Something shocking happened in the UEFA Champions League second qualifying round this week. A semi-pro team from the tiny nation of Gibraltar, Lincoln Red Imps, defeated the legendary Scottish club Celtic FC 1-0.
It was an amazing upset as half of the team were amateur players including the goalscorer Lee Casciaro, who is also police officer. While legitimate facts like that were all around social media to show how unlikely it was for Celtic to be beaten, some people decided to embellish those facts and made some up to fit the embarrassing loss narrative.
For instance, someone photoshopped these “facts” and made it appear like they were shown on Sky Sports News.
Fucking Hell Celtic pic.twitter.com/JDjmECrcaT
— GeorgeWeahsCousin (@WeahsCousin) July 12, 2016
While it would be great to imagine that a team who averages 28 people per match, a manager who got the job via a contest and the striker being in jail for selling drugs, it’s simply not true and a simple search and deductive reasoning would prove that. Even a simple Wikipedia search would tell you their stadium holds 5,000 people and given they are the former champions in the Gibraltar Premier League, more than 28 people attend their matches. Apparently Sky Sports wanted to believe the incredible story as Mike Wedderburn read some of these “facts” on the air.
@WeahsCousin pic.twitter.com/sPDquFZygQ
— Chris O’Donnell (@ChrisOD400) July 13, 2016
The Celtic loss to Lincoln was embarrassing enough, the additional facts were rather unnecessary. Although if you were to talk to former Liverpool and current Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers, it wasn’t an embarrassment at all.
“No. There is obvious disappointment. There is no embarrassment. It was a tough game in tough conditions. We didn’t take our chances, they took their chance.”
“They were never in command. We were the team with dominance. What we lacked was the final touch, the final ball. I’m not really shocked. I’ve been around the game often enough, I know these results can happen. We stay calm. We need to put in a performance next week. The result here complicates it a bit for us. We move on to next week.”
Maybe for Rodgers’ sake he needs the fake facts to drive the point home that he lost to a semi-pro team in his Celtic debut. The second leg is next Wednesday in Glasgow.
[The Independent/The Guardian/Photo: Getty Images]
