Sports Burst – Barcelona’s Neymar Nightmare
Another bad day for Barcelona, while Cristiano Ronaldo returns to action for Real Madrid.
By Tim Stannard
1) Barça look for time-travel solution to transfer trauma
The solution to Barcelona’s current woes is fairly simple really. The easiest of fixes.
All the beleaguered Catalan club needs is a time-travel capsule and an unstoppable cyborg. The task? Travel back in time to Brazil all Sarah Conner style and prevent Neymar’s parents from ever meeting. Peacefully. Like a reverse Back to the Future.
Barca would not have then signed the non-existent Neymar, to cause all sorts of problems with his first contract, and then would not have had the Brazilian land the club with a talent hole they are unable to fill this season, as well as barrack an incompetent board, and hang out with all the team’s stars on the same day Barcelona announced legal action against the player for a breach of contract.
The club may not have pursued - and been denied in the hunt for – Jean Michael Seri, Philippe Coutinho and Ousmane Dembele. And Leo Messi might even have signed his new contract by now. All it would have taken Barcelona president is just two easy things: a TARDIS and Arnie.
Tune into a very special XTRA at 7PM ET / 4PM PT to find out what the returning Christian Vieri has to say about the whole affair.
2) Ronaldo takes Instagram time-out to play football
Wednesday sees Ronaldo taking some precious time away from posing in armchairs on Instagram and ranting about the injustice of being quite fairly punished for shoving a referee – a bit of a no-no in all sports – to play some football.
CR7 is two games into a five-match ban for his Spanish Super Cup infraction with an appeal turned down on Tuesday, but will be playing in a pre-season friendly at the Santiago Bernabeu. Real Madrid will be taking on Fiorentina, or what’s left of the Italian side after everyone seems to have left over the summer.
Elsewhere in the wacky world of football on Wednesday, the final Champions League qualifiers are taking place with Liverpool taking on Hoffenheim – without an under the weather Philippe Coutinho – and looking to hold onto a 2-1 lead.
Lucky beIN SPORTS folk in Canada can catch Young Boys in action in Moscow and Copenhagen against Qarabag. The fun gets going from 2PM ET / 11PM PT.
3) More doubts over Conte future at Chelsea
Wayne Rooney is retiring from international football. Anyone? Thought not. Let’s move on to something juicier. More Antonio Conte walking out on Chelsea stories to keep things all Sean Spicy on a midweek morn.
That’s the news from a paper in England that says former Borussia Dortmund boss, Thomas Tuchel is being lined up to replace the fiery Italian who has been battling the board over transfers all summer.
Sources close to the club have since poo-pooed the story, but no smoke without fire etc.
4) Another Barça forward leaves sinking ship
TRANSFER TRACKER! The big ones are still to come with Kylian Mbappe moving to PSG and Leo Messi heading to Manchester City, but there are some still some bits and pieces to take care of.
Another Barcelona forward is off – although most forget the striker was at the club in the first place – with Munir potentially joining either Crystal Palace or Roma.
Serge Aurier is inching towards Tottenham claims L’Equipe and the Portuguese press are moving Benfica striker, Raul Jimenez, to Everton.
Tune into our Facebook site at 12:30PM ET / 9:30AM PT for more from our daily TRANSFER TRACKER show.
WHAT IS SPORTS BURST?
The life philosophy of Sports Burst is that if you are not upsetting someone, then you are not trying hard enough. SB is a daily trawl and troll through the morning's sports news to bring you fact-nuggets to make you both smile and swear. Hopefully at the same time.