1. “There is a popular image of African dressing rooms as all music and noise, but what Diao most remembers about the morning of the France game was the silence. Between a group of players who had grown up together and no longer needed words. “We had something that was very powerful between us, we did not need to communicate,” he says. “We would be together, just talking with our eyes. I would be looking at you, knowing you knew what to do.”
“So when the Senegal team arrived at the brand new stadium in Seoul, they did not need to say a word. “When we went to the stadium, everyone was really relaxed. The silence before the war. From lunch-time, people would only be talking with the eyes. We had that belief, we knew there was a job to be done, and we were going to win the game.
“I have met people who said the France game is how he met his wife, they got married. I met guys who said, me and my brother went for 10 years not speaking to each other, but the day Senegal beat France, they hugged and made up. When you’re playing for your country, it’s more than anything else you can do.”
2. Somehow, Josef survived. The story goes he was buried under a building by an explosion that finished off his platoon. He survived because he was fit from playing football. And also because of kindness from Russians. My grandfather was taken to a military hospital, where he was treated and eventually recovered.
No doubt conditions were terrible. The family gave him up for dead. But after the war he walked out of a prison camp and returned to Vienna where, family legend has it, he got to inspect his own gravestone.”
3. “If you don’t like the way I play, that’s fine. But I was born here. I grew up in Antwerp, and Liège and Brussels. I dreamed of playing for Anderlecht. I dreamed of being Vincent Kompany. I’ll start a sentence in French and finish it in Dutch, and I’ll throw in some Spanish or Portuguese or Lingala, depending on what neighborhood we’re in.
“I’m Belgian. We’re all Belgian. That’s what makes this country cool, right?
“I don’t know why some people in my own country want to see me fail. I really don’t. When I went to Chelsea and I wasn’t playing, I heard them laughing at me. When I got loaned out to West Brom, I heard them laughing at me.
“But it’s cool. Those people weren’t with me when we were pouring water in our cereal. If you weren’t with me when I had nothing, then you can’t really understand me.”
4. “I need you to brace yourself,” he said. “What I’m about to tell you is gonna blow you away. And I promise you, it will be in your article. Book it: what I’m about to tell you right now. And I wasn’t going to tell you unless you asked. The defining moment in terms of this epiphany, where it elevated to another level, was courtesy of a man now known as the President of the United States of America, Mr. Donald Trump.”
“Trump was a guest on “Quite Frankly,” which aired from 2005 to 2007. “And, at one point—I don’t think this was an on-air segment—he said, ‘Stephen, when you go to a bank and you borrow three million dollars, and you can’t pay it back, you’ve got a problem. But when you go to a bank and you borrow three hundred million dollars, and you can’t pay it back, we’ve got a problem.’ ” (A variation of this maxim is often attributed to J. Paul Getty, whose company, coincidentally, provided the early backing for ESPN.)
“He said, ‘The moral of the story is, The more they invest in you the more they must insure your success. If you come cheap, you’re expendable. But, if you’re expensive, you’re valued. Don’t ever forget that.’ That’s what he told me. I never forgot it. Little did I know he would become the President.”
The New Yorker’s Vinson Cunningham meets ESPN’s ‘First Take’ star Stephen A. Smith.
5. “Now, reporters call James the model of a press-savvy and press-friendly megastar. “When you get those golden moments, he is the most engaging interview subject you could ever find in the sports world,” Windhorst said.
Three things have allowed James to master the media game. First, he won titles. Then James got religion—or, at least, better advice—about feeding reporters. But the final factor has little to do with James. It turns out what the NBA media thinks about the world’s best player depends entirely on who the “media” is.
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Highly doubt a guy of 27 years of age in a position like outhalf will make any huge addition to the ulster team when he has never played a game in the top division of any league. Surely they’ve an academy outhalf that they’d be better off promoting to the senior panel?
The problem is highlighted by the number of Ulster Youth in the Irish representative teams. 5 in the schools and 0 in the youth. Ulster rugby do not match their aspirations with investment in youth rugby to ‘find’ players such as Tagdh Furlong and SOB. Would rather see the IRFU go further by requiring the provinces to match their investments in foreign players with the same amounts in youth rugby.
I wouldn’t think much of junior team numbers really, of the irish u-19 team that won the world championship, how many can you name? it’s a professional sport and the brutal fact is a lot of those guys won’t break through from underage teams, they need to be a prodigious talent like Bo’D or the colossus that is Donncha O’Callaghan.
He’s played in the NRC. He’ll be fine for the pro 12.
The point of junior teams is to feed senior teams. Without the numbers at junior level there is nothing to come through at senior level. Case in point Munster.
Realistically though Christy, Munster have never had a significant presence in underage teams. I don’t put much stock in u-20 numbers as representative of the talent coming through provinces, mostly because arguably the two best players in this years championship, Zach McCall and Stephen Fitzgerald, came from the two least represented provinces. It’s quality not quantity basically. I’d be much happier to get one Jack O’Donoghue rather than a bunch of lads that’ll never play beyond the AIL, as we see in Leinster.
I’d imagine that the only thing He needs to do to be a permanent starter at 10 for ulster is not miss in front of the posts.
If you want to be trolling Ulster better try the Uafc forum where they might be interested.
I didn’t mean to troll, really, but if Kelly Haimona is the only pro12 kicker with a worse percentage than jackson, you desperately need backup for Pienaar.
Where are you getting your statistics from Eoghan. I assume you are making no allowance for Jackson suffering a bad back injury at the end of last season and being injured for a good part of this season. He has hardly kicked at all.
http://www.pro12rugby.com, look for the longlist of golden boot contenders. You know kicking percentage doesn’t get affected by the number of games he’s played in the season, only the number of kicks he’s hit/missed? Or are you thinking that his injury hampered his more recent performances? never assume. Realistically though when was the last time you saw a senior, capped international miss a kick in front of the post?
I’m talking about literally in front of the posts about ten yards out but thanks for your input as always Quinner.
Again Quinner, Madigan’s kick wasn’t directly in front of the post, ten yards out. He’s on the shortlist actually.