The striker was referring to difficulties he faced as an extrovert growing up in then homogenous Sweden - little did he know the statue itself would soon become persona non grata.
In the early hours of 5 January, vandals sawed the sculpture at the ankles until it collapsed, the final blow in a string of attacks following his investment in Hammarby that included cutting off the nose, spray-painting, and even an attempt to set the structure on fire.
Substitute Choudhury, 22, added bite to the Foxes midfield, and dispossessed [like the idea of this word being deployed as a positive action] Douglas Luiz in the build-up to Kelechi Iheanacho's 74th-minute equaliser.
"I like the fact that a referee makes a mistake because they're human and if I'm sitting in the crowd, I want to be able to celebrate a goal and not have to wait two minutes to see [I like the idea here of postponed celebration] if it's onside or offside."
"That's black and white isn't it? You know if it's in or out," she said. [Casey Stoney on goalline technology]
"Sometimes, especially in the men's game, it can win or lose you a game, or keep you your job, so I would like to see that in the women's game."
"But there's no point signing someone for the sake of it." [Graham Potter]
The detail was sketchy, but it was clear that something serious had happened. [about the Togo bus attack of 2010]
The government is "very angry" [find it ridiculous the idea that 'noone wants this, but our hands are tied', as if that is really true] about the Football Association's decision to sell FA Cup broadcast rights via a third party to gambling websites, sports minister Nigel Adams has said.
"We're very angry as a government as well with this arrangement, especially on a weekend when the FA very worthily had the Heads Up mental health campaign," said Adams - speaking on behalf of the Secretary of State for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport - in response to an urgent question in the House of Commons from Labour MP Carolyn Harris.
"We have asked the FA to look at this current deal, see what opportunities there are to rescind this particular element of the deal, and I will be meeting with the FA next week.
"It's absolutely right that the FA - [and] all sporting bodies who have links with sponsors across all sectors - need to be very mindful of impact that such deals have on vulnerable people."
United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said after the game that "it was not the right time" [this seems to be a theme across a few of these articles] to discuss Young's future, adding: "We can't weaken ourselves; we need to strengthen ourselves, if any movement is going to happen."
The group of seven fans [makes 'fans' sound like criminals] arrived at the Finch Farm complex, in the Merseyside town of Halewood, on Tuesday.
Brands spoke to the assembled fans [weird adjective if there were only 7 of them, and presumably they knew each other before and weren't 'assembled'?] for about 20 minutes in what is said to have been an amicable exchange.
Bath-born Sinclair, who began his career at Chelsea, was Scottish PFA player of the year in his first season at Celtic Park after being signed by Brendan Rodgers in August 2016.
Then I decided my title would be:
"it was not the right time"
and that I wanted to either begin with a slew of different ways of saying this from the article, or that I wanted to begin each new part of the poem with one. So, I got:
"it was not the right time"
[i.] it was not the right time...
[ii.] especially on a weekend when we, very worthily,
[iii.] what opportunities there are to rescind!
Now, it looks to me like this poem might take the form of a 'mea culpa'. Maybe an apology from a footballing organisation for not being able to control what its officials, owners, players and fans do? Or, for not being able to reconcile commercial interests with protecting the aspects of sport that fans/players love? That not be a 'unifying theme' amongst these articles but the idea is present in different forms in some of them. [I need to take a break.]
[I gave up. But I might come back to it?]
[I gave up. But I might come back to it?]
