FOOTBALL works in mysterious ways.
David Ospina discovered while thousands of miles away at the Copa America that Arsenal had signed yet another keeper. And not just any keeper, but Petr Cech for £11 million, the kind of fee that leaves little doubt what the manager's intention is.
That starting job Ospina won from Wojciech Szczesny in January? Forget it. And you may want to think about relocating too. Szczesny fulfils the home-grown player requirement, Ospina doesn't. You don't need to be a genius to figure out which way this one is likely to go.
His opposite number on Friday night when Ospina's Colombia faced Argentina wasn't faring much better. Two years ago Sergio Romero went to Monaco only to find himself on the bench. He figured that playing in the World Cup for Argentina, who came within a whisker of winning it all, might change things. He was wrong. He managed just nine appearances for Sampdoria last season. His contract wasn't renewed, which means that in two days' time he becomes a free agent.
Yet these two men would end up being the protagonists of an engrossing Copa America quarter-final. An under-strength Colombia were torn apart by an Argentina side who were finally waking up after slumbering through the group stage. Ospina made save after save in the 90 minutes, improbably keeping Colombia in the game against a rampaging Argentina. (The final shot count was 14-2 for Lionel Messi's crew and even that seems generous.)
Romero, on the other hand, did absolutely nothing until the 67th minute when he saved a tame header from Jackson Martinez. But after the game was 0-0 at 90 minutes, he was heroic in the shoot-out, just as he was a little under a year ago in the shoot-out against Holland in the World Cup semi-final, Argentina winning 5-4.
It seems absurd that neither of these two men have any idea where they will be playing their football next season.
IT can't be... can it? Sepp Blatter had not spoken in public since his foundation-rocking resig-nation on June 2, the day when many thought some shred of sanity was returning to football. Maybe we should have known that when he opened his mouth again he'd again send the football world into a frenzy.
"I didn't resign," he told the German newspaper Bild. "I laid down my mandate and made it available at the next extraordinary congress."
It's like Nightmare on Elm Street, with Sepp as Freddie. Every time you fall asleep, he comes back.
A normal, rational person who tells you he's "laying down his mandate" and would not stand again as a candidate would be expected to do just that. Instead, we get Blatter engaging in verbal gymnastics.
Of course we really should know better: we've been fooled once before. This is the same Blatter of course who said he would not stand for re-election after 2011, and yesterday he was further muddying the already filthy waters, saying: "I am not a candidate, I am the president. And I want to hand over Fifa in good condition."
Even after that the bookies are unconvinced, still slashing the odds on the Swiss to remain in office.
You would think Blatter would be busy with other things. Like those reforms for good governance he talked about. You remember those, right? He commissioned a wise man named Mark Pieth to come up with a list of practical recommendations to make Fifa a better, more transparent organisation and then forgot all about them for three years, relegating them to the same obscure drawer where he keeps the Garcia report into the 2018 and 2022 bidding process.
Or maybe he would turn his attention to those investigators crawling all over his organisation and its offspring in North and South America. After all, he's reportedly about to be questioned himself by Swiss investigators on no fewer than 53 cases of suspected money laundering at Fifa.
But no, this is Blatter, the polit-ical animal. And when the going gets tough, he turns to his base, the same guys who voted him in a month ago, 48 hours after dawn raids which saw nine of their colleagues indicted.
What if he does go back to the congress and they turn down his resig-nation? After all, nearly two-thirds of Fifa's 209 voters elected him even after knowing the US Department of Justice and Swiss magistrates were investigating his organisation.
That's the Nightmare on Fifa Street. And it won't go away.
NEXT week, Nathaniel Clyne will become Liverpool's sixth summer signing. And a few days after that, if reports are to be believed, Christian Benteke - or a Benteke type - will become the seventh.
Whatever else you think of Liverpool's owners, they are not shy about throwing money at the problem. Clyne at £12.5m, Roberto Firmino at £29m, Joe Gomez from Charlton at £3.5m, a centre-forward (whether Benteke or otherwise) at £25m to £30m. Plus James Milner and Adam Bogdan on free transfers and Danny Ings on a tribunal fee, likely to be in the £8m to £10m range: that's what you call a spree. Throw in Divock Origi - signed last summer but left on loan at Lille for a season - and we'll have plenty of new faces at Anfield.
What is less clear is how they will all gel together. Daniel Sturridge will be back at some point and they still have Mario Balotelli, Rickie Lambert and Fabio Borini up front. Even if they dump all three - and they'll only be able to do it at a loss - that's a crowded house up front (Origi, Sturridge, Ings, plus the new man).
That's assuming Raheem Sterling is sold - far from certain at this stage - and that Roberto Firmino plays somewhere off the front. And, if he does what does that mean for Philippe Coutinho, who was one of the few bright spots in that role last year?
The Anfield hierarchy would do well to start putting the jigsaw together before adding new pieces.
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