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If you haven’t seen the clip of Iliman Ndiaye snatching a soul at Everton’s training ground with some sort of reverse bouncing nutmeg, it’s a good watch. In executing a move so nasty that it would have been better suited to a Harlem Globetrotters exhibition match, the skill immediately shut down what was meant to be a lighthearted kickabout to end what had been – up to that point – an illuminating interview on how amateur players can earn a second chance at making it after being released by professional academies.
Ndiaye, who played Sunday League football directly before being signed by Sheffield United at 19, is expertly placed to be interviewed on the matter. “Don’t focus on the rejection and one day your luck is going to come through,” he told the BBC and Kevar March-McKenzie – an 18-year-old rejected by Coventry City – shortly before deploying said ninja move on his victim, in doing so perfectly illustrating the gulf between the Premier League and amateur footballers he had been attempting to dispel.
Ndiaye isn’t the first professional footballer to take things that little bit too far. Prime Michael Owen gleefully humiliating a 13-year-old goalkeeper in front of a smouldering Neville Southall is obviously the gold standard in this particular niche – “GAME, SET AND MATCH: OWEN” – but the former Liverpool man is far from the only offender. Both Christian Eriksen and Shinji Kagawa have reduced toddlers to actual tears with a series of brutal nutmegs, although Football Daily is sure the latter was at least inspired by the Japanese player’s social media disgrace caption – “this frustration makes a person stronger” – and the accompanying hashtag of #friendship.
