Forehead high
You can only imagine that former France international Patrice Evra had the mother of all sinking feelings when he was informed why his giggle about Joleon Lescott in his Euro 2020-related video was just a touch unfortunate.
‘Pat TV’ features Evra giving his views about the tournament and on Saturday he posted a clip where he talked about Denmark’s game against Wales in Amsterdam.
The city, he said, is “where people like to get as high as Joleon Lescott’s forehead”.
Lescott does indeed have an unusually high hairline, but . . . it’s as a result of an accident when he was five years old. He was hit by a car outside his school and was dragged along the road, with his mother, who had come to collect him, watching on in horror.
The former England international suffered severe swelling of the brain and needed several operations, spending months in hospital and being left with scars on his forehead and hairline.
“It was only meant as light hearted banter,” said Evra in his apology.
Morto.
Word of mouth
"He continuously talks about me, which I find quite strange. Hopefully he can find his peace with that and finally move on and stop worrying about me. Clearly, I am in his head a lot." – Luke Shaw on Jose Mourinho's never-ending fixation with him.
"That guy's an imposter. He comes on, your country needs you . . . hit the target! What was he? £100 million?!?! If I was Ronaldo I'd be going after him in the dressing room. Shocking." – Roy Keane, not overly impressed by Portugal's Joao Felix in the defeat to Belgium. Roy's wrong about how much Atlético Madrid paid for him, though. It was, eh, £113 million (€132m).
In Numbers
0 - That's how many shots on target the Netherlands had against the Czech Republic, the first time in major-tournament-history they, eh, managed the feat, according to OptaJoe.
In words
"England will have to get better if they are going to improve" – Steve McManaman giving England manager Gareth Southgate some invaluable advice on ESPN.
Long roads travelled by Welsh and Swiss
There was a bit of grumbling from the Welsh camp after their Euro 2020 exit at the hands of Denmark, their chief complaint being the amount of travel they had to do through it all.
"We deserved more from this joke set up of a tournament," as defender Chris Gunter put it.
In all, Wales had to travel 5,382 miles, their games taking place in Baku, Rome and Amsterdam, but they should spare a thought for poor old Switzerland – they had to travel to Baku, on to Rome, back to Baku and then on to Bucharest. Total miles? 7,245. That’s 7,245 more than England have had to travel so far.
Back page of the week
We'll go with the Star's depiction of Borussia Dortmund's Jadon Sancho as Officer Crabtree, "the 'French' policeman who is actually a British agent in the 1980s World War II spy sitcom Allo 'Allo", Sancho, of course, being a British footballer in the German Bundesliga, making the link seamless. And as a nod to Officer Crabtree's difficulties with French, the speech bubble coming out of Sancho's mouth says . . . "We can beat them with our pissing game". Please God, make it stop.7
