The Magnificent 7: Pikachu visits Inverness

1. Oleksandr Zinchenko celebrates qualification

In the era of media-trained professional footballers, post-match interviews have become mundane. Trotting out standard platitudes of how proud they are of the lads, how hard they work and how they are taking one game at a time - they have become almost pointless from an entertainment perspective.

Thankfully we still have hope for footballers with personally, as showcased by Manchester City full back Oleksandr Zinchenko going absolutely tonto on live TV as he celebrated Ukraine’s qualification to Euro 2020 exactly how a fan would.

Bravo Oleksandr, mate.

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2. Raheem Sterling is class

The appalling racial abuse of England’s players from a section of the Bulgarian fans unfortunately took the headlines during Monday’s 6-0 qualifying win, as fans and pundits condemned the actions of those involved and the response of some in the Bulgarian camp.

Many people felt the players should have walked off at the first instance, where others felt by walking off the players would be allowing racism to win - either way, the response of Raheem Sterling was delightful and shows just what a fantastic man, let alone player, he really is.

He didn’t just bamboozle the Bulgarian team on the way to a resounding win on the pitch, he also posted a series of funny, insightful and excellent tweets that showed racism will never win off the pitch either.

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3. ‘You’re hitting yourself!’ game taken to a whole new level

Did anyone else play that game as a kid, where’d you’d take your mates arm and whack him in the mush, before proclaiming “you’re hitting yourself mate!”? No? Just me?

Anyway, in a crafty act of shithousery, Chile under-20 defender Bryan Carassaco did this during a game against Ecuador and it was hilarious, if a little bit bad from a professional sportsman’s point of view.

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4. Someone is a little confident

We’ll let him off since he’s probably only about 14, but this youth’s player celebration this week was a little too 2014 for our liking.

Get some new patter, ye wee weasel!

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5. Supporting Scotland is tough

Despite ending the week with a nice little 6-0 win over footballing giants San Marino, the Tartan Army felt their team was p***ing against the wind in the lead up to their qualifying game against Russia.

When a reporter asked one fan if they are “looking for a glimmer of hope” before their game in Moscow, he didn’t give the standard fans answer of ‘a cheeky one-nil win, keep it tight at the back, hit them on the counter’. No, no. This is Scotland, and the Tartan Army have far lower expectations. Maybe we could take a leaf out of their book?

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6. AS Roma taking heed of Coleen Rooney’s advice

No need for words, they was just pretty damn funny from AS Roma.

... it was Rebekah Vardy.

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7. Pikachu visits Inverness

If I’ve said this once, I’ve said it a million times, Scottish football is amazing and the world would be far worse off without it.

Firstly we had Kingsley the Partick Thistle mascot, who looked like the embodiment of exactly what a football game would be like under the influence of DMT, now we have Pikachu rocking up in the Scottish Championship for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

Photo by Roddy Scott / SNS Group