While Nike brought out a “Best Team You’ve Never heard of” in the lead up to the Women’s World Cup, in trying to espouse on the brilliance of the US National Womens’ Soccer Team, some pub regulars in Birmingham had the opposite ideas.
Being footballers who are generally crap, and turning out for their lowly Lynam Athletic club in the Birmingham Coronation League Alliance Division 3 – they finished bottom last season – the only way they thought they could do any better was to strike fear in the opposition before even a ball was kicked.
This is what they did:
The team needed an inspirational way to strike fear into their opposition – so they ALL officially changed their names by deed poll to professional footballers for the start of this season. With Peter Cech in goal and a back four of Paulo Maldini, Cafu, John Terry and Fabio Cannavaro – their defence sounds like a force to be reckoned with. And the appetising prospects of a midfield of Steven Gerrard, Ronaldinho, Kaka and Christiano Ronaldo would have any manager licking his lips. Thierry Henry and Ruud van Nistelrooy make up the front line but unfortunately, all are merely a bunch of IT workers from the West Midlands.
Smart move, I must say. I would turn around and run for my dear life if I saw a team sheet with those names. Most notably, though, there is no Arsenal player in the side. I suppose, Arsenal fans have the right to go and fight for representation. I believe the players might be an accommodating lot.
Premier League sides also could do this. Especially Derby County could do with a couple of Kaka’s and Ronaldinho’s — at least Billy Davies can say he’s made decent signings. Roman Abramovich could go one step further at Chelsea by renaming Avram Grant to Jose Mourinho — that way he gets to keep his puppet Grant and strike fear into the rest of the league with Jose’s presence on the touchline, at least in name. He could also realize his dream of signing Ronaldinho by renaming SWP. He could also fit him with a pony tail and a fake buck tooth, for all you know.
Oh well, I believe the FA/UEFA might object to this name changing business, which then makes it something that money can surely not buy. Ah! The joy of non-league football.
Meanwhile John Terry, who is the captain of Lynam Athletic has pressing matters like telling Ruud van Nistelrooy and Theirry Henry to cut down on their smoking. I believe they might have issues with each other too. You know it’s hard to play alongside each other when you’ve had heated exchanges while playing for Man Utd and Arsenal. Anyway, JT also has to take care of Steven Gerrard who is half cut on a Sunday.
Whoever said non-league football was easy.
Source: Pub team become Champions League stars
So let’s have it then – who would you include in YOUR Champions League dream team?
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