The Sports Pages
All the papers lead with the events in Cape Town on Saturday afternoon where Diego Maradona’s Argentina, so impressive during the first three weeks of the World Cup, came a cropper in spectacular fashion against Germany.
The Sunday Independent goes with “‘Kick in face’ spells end for Maradonaâ€, while the Irish Daily Star Sunday opts for the more succinct “Mara-gonerâ€.
To all intents and purposes, both stories have the same angle, which is that Maradona will follow Brazil boss Dunga into unemployment after the end of his World Cup dream. It’s a disappointing development for Irish football fans, with the prospect of a sadly Maradona-less Argentina visiting the new Aviva Stadium for an international friendly in a little over a month’s time.
While a picture of Thomas Muller dominates the front page of the Sunday Times sports supplement, the sidebar story is more interesting.
With Jamie Carragher having announced his retirement from international football for the second time this weekend, a few more of England’s underachieving squad – possibly including Chelsea trio John Terry, Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole – could also absent themselves from Fabio Capello’s squad in future.
Astonishingly, the report claims that those three discussed their international future ahead of the World Cup second round game against Germany last week while recently-appointed captain Steven Gerrard also considered his England future before opting to commit himself for the time being at least.
