A mortgage advisor from Sevenoaks has applied for a temporary leave of absence from his job in order to pursue a career as a “La Liga expert”, Paddy Power can exclusively reveal.
Having recently followed Graham Hunter on Twitter, subscribed to The Spanish Football Podcast and bought a series of Guillem Balague paperbacks, Barry Nickelback (43) intends to devote the next week of his life – which he has described to friends as “El Sabbatico” – to the Spanish top tier.
“I believe that after several hours worth of research, I am now among the UK’s foremost Primera División insiders,” explained Barry in a Zoom interview this morning. “I’ve learned what morbo is and I’m sure that in a couple of days I’ll have come to understand the true meaning of La furia roja.”
A tale as old as time… https://t.co/CE7kq7o4Ye
— Paddy Power (@paddypower) June 8, 2020
The move has been applauded by locals who, with the Premier League sidelined, have been crying out for more self-appointed football experts flooding onto Twitter as attention shifted first to the Bundesliga, and now La Liga.
“Personally, I can’t get enough of people who don’t even know which country Bilbao is in telling me why Athletic’s youth academy is the finest in Europe,” commented one shopkeeper.
“It was superb to see lads talking about Augsburg’s history with the 4-3-3 formation over the last few weeks – now I’m looking forward to an explosion of people who once spent a week in Benidorm holding forth about Rayo Vallecano’s squad depth.”
“It’s the right move for the lad"https://t.co/Um0LCJCNv7
— Paddy Power (@paddypower) June 7, 2020
Sadly, Barry has also confirmed that his dipping of toes into the waters of La Liga will not last for very long.
“Look, I’ve loved the Spanish league deeply since I was two days younger than I am now, but the Premier League is back in a week and I’d rather gawp at Bournemouth v Palace than watch some of the world’s best players do their thing in lands Iberian.
“So I’m afraid it’s for one week only that I will be live tweeting insightful commentary of Spanish matches to my 143 followers, after which I will return to my usual social media activity: incessant abuse of people who even vaguely allude to negative aspects of my own club’s existence.”
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