Former Aston Villa forward Emile Heskey locked horns with Australia’s ‘other’ big summer signing this weekend, but who emerged victorious?
The Australian “Soccer” domestic league is going through somewhat of a boom at present, with the recent acquisition of Italian football hero Alessandro Del Piero.
When the pointy sideburn wearing Italian signed for Sydney FC it caused club chairman, Scott Barlow, to beam, “The signing of Alessandro Del Piero is a big moment for this club and, we believe, a historic moment for football in Australia, I wouldn’t like to go into the details of the contract, but this does represent the largest professional sporting contract in Australian history and the numbers that have been discussed aren’t too far off the mark.”
In response to the move, local rivals Newcastle Jet’s felt that they had to do something equally monumental. They scoured the World transfer market, and what must have been on page 2,357, finally decided that Emile Heskey was their man.
This weekend the leagues two flagship signings faced off against one another. In the blue corner, with a career total of 292 goals in 721 appearances, World Cup Winner and third in the ranking of Italian all-time top scorers, was Alessandro Del Piero. In the red corner, with a career total of 152 goals in 698 appearances, you have the roller-skating English Donkey, Emile Heskey.
It was a match up that drew a record crowd of 35,419 to the Sydneyfootball stadium. Del Piero struck the first blow on the 27th minute, with a trademark free-kick. But Heskey had the last laugh scoring a volley and seeing his team finish the game victorious, with a 3-2 win.
Both players have a record of 1 goal in 2 games for their new clubs but, Del Piero is yet to win a game with Sydney FC. For all the stick that Heskey get’s from football fan’s it’s hard to be too cruel on a genuinely nice man, that despite being largely comical in front of goal, worked his heart out for whatever team he played for.
I for one am pleased to see Heskey get one over on a true football legend.
image: © _bianconero
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