When in Rio…
Arsene Wenger seemed to be enjoying the beach life in Brazil yesterday as the Arsenal manager soaked up some rays whilst showing off his beach football skills.
The 64-year-old is commentating for French TV out in Brazil whilst, undoubtedly, scouting the odd player for the Gunners as well.
But he found time to practice a bit of ‘Footvolley’ (a hybrid of volleyball and football) on Ipanema Beach on Thursday and didn’t disappoint the gathering fans.
The former centre-back more than held his own alongside 1998 World Cup winners Bixente Lizarazu and Christian Karembeu as they took on Bernard Diomede, Olivier Dacourt and former Gunner Sylvain Wiltord.
Italian maestro vow to carry on
Italy’s Andrea Pirlo reversed his decision to retire from international duty yesterday.
The 35-year-old Juventus playmaker, who was England’s nemesis at their last two international tournaments, traveled home from the World Cup on Thursday after Italy failed to progress from Group B.
But disappointed Italy fans will have been buoyed by the news that Pirlo is prepared to continue playing as the team aim to bounce back at Euro 2016.
“If the new national coach thinks he needs me, I will happily remain available”, he said.
Andrea Pirlo disembarks Italy's plane home
Tweeting ‘ell
The World Cup has generated a record breaking 300 million tweets over the past 16 days.
The tournament is already one of the most talked about events of all time on Twitter and dwarfed the London 2012 Olympics which generated around 150 million tweets during its first 16 days.
Lionel Messi was the most talked-about player on the social media site with Neymar and Luis Suarez coming second and third respectively - Wayne Rooney was fifth.
America’s hashflag #USA was the most mentioned with 6.02 million tweets compared to Brazil’s 4.05 million.
England’s #ENG was tweeted 3.09 million times – the sixth most popular hashflag.
Mario Balotteli’s tweet, ‘@FinallyMario: If we beat Costa Rica I want a kiss, obviously on the cheek, from the UK Queen’ was the most retweeted comment (177,000 times).
