The Warm-Up: No talks for Diego Costa, Juve's PR disaster
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Updated 17/01/2017 at 08:33 GMT
Plus: Louis van Gaal retires, and a player is booked for proposing to his girlfriend
Chelsea's Italian head coach Antonio Conte (R) reacts as he congratulates Chelsea's Brazilian-born Spanish striker Diego Costa
Image credit: AFP
TUESDAY’S BIG STORIES
Conte to judge Diego Costa on words, not actions
Usually after some sort of BUST UP with a WANTAWAY player, a manager will either SNUB his truculent charge or demand CLEAR THE AIR TALKS with him. Not in the case of ANTONIO CONT…sorry…Antonio Conte and Diego Costa, it seems.
The striker, out in the cold this past weekend because either he fancies the moolah on offer from China, disagrees with the Chelsea medical staff’s assessment of his fitness or possibly both, missed the weekend’s game against Leicester when his team demonstrated that they’re actually quite comfortable without him, thanks very much.
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Chelsea manager Antonio Conte celebrates after the game
Image credit: Reuters
Ideally, you’d want a striker who’s bagged 14 Premier League goals this season in your team, but not if he’s more trouble than he’s worth. Conte could probably talk over these things with the player, discuss his feelings and possibly attribute it all to the death of a beloved childhood pet. But Conte, unsurprisingly perhaps, has no truck for such things.
He will reportedly just see how Costa does in training this week before deciding whether he’s worthy of a return to the starting line-up. Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? This, among many other reasons, is why we here at the Warm-Up love Conte’s work so very much.
The weird Joel Matip row rumbles on
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West Bromwich Albion's Salomon Rondon in action with Liverpool's Joel Matip
Image credit: Reuters
In some respects it’s quite comforting that entities as big as football clubs struggle with admin, just like the rest of us, but this whole Joel Matip situation is pretty odd. Matip missed Liverpool’s game with Manchester United on Sunday, simply because Liverpool weren’t sure if he was eligible.
It boils down to Matip retiring from international football back in 2015, thus making himself unavailable for Cameroon in the Africa Cup of Nations, but apparently that isn’t good enough for the pen-pushers at City Hall/FIFA, because the national federation in question also has to acknowledge that their man is no longer keen on playing for them. This is something that Cameroon has apparently not yet done, and does remind us rather of the scene from Seinfeld when George tries to split up with his girlfriend Maura…
Now Liverpool are left in some sort of admin limbo, and could be forced to leave Matip out of their side for the remainder of the Cup of Nations. Or they could just play him anyway and take their chances. It’s a profoundly curious situation and one that leads us to think that all is well with the world when even FIFA and one of the biggest football clubs in the country can make such a pig’s ear of something so ostensibly simple.
Louis van Gaal retires
Like a player stepping down from international football some two years after their last cap, we sort of assumed Louis van Gaal had already retired, when he left Manchester United. But he has officially popped on his pipe and slippers now, retreating to relax throughout his latter days after 26 years coaching. He’s deserved it, too. “I thought maybe I would stop, then I thought it would be a sabbatical, but now I do not think I will return to coaching,” he told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.
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Netherlands' forward Robin van Persie (L) celebrates with teammates and Netherlands' coach Louis van Gaal (R) after scoring during a Group B football match between Spain and the Netherlands at the Fonte Nova Arena in Salvador during the 2014 FIFA World Cu
Image credit: AFP
Alas, some might remember him as a man who didn’t quite cut it as Manchester United manager, but here’s a man who won eight league titles in three different countries with four clubs, won the Champions League with one of the greatest club sides in the modern era and influenced many more along the way.
It’s easy to think of him as the irascible old man who managed Manchester United, but it’s important to recall the irascible slightly younger man who did great things with Barcelona, Bayern Munich, AZ and of course Ajax too. He leaves plenty behind to remember him, but the Warm Up only thinks of one thing when thinking about Van Gaal. Take it away, Luca Toni…
The coach wanted to make clear to us that he can drop any player, it was all the same to him because, as he said, he had the balls. He demonstrated this literally (by dropping his trousers). I have never experienced anything like it, it was totally crazy. Luckily I didn’t see a lot, because I wasn’t in the front row.
IN OTHER NEWS
Juve’s marketing department have a hit!
We imagine that, whenever any new ‘branding’ is announced, the marketing department eagerly monitor social media for the response. If the PR people at Juventus were looking at Twitter following the big reveal of their new logo…well, we can’t imagine they were head over heels….
There was this…
…And then this…
…and also this…
So, file that under a ‘mixed’ response so far, then…
Player in Guam scores overhead kick, proposes to his girlfriend, gets booked
Fairly self-explanatory really. We think this qualifies as a ‘rollercoaster of emotions’.
HAT TIP
Paul Gascoigne has many problems. He has been diagnosed as bipolar, suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, anxiety and depression. As we know, all of these illnesses can kill, but his addiction to alcohol is the pressing danger. It may be that these core mental illnesses are what led to his alcoholism, but what is also clear is that none of them can be fundamentally addressed while Gascoigne is ravaged by his addiction.
Time to stop treating Paul Gascoigne as some sort of court jester, and help a man who is ill, writes Dion Fanning on Joe.co.uk.
RETRO CORNER
For no particular reason, enjoy the Goal of the Season contenders from 1987/88, exclusively from Liverpool players. Features a terrifying synth soundtrack, plenty of John Barnes and the best ‘keeping the ball in play’ from Steve McMahon you’re likely to see.
COMING UP
If you like your romance repetitive (no giggling at the back there), then look no further than the FA Cup third round replays. You’ve got Sam Allardyce looking for his first win as Crystal Palace manager as they face Bolton, Wimbledon and Sutton have another crack while Burnley and Sunderland have another try at deciding who is the least sad northern Premier League club. Odds on another draw there.
Tomorrow’s Warm-Up will be brought to you by Alex Chick, who would probably do a better job with Manchester City than the joker they’ve got there at the moment.
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