All eyes were on Thursday night’s much-anticipated Champions League group stage draw, as football fans found out who Leicester, Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham and Celtic would be facing in Europe’s elite competition.
Leicester and Spurs were handed favourable draws, Arsenal will expect to progress from Group A and Pep Guardiola will face old club Barcelona with Manchester City in Group C – a group also containing Celtic.
As usual UEFA drafted in a number of big-name ex-professionals to help with the opening of the balls (always a much trickier process than you might imagine) and one of those was the fourth highest scorer in the competition’s history, Ruud van Nistelrooy.
The Manchester United legend has been named Champions League top scorer on three separate occasions, so you expected his introduction to be full of grandeur.
But presenter Anne-Laure Bonnet made the slip-up of all slip-ups as she invited the former striker to the stage. Now, we don’t want to be too hard on Bonnet. She speaks five languages – putting the entire JOE staff base to shame – and English is not her native tongue, but this is very much one of those “you had one job” situations.
Van Nistelrooy was introduced as a ‘Champions League icon’ with a list of former clubs that includes Real Madrid and Manchester…City.
https://twitter.com/sarcyfringehead/status/768850175322357760
Let’s be honest, it was a pretty tiny gaffe in the grand scheme of things, but that one was never going to slip past the wolves of social media.
https://twitter.com/johnmanderson_/status/768858622852001792
https://twitter.com/Sam_Miguel1/status/768851074304311297
She just said Ruud Van Nistelrooy used to play for Manchester City! You wish
— JG (@JGrif147) August 25, 2016
the host introduced ruud van nistelrooy as former Real Madrid and Manchester City player. While Ian Rush can't open the balls
— Mark (@crazycraven) August 25, 2016
BT Sports presenter having a nightmare.
— Kieran (@Kieran_Celtic) August 25, 2016
