Anyone that watches the Premier League saw Riyad Mahrez pick up the PFA Player of the Year award after a fairy-tale season.
However, there are several more moments that need to be put on a pedestal too. I think that it’s only fair that we shed a bit of light on some of the people that may not have achieved the heights of Mahrez but were special all the same in another way – with their embarrassing, and at times absurd actions. We look back at some pretty epic ‘cringe’ moments:
Life at PSG doesn’t seem too difficult. Not only are you in one of the most cosmopolitan and beautiful cities in the world but you play for a team blessed with megastars and are almost guaranteed silverware at the end of the season.
The team spend more on reserve players than the rest of the league does on stadiums and so if as a young player you manage to break into the team, you should thank your lucky stars. Cameroonian right-back Serge Aurier chose a different action, criticising the team’s star player and manager whilst showing why you probably shouldn’t use Periscope when you are in a bad mood.
We all know that kid in school that bragged about getting the new video game console only for his parents to pull the carpet from under him, leaving him with an old school Playstation. Well, you have to have a little sympathy for Peter Odemwingie.
In 2013 he tried to push through a transfer move from West Brom to QPR, by driving down to London on his own. After it didn’t go through his manager called it ‘lunacy’ and he said that he was so upset that he spent the night listening to Akon’s Lonely… #catchingfeelings.
If the training session the next day was a little awkward, one can only imagine how difficult it must have been for him after the most recent transfer deadline day. This time the current Stoke player tried to force a move to French giants Marseille, only for the move to breakdown again. Hopefully he listened to something a bit more uplifting on his way home, maybe some Wizkid.
This season Porto will go a third year without winning the Portuguese League after winning the title seven out of the eight years previously. The city known for its vineyards has probably had to make a few more bottles of wine with fans drowning their sorrows.
Vincent Aboubakar doesn’t have too many reasons to be as sad as most, after a solid season including some key goals in an ultimately unsuccessful Champions League season… #weneedmorewine. But one moment that he probably would like to take back was his miss against Maccabi Tel Aviv.
The last year or so has not been particularly favourable for the Nigerian football association. The most serious incident was the mismanagement of the fan attendance in Kaduna in a match against Egypt, where thankfully disaster was avoided with 40,000 people crammed into a 16,000 stadium.
The team failed to qualify for the African nations… again, despite the fact that a number of exceptional young players have emerged like Alex Iwobi and Kelechi Iheanacho. To make things even worse, the team stripped keeper Vincent Enyeama of his captaincy after he arrived late for a training camp. If any player was undeserving of this treatment, it is definitely not the 101-capped keeper who had worked wonders for the team over the last 15 years. Especially as he had just gone to a funeral for his mother…
Sometimes, African players don’t quite get the respect they deserve due because of stereotypes and low expectations and people can become a bit blinded to footballers that do their work outside of Europe. But Yahaya Mohammed probably (definitely went too far by saying that he was better than Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
‘I shall always rate Asamoah Gyan ahead of the two because if Gyan had been a European, he would have been [more] highly recognised than the two.’
But after Gyan made another lucrative move last year earning riches in China, I have to paraphrase a Kanye West song (So Apalled) and ask if you would rather be underrated or overpaid?
Yaya Touré will go down as one of the greatest African footballers of all time. He has won the league in four different countries, and no player has been crowned African Football Player of the Year award more times… but it seemed that he wanted one more.
After Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang won the award he claimed that the decision brought shame to Africa…..Next time the MC at the award ceremony should ensure that Yaya has some cake and ice cream… even if it isn’t his birthday.