The pre-season in football is not just about training and friendly matches, but full of fun and frolic as well and Newcastle United camp will be the first one to admit that.
Newcastle’s marquee signing Sandro Tonali, who arrived in the Premier League, after a highly-successful campaign with AC Milan in the Serie A, has been making headlines both on and off the pitch initially.
The 23-year-old posted a video on his Instagram account featuring a background score of Tyneside-born singer Sam Fender’s chartbuster Getting Started.
The video which was shared by Newcastle United on all of their social media handles, starts with him seen arriving in his flight with his entourage which includes his fashion designer girlfriend Juliette Pastore.
As he flashes his luxury watch while sitting in the car, Fender’s background music enlivens the proceedings.
Tonali & Co are then seen at the training facilities of the Magpies at Benton, where they catch up their manager Eddie Howe and later they descend on the Newcastle United home ground at St James’ Park.
The 52 sec video, which has been liked and retweeted by millions of followers literally lives to the buzz created around the much-hyped transfer of Tonali from the Rossoneri to the Tyneside-based English club.
As per insiders, the signing which happened in the latest summer window is one of the richest in Serie A history, which has literally made Tonali the biggest earning Italian footballer playing in any European leagues and his fans were excited, especially after seeing the video.
“I’m so obsessed with this,” tweeted one fan while another went overboard, saying, “He’s never gonna have a “Jacob Murphy” beam on his mush is he? We are all different and show happiness in different ways.”
But if one thought that Tonali has grabbed all the limelight with his arrival video which had a local flavour with Fender’s song in the background, then you are mistaken!
That credit goes to his team-mate Bruno Guimaraes, who stunned all with a cameo video of the magic hat song which has put Tonali to shade.
Compared to Tonali, Guimares has opted for the ‘KISS” approach — Keep it Simple and Short – as his video, which lasts just 9 sec has become a rage.
The 9 sec video where he sings the magic hat song which goes like ““Oh Bruno’s f*****g magic, he wears a magic hat, He could’ve signed for Arsenal But he said ‘no f**k that, He wants to play for Eddie in the famous black & white And when we win the Premier League we’ll sing this song all night” is part of one-and-a-half hour Charla Podcast show in his hometown where he is relaxing as the players enjoy their off-season.
While most of the podcast was in Brazilian and Portuguese, those 9 sec were particularly for Newcastle fans as the Brazilian media enjoyed every slice of English that Guimaraes thew at them.
Guimaraes, was last seen in his footballing boots, playing for Brazil in an international friendly against Senegal in Portugal on June 20, a match which the Selecao lost.
The 25-year-old may not have returned to the training ground yet. But the way he sang that magic hat song was something which his fans could not have dreamt of even in their wildest of the dreams.
And he seems to have scored a few brownie points over new arrival Tonali with that magic hat song! Game on! Bring it on!