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Friday, July 16, 2010
Beckham wants to play with Lego for a living
Dominic Raynor
The World Cup is over! A new season looms on the horizon and so it's time to dust off the old Week That Was column, spruce it up a bit, rebrand it with a snappy new title like Off The Ball and begin scratching around the underbelly of professional football for some bizarre and often inexplicable revelations.
To kick-off the new term, we have David Beckham on why he used his substantial down time at AC Milan to build the Taj Mahal out of Lego, former Heavy Weight Champion of the World Mike Tyson eking out a living at Peterborough and the A-Team riding to the rescue of Manchester City.
Beckham's Lego obsession
David Beckham may have played at three World Cups, won the Premier League, La Liga and the Champions League but as he nears the end of his career as a footballer the 35-year-old has revealed a secret desire to be a professional Lego builder.
"What would I like to do if I wasn't a footballer? I love drawing cartoons and building Lego with my sons," the L.A. Galaxy midfielder said. "This is going to make me sound really weird but when I was in Milan ... I found online that you can buy a Lego model of the Taj Mahal so I bought it and started building it.
"I know it's not a career but I love doing it and would like to be a professional Lego builder. My boys are the same, they're obsessed with it," Beckham added. "Football has affected my family in an unbelievable way, to travel to so many places, if I'd done something else like been a Lego builder, I wouldn't have been able to do anything like that."
Beckham has already ruled out a career in management so watch this space.
Man City sign up A-Team... sort of
When Oasis star Noel Gallagher said we wouldn't believe the signings he had been told his beloved Manchester City were going to make this summer he wasn't kidding.
The Citizens have turned to the A-Team to help with their push for Champions League football and taken Roland Benedict - son of actor Dirk - on trial.
The 20-year-old striker enjoyed a spell at Gillingham two years ago and is now back to try to earn a contract with the big-spending Premier League club.
His father Dirk, who played Templeton "Faceman" Peck in the 1980s television show, said: "Roland has played soccer since he was four years old and always wanted to play in England so I said 'let's go for it'. He is quite good."
Ronaldo uses make up on his toes
The mildly surprising news that Cristiano Ronaldo had a love child was put in the shade this week by the shocking revelation that the Real Madrid millionaire uses make up on his toes.
Okay, so that's only mildly surprising too, but very bizarre, and you have to ask the question why the Portuguese decided to paint his toe nails black before waltzing down to the pool to be snapped by the waiting paparazzi.
Ronaldo, 25, was enjoying a break with Russian model girlfriend Irina Shaykin in the USA following a disappointing World Cup with Portugal and prior to the resumption of the Spanish Primera Liga season.
Iron Mike turns Posh
Bankrupt former Heavy Weight Champion of the World Mike Tyson will seemingly turn his hand to anything these days and shocked Peterborough fans this week when he turned up at London Road for a £100-a-head Evening With The Baddest Man On The Planet.
Decked out in the club's colours, Iron Mike took to the pitch at half-time during a friendly with West Ham United but seemed slightly baffled as to where he was when asked to give a rallying speech.
"I've never heard of Peterborough before," Tyson told the fans. "But as soon as I heard it was West Ham I thought, we've got to really give it to them."
The American boxer completed the surreal evening by posing for a series of photos with the players, although totally unsubstantiated reports claim the cash-strapped star charged £30-a-snap.
England say farewell to prolific Heskey
And so the farce is over. After 62 Caps and seven goals, alleged England 'striker' Emile William Ivanhoe Heskey has finally called time on his international career.
Recalled and dropped by a series of England managers, it's probably safe to say that the 32-year-old has jumped before he was swept aside by the new broom that manager Fabio Capello promised to flourish in the England dressing room.
"He is still the best English centre-forward of his type," former manager Steve Bruce once said of Heskey during his time at Wigan. Unfortunately, his "type" is that of a non-scoring striker. And poor old Emile can't even claim to be the best at that anymore with Wayne Rooney clearly now England's best non-scoring striker.
Video of the week
Germany forward Mesut Ozil saved his best piece of skill for the touchline at this summer's World Cup. The Werder Bremen star also displayed his disdain for basic human hygiene by spitting out his chewing gum, volleying it and catching it in his mouth.
Thanks to our friends at 101greatgoals you can watch Ozil's chewing gum juggling here.
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