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Hello! By the close of play, we want you showboating like Kerlon. Three, two, one, go…
On the way:
🔁 The Seal Dribble rebooted
🤕 Arsenal’s Odegaard injury scare
⚽ Gibraltar; the political football
🟥 A comedy red card
Seal Of Approval: The boy who could juggle the ball on his head… during a game
(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
Ronaldinho the man has his flaws but Ronaldinho the showman was Brazil’s coolest export.
He used to do this trick where he pinged a ball 20 yards above his head and watched it drop before killing it dead on his big toe. He’d do it on repeat with perfect results, a flawless pre-match habit.
It was my favourite party piece — until I stumbled across footage of Kerlon Moura Souza, or Kerlon as he was better known, defying gravity in a way which Ronaldinho couldn’t. Ronaldinho made the ball stick to his boot. Kerlon made it stick to his head. And not pre-match either.
Both of them in that respect were made for the social media age, with electric skill designed to go viral. But while Ronaldinho went properly global, Kerlon was a white-hot star who burned out before he was 30. He should have been a Brazil international. Instead, he retired at 29, battered and beaten by injuries.
Today, he lives near Charlotte in North Carolina. He runs a local football school. Little did he know that he had become a pet project of The Athletic’s Jack Lang.Desperate to write about him properly, Jack tried everything to get Kerlon to speak to him. But Kerlon would not respond. So Jack took the only option available to him and turned up on the Brazilian’s doorstep. It worked.
‘A real process to learn’
Kerlon’s unique knack of running while controlling a football with his head was dubbed ‘The Seal Dribble’. He was duly nicknamed O Foquinha — the Little Seal.
He would do it unashamedly in competitive matches. Some opponents took umbrage. Some, to coin a good Scottish phrase, absolutely halved him as a means of retribution. YouTube has footage of players brazenly taking him out.
At first, his dad had to check that the tactic was within the laws of the game. “We worked on it every day in order to perfect it,” Kerlon told Jack. “It was a real process.”
It was also the mid-2000s and a time when European clubs were dipping into the South American talent pool. Kerlon was far more than a performing seal. Inter Milan brought him to Italy in 2008. But Kerlon’s body failed him, and he damaged his ACL six times. Four years later, he was on the slide, en route to retirement in 2017.
“I didn’t want to be in pain anymore,” he said. “That’s why I stopped.”
Can he still do it?
Since retirement, he’s settled for a quiet life, but Jack would have missed a trick if he hadn’t asked Kerlon — now 36 — to give the Seal Dribble another go. Kerlon would have missed a trick by refusing.
Bless him. He’s not lost it.
Kerlon shows off his skill for Jack Lang (The Athletic)
News Round-Up: Odegaard a doubt for derby after ankle injury
Rock And A Hard Place: What do Gibraltar fans think of Rodri chants?
(Getty Images/Dermot Corrigan)
Gibraltar don’t figure much in coverage of international football. They’re not at San Marino levels — their record contains a small stack of victories — but a territory with a comparable population of 33,000 is as competitive as you’d imagine.
They exist in a strange political orbit, though. To recap briefly, Gibraltar (on the Mediterranean Sea) is a sovereign United Kingdom state and has been since the 18th century. It was previously Spanish land, and Spain has since attempted to reclaim it — without success.
Needless to say, that makes Gibraltar contentious. Spain blocked the national team’s bid to secure UEFA membership until 2013. The matter flared up after Spain beat England in the final of Euro 2024. In the midst of their celebrations, Rodri and Alvaro Morata were heard chanting “Gibraltar is Spanish” to the crowd around them. UEFA banned both players for “violating the basic rules of decent conduct”.
Both examples show how Gibraltar is a bit of a political football — used by the Spanish and, often, the English to score petty points against each other. The Athletic’s Dermot Corrigan decided to go there last week, to watch Gibraltar, where the landscape is dominated by the eponymous ‘Rock’ (above) — in action. He wanted to ask how the most important people in this dispute — the people who actually live there — felt about it.
His conclusion? That Gibraltarians are Gibraltarians, plain and simple. They might be British but they certainly don’t want to be seen as English. They don’t want to be seen as Spanish either. As one local said: “Imagine telling a proud Scot that he is English, see what that gets you.”
Around The Athletic FC
Catch A Match
(Selected matches, all 2.45pm ET/7.45pm UK unless stated otherwise)
Nations League, Group A3: Netherlands vs Germany — Vix, Fubo/Viaplay; Group B1: Czech Republic vs Ukraine — Vix, Fubo/Viaplay; Group B2: England vs Finland — Vix, Fubo/ITV
CONMEBOL World Cup qualifiers: Colombia vs Argentina, 4.30pm/9.30pm — Fanatiz PPV; Venezuela vs Uruguay: 6pm/11pm — Fanatiz PPV:
International friendly: USMNT vs New Zealand, 7pm/12am — Fubo, Peacock Premium.
And Finally…
TAFC doesn’t often dip into Italy’s regional leagues but today we’re making an exception, because Italy’s regional leagues saw an incomparable red card over the weekend.
ASD Pontassieve were playing M.M. Subbiano in La Promozione (tier six). It was 0-0. Pontassieve broke away on the counter-attack so one of Subbiano’s coaching staff did what anybody would do… by sneaking onto the pitch and clipping the heels of striker Monsef Bourezza.
Obviously we don’t condone the offence. But it’s very funny. And good on Pontassieve for granting us permission to reproduce their video.
You won’t see a more hopeful use of the universal ‘hands up, not guilty’ gesture…
(Top picture: Jack Lang)
