Good Week, Bad Week: Zlatan autobiography shock

Remember all those quotes in Zlatan Ibrahimovic's book 'I Am Zlatan' that you enjoyed so much? The ones that cemented the big Swede's status as a bona fide hero and legend? The ones you thought were so outrageous and amusing? Well, bad luck kid.

“I started to read ghostwritten football books and I must say I’ve never read such boring books in my whole life,” Zlatan's ghostwriter David Lagercrantz said this week. “I said to myself, ‘I can’t do it.’ Then – I shouldn’t really admit it – I decided to write it as a novel. I didn’t really quote him. I started to find this literary illusion of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and then I got into writing it...

“I think it really was his true voice. The key thing is that I was not working as a journalist. I was not quoting him. I know this – if you want to find something that sounds true and authentic, the last thing you want to do is quote. I don’t think I have any real quotes from him. I tried to get an illusion of him, to try and find the story. I tried to find the literary Ibrahimovic.”

Oh. So at least some of it was...made up, then. Zlatan didn't really say all that stuff. Oh. Still, Good Week, Bad Week is all for this sort of thing. If you ignore the rather pseudy concept of 'finding the literary Zlatan', you have to admire the chutzpah of a man who is willing to cast aside any notion of transcribing something as dreary as 'facts' and just start making stuff up in an autobiography. Especially for someone like Zlatan, who you'd imagine would roundhouse kick anyone who displeased him's head clean off their body.

As we all know, dreadful bitterness is not often a dignified look, but crucially it is usually very funny. So hats off to Ryan Babel for this one. Perhaps this is why his career didn't quite reach the heights...

If you've spent any time on the internet over the last week, you'll probably be familiar with young Ted Dockray, who towards the end of the League One play-off final was the lucky young pup who caught Jermaine Beckford's shirt after the Preston hat-trick scorer threw it into the crowd.

However, the shirt was taken from his grasp by a fellow fan, who such is the way of things was of course rapidly identified and vilified online for the seemingly unpleasant act.

You might expect young Ted and his family to join in with the condemnation of the lady in question, but fortunately it seems they have a sense of perspective fully intact. Ted's father Martin Dockray told the Daily Mirror: “She has got a young family herself and she doesn’t deserve the abuse she is getting. We are not going to say anything, what happened happened and that’s that.”

And his aunt Claire Dockray said: “We don’t feel any bad feeling towards the woman and hope it calms down. Ted was a bit disappointed but he’s fine. My family would never want any trouble for the woman over a football shirt. I’m sure it will be a happy ending for everyone involved.”

See, dignity? That wasn't so hard now, was it?

It may have taken a while, but EA Sports have finally arrived in the 21st century by including women's teams in the next edition of FIFA. Good work chaps, although for the sake of 'realism' you can't play men v women in a computer game in which Real Madrid v Bury is apparently quite plausible.
Of course, not everyone is happy about it...

Watch the goal

Woof. We particularly enjoyed the goalkeeper simultaneously realising that there was nothing he could do about this, and having an existential crisis halfway through his dive.

Sepp in 2010...

...Sepp in 2011...

“We are going to put FIFA's ship back on the right course, in clear, transparent waters. We will need some time, we cannot do it from one day to the next, but our pyramid is intact because the foundation is solid, just as solid as our game.”

And Sepp in 2015...

“Many people hold me responsible … I can’t monitor everyone all of the time...I must stress that those who are corrupt in football are in a minority, as in society. But as in society they must be caught.”

Would it be fair to say it's not going brilliantly, Sepp...?

Ah. Yes. Well. That didn't exactly go to plan...

It is, as you might expect, quite FIFA-heavy in the 'Bad Week' section this week, but this one is slightly more tangental. You can pin plenty of things on former Sky, current beIN Sports (and he's much, much happier in the latter role, honest, he promises....) anchor Richard Keys, but the widespread corruption of the most powerful officials in the game isn't one of them.

That said, Keysey did have a few things to say about the shenanigans in Switzerland this week, on his semi-regular savant-like blog, and like much of what he discusses in these missives, they were belters. 

beIN Sports is, as you'll probably be aware, based in Doha, Qatar, the parent company of which was founded by the Emir of Qatar. So, as you might expect, Keys has been subject to some accusations that his frequent messages of support for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar are perhaps motivated by something other than the best interests of football's showpiece event.

Not a bit of it, according to Keys, but he nevertheless made himself very clear on this issue: “Where there is corruption lets root it out and start again if we have to. But, and it's a big but, right now what happened yesterday has NOTHING to do with the successful World Cup bids of 2018 and 2022. NOTHING.”

Nothing indeed. Sorry, NOTHING. Well, apart from this, from a statement by Swiss federal authorities: "The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) has opened criminal proceedings against persons unknown on suspicion of criminal mismanagement and of money laundering in connection with the allocation of the 2018 and 2022 Football World Cups."

But yeah, other than that, nothing. NOTHING.

IK Start's Espen Hoff was a little miffed at being sent off against Sarpsborg, so he decided to release his frustration by kicking out at a door on his way off. Bad move. Still, extra points for the glance back that screamed 'bloody door, making me slip over.'

Not sure what to say to this.