There are too many distractions…

Parma FC recently held one of their training sessions in the Cittadella park, an area of Parma that is invariably occupied with scantily clad beautiful Italian ladies on a sunny day. Suddenly, straying outside the confines of the training ground doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

Spoiler bonus: The distracted players in the picture above are defenders Christian Panucci and Mohamed Traoré - the former has an excellent reason not to look at bikini-clad strangers.

Rab C. Nesbitt inspires fierce new look at the Catalan club

As FC Barcelona are put through their paces in some rigorous pre-season medical assessments, Thierry Henry and Sergio Biscuits have decided to swap their standard Nike apparel for some rather fetching string vests. We wonder where they got that idea from…

Wesley Sneijder falls for the untied shoelace routine

[Dirty Tackle]

Spoiler bonus: Check out our extensive Sporno gallery here

Inter manager displays mad skills in training session

Jose Mourinho never managed his launch his professional football career, but he showed the genes that made his father a Portuguese international during a recent training ground friendly match.

After delivering a tackle that Bobby Moore would have been proud of, the Inter manager heads off on a Ginola-style run before slotting home with the outside of his foot.

A great move, but his celebration needs a little bit of work.

[101GG via Pies]

Carlos Vela was feared to be carrying deadly Mexican piggy virus

The swine flu epidemic is a big deal: hundreds of people have lost their lives, the government are advising against travel to Mexico and the USA, and the tabloid press have (temporarily) stopped putting pictures of Susan Boyle on their front pages to report on it.

Concerned that the virus could spread to their squad, Arsenal told striker Carlos Vela to stay home from training on Monday, as he was visited by friends from Mexico last week. Caught in a state-the-obvious kind of mood, Arsene Wenger said:

“It looks to be a massive problem in Mexico so we asked him to stay away.”

After being checked over the by the club doctor, and being made to promise he would wash his hands and wouldn’t sneeze in anyone’s face, Vela was given the all-clear to return to action, and will feature in the squad to face Manchester Utd tonight.

Make him defend something he really loves

Anyone who has seen the car park of a Premier League training ground will know that there are few things in life that a footballer holds in higher esteem than a Range Rover Sport. Keen to exploit the innate weakness for unnecessarily large luxury vehicles, Bahrain’s national coach decided prepare for a forthcoming World Cup Qualifier with Australia by putting his goalkeeper in front of a hallowed 4×4. The under-fire shot stopper does very well, even though the car actually belongs to the gaffer who is berating him.

If Guus Hiddink or Alex Ferguson wish to tighten up their slightly leaky defences, they could learn a lot from the training techniques of our friends in the Persian Gulf.

[Football Banter via Off The Post]

Runner joins the list of poeple fed up with Ronny’s theatrics

Usain Bolt loves football almost as much as he loves chicken nuggets and showing off, and and is therefore relishing the prospect of meeting up with Cristiano Ronaldo for a training session. We were under the impression Bolt would be giving C-Ron sprinting tips, but it turns out he will actually use the opportunity to tell the Portuguese star to ‘man up’:

“The first thing I’m going to tell him: stop acting like a wuss.

“Seriously, because the fact why his game is kind of down right now is because these guys are picking on him because he’s so soft. No one in football will try it with Rooney. Ronaldo’s got to be a little like Rooney, he’s got to be aggressive, then these guys will stop picking on him. If Ronaldo’s aggressive back to these guys, and gets a few red cards, people will stop picking on him.”

Essentially, Bolt’s advice is that Ronaldo should try and get more yellow cards. Not the best advice for a player who has already picked up six cautions and a sending off this season.

World’s fastest man to give Manchester Utd star speed tips 

Thanks to some “creative editing”, it has been proven that Cristiano Ronaldo is faster than the world’s fastest production car. According to The Independent, however, the Portuguese winger will get a helluva lot quicker this summer, when he meets up with Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest man:

Cristiano Ronaldo, who is already the most elusive of customers in attack, is to have sprint lessons from Usain Bolt, the fastest- ever human on the planet.

The world player of the year and the world’s fastest man are to meet in the summer, when Bolt is in Europe competing on the Grand Prix and Golden League circuit and preparing for the World Championships, which take place in Berlin in August.

Shockingly, this pairing did not come as a result of a cynical corporate sportswear stunt (we’re looking at you, David Beckham and Kevin Garnett), as C-Ron is a Nike man and Usain Bolt loves him some Puma.

The proposed training session is in fact the result of a request by Bolt’s management, as the Jamaican is a huge football fan who wishes to add a signed Ronaldo shirt to his memorobilia collection.