Sancho handed ‘shock lifeline’ as ‘true colours’ revealed and more results face scrutiny | OneFootball

There are shock lifelines for Jadon Sancho, penalty woes for an England ace JUST MONTHS before the World Cup and perhaps the least revealing true colours ever revealed by Declan Rice.

There’s also someone floating the dangerous idea that encouraging retrospective alteration of football match results is a road we should look to venture down.

It’s pretty low tide in Content Bay, basically, after a night when Liverpool won and played well, which won’t do at all.

Recognised profession

Feels like it’s been a while since Mediawatch ventured into the murky waters of the ‘looks unrecognisable’ trope.

We’ve always been wary of its football deployment, knowing that its roots lie so firmly in the body-shaming field of celebrity journalism where ‘looks unrecognisable’ became sh*thouse shorthand with which to shame any star but, let’s be honest, mainly female ones who had been foolish enough to become less famous than they once were while also (and it’s related, isn’t it) having the temerity to age in something approaching the manner of a regular human.

It’s one of many classic ‘nudge, nudge’ constructions whereby a journalist and publication could erect a wafer-thin veneer between themselves and the shaming by allowing the reader to infer the anticipated judgemental response to the gruesome, disgusting sight of a 50-year-old woman who had the astonishing temerity to look something like a 50-year-old woman.

Its transfer to football has, generally speaking, been more light-hearted. More of a genuine if sometimes baffling nostalgia genre. ‘Who remembers Bullseye?’ instead except of an old darts-based gameshow its Ian Woan with different hair than you remember him having 30 years ago.

But we’ve had frequent fun with ‘looks unrecognisable’ to describe 50-year-old former footballers who look pretty much exactly like you’d imagine someone who you’d last seen when they were 30 to look 20 years later. Balder, greyer, sometimes carrying a few more pounds. But always pretty recognisable. It’s the eyes. It’s always the eyes.

Yet now the Daily Star have hit a new low/high for the ‘looks unrecognisable’ trope.

We cannot overstate how much Javier Hernandez, for it is he, looks like Javier Hernandez in the video of him making a sandwich. The man hasn’t aged a day since 2010. The only difference between Chicharito now and Chicharito in his Man United pomp is that only very occasionally did he wear a fetching apron while playing football.

Never mind his sandwich recipes, we want to know what his skincare regime is. The man looks fabulous.

Phone a friend

From former Man United players to just about current Man United players, and news from the Mirror of Jadon Sancho’s future.

We will give you three guesses as to which boss has changed their mind in order to offer Sancho this ‘shock lifeline’.

It’s not Michael Carrick, no. Not Unai Emery. That’s right, it’s Borussia Dortmund manager Niko Kovac.

He didn’t sign Sancho last summer, you see. But this summer he might. Hence the change of mind, and by sheer happenstance a headline that accidentally suggests it might be a story about either of his current clubs.

Don’t be discouraged

The once useful phrase ‘true colours’ continues its rapid headline-fuelled descent into absolute irrelevance with this latest Daily Star effort.

Let’s see what the Arsenal midfielder has said here to reveal his true character.

Winning a quadruple – something no English team has ever done – is hard and takes both a mental and physical toll? What will this absolute bastard say next?

Toney award

There’s an international break just around the corner and, with the Champions League out of the way for now, you can start to see the gears shift and the cogs turn as the media redirects its focus towards England matters.

And the Daily Star bring us this grave news.

But who is this mysterious ace? Step forward, seven-cap veteran Ivan Toney, a man who has played two minutes of football for England under current boss Thomas Tuchel, last summer, in the infamous Senegal game which remains England’s only defeat under the current regime.

Toney’s call up to that squad was a shock at the time, and one that has not been repeated.

We all enjoy his no-look penalties, of course we do, and his record from the spot before a miss in the all-important King’s Cup shoot-out undeniably formidable. But we’re not really sure it’s much to worry about at this time.

Can we just not?

We get that this is The Sun being impish scamps but can we please, please, please just all collectively agree not to do this? For the sake of everyone’s sanity?

Mediawatch is no sweet summer child, and we know that retrospectively attempting to overturn results is an obvious next frontier in the ensh*ttification of football. Thanks to VAR and its ongoing mission creep, it’s even arguably a logical next step.

We’re months away from a World Cup being held primarily in a country led by a massive orange toddler who famously takes defeat well, who expects his mediocre team to actually win the tournament, and who has spent the last 18 months being coddled by FIFA and its bigwigs. We can all see where that’s headed.

But that doesn’t mean we have to actively encourage it.

And while we’re being dry and serious the problem with all the usual suspects in The Sun’s collection – the Hand of God, Thierry Henry playing basketball against Ireland, Frank Lampard’s ‘goal’ against Germany at the 2010 World Cup, the 1966 World Cup final – is that none of them remotely compare to the scenes at the AFCON final.

All those games featured controversial or objectively wrong decisions from the officials. But they didn’t feature one team  subsequently leaving the pitch and refusing to continue the game for an extended period of time.

It’s a bold and controversial move from CAF – and an undeniable worm-can opener – to deem that action a forfeit from Senegal and award the result and title retrospectively to Morocco, but it does not set a ‘just overturn the result’ precedent for every game past or future in which the officials might have made a mistake.

Please don’t let it become that, or encourage the idea that it can or even should. That way madness lies. We already can’t celebrate goals; let’s at least remain able to celebrate titles.