is Neymar’s recent demonstration of this new craze - which reportedly caused steam to come out of Kaka’s ear (perhaps God wouldn’t entirely approve?). And after the jump, you can enjoy some equally exciting “oxygen swipes” from a very recent penalty shootout.
Berbatov, grab that pencil from behind your ear and take notes.
After a few years living the high life in European football, it might serve as something of a bumpy landing when Robinho strings up his golden laces and steps out for his new/old club.
With that in mind, The Spoiler thought it a great idea to learn a little bit more about this weird Santos place that has snared one of football’s most expensive disappointments. Here’s what was uncovered.
A cruel “truth bomb” has been let off today, by one of those Brazilian infants being used as bartering tools in the Robinho-to-Santos saga. One that delivers a metaphorical rabbit punch to the Man City solar plexus.
Speaking out on the rumours that he might be ushered off to the northwest of rainy old England to allow Robinho another stab at the warm Brazilian sunshine, Paulo Henrique said this:
Everyone’s been there - your mum brings home a new “daddy”, he looks weird, but then he pulls out a magnificent gift from the boot of his car, and all of a sudden, he’s the best damn daddy in the whole world.
Or, at least, he is until you realise that your new toy isn’t rust-proof, and occasionally it runs out of batteries when you go on mini-breaks with your new family. Yes, sometimes it reminds you of how good it once was - perhaps on a glamourous trip to beautiful Scunthorpe, where the clouds are as grey as Clooney’s plug hole - but really, you just want new toys. It’s old hat, man.
Once the figurehead of Manchester City’s petrodollar revolution, Robinho’s £32m shine has dulled significantly at Eastlands. So far limited to 539 fairly unspectacular minutes of football this season, the forward has failed to shake off the tag of being useless on the road, is noticeably being kept at arms length by new boss Roberto Mancini and last weekend suffered the ultimate ignominy of being a substituted substitute.
Now, according to Daily Mail, more doom and gloom comes in the form of today’s news not even his childhood club Santos are prepared to have him back - at least not on his £160,000 p/w wages.
It begs the question: surely the temperamental forward currently represents the worst value for money in the Premier League? Is there ANYBODY currently in a credible position to drop megabucks on a troubled sometimes-genius?
Werder Bremen’s Diego could be on his way to Eastlands
Now that Kaka has passed up the opportunity fight for Premier League survival, Manchester City have turned their attention elsewhere in the search for a creative attacking midfielder.
City are said to have strengthened their midfield with Bundesliga star Nigel de Jong today, but according to Bild, they are also hot on the heels of Werder Bremen’s Brazilian sensation Diego.
The 23-year-old is already well acquainted with Robinho, as the pair went through the same youth system together, and went on to form a formidable duo at Santos. Elano also played with them at the Brazilian club.
Some sources are putting a price tag of around £25m on the former Bundesliga player of the year, who is under contract at Werder Bremen until 2011. He is said to have attracted interest from Arsenal, Juventus and Real Madrid.
If he does come to the Premier League, Diego is sure to keep the tabloids entertained: he was recently caught drink driving, and has just served a four match ban for attempting to strangle Karlsruhe defender Christian Eichner.
Spoiler bonus: See a video of Diego in action after the jump…
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