There’s no such thing as a stupid person, either in football or in life. All that exists are people who do stupid things. It just so happens a lot of those people play football. And usually, for one particular team. Oh, look, there’s Richarlison of Tottenham Hotspur.
On Saturday afternoon, after Mathys Tel had just stolen Ruben Amorim’s jacket, Richarlison decided he wanted to nick his shoes too, and promptly joined his young French teammate on the scoresheet to put Spurs 2-1 up in second-half stoppage time.
It was a ridiculous game Tottenham had no business winning, and one they had been deservedly losing after 84 minutes, but the Brazilian striker’s deft flick ever so slightly changed the trajectory of Wilson Odobert’s shot and sent the ball past Senne Lammens to propel White Hart Lane into a state of euphoria. Then Richarlison tore off his jersey. And Spurs’ hearts sank.
The act of taking off an item of clothing to celebrate something isn’t novel but it is stupid. It doesn’t happen when someone gets an A in an exam, passes their driving test, gets engaged, or finds money in the pocket of a pair of old jeans.
Reacting to a joyful moment by spontaneously getting slightly more naked doesn’t even apply to any other sport. No golfer sinks a putt on the 18th and responds with a knee-slide while tearing off their sweater vest. It doesn’t happen in tennis either. Or snooker. Rugby? Nope. Darts? No. Swimming? Probably would have heard about that. Probably would watch more swimming.
But in football, it was such a pandemic that the higher-ups changed the actual rules to state that a player would receive a yellow card if they performed this moronic act. Did that put a stop to it?
Did it balls. It continued to happen, probably even more often than before, with Hugo Ekitike really nailing it in September. Ekitike was already on a yellow card when he exposed his chest in the Carabao Cup third round. Not in the last minute of the final, though that is still no excuse. And not even in the fifth round, which will be Ekitike-less as well as Liverpool-less. Totally worth it then.
Eikitike will likely learn his lesson but Richarlison? He’s quite possibly cursed. Or just a sh*thouse who ends up frequently covered in his own faeces.
The sometimes-smiling-yet-frequently-scowling Brazilian joined Tottenham in the summer of 2022. But due to a combination of getting injured, Harry Kane’s presence, and the weight of expectation from a £60million price tag, Richi was still on zero Premier League goals on the last day of April 2023, though there were occasional seconds when he thought he had broken his duck.
Earlier in the season, he had scored against Fulham, ripped his jersey off, tossed it high, and the referee booked him before VAR intervened. He also scored against Brentford, but it was disallowed for a foul before he could grab hold of his shirt. It meant that when Richarlison took to the pitch to face Liverpool on April 30, he had more yellow cards for celebrating goals than he had scored actual goals. He is so, so Spurs.
He finally scored his first league goal of the season at Anfield, removed some clothes to ensure he angered the home fans further, and was still so full of piss-taking energy at the home of his former team’s rivals that he followed his striptease with a bird impression more convincing than anything Dee Reynolds can imagine. His header late in stoppage time made it 3-3; Spurs had been 3-0 down after 15 minutes, so surely the curse of stupid was broken. No. It just shifted.
Richarlison scoring and removing his shirt was no longer a sign of a guaranteed VAR intervention – although it would be again in the future – but was now a trigger for the opposition to somehow find a way back when it looked as if there was no hope. It was 3-3, but there were 60 seconds of added time to go. Liverpool kicked off, Tottenham defended like a future Ange team, and Diogo Jota made it 4-3.
So on Saturday, when Richi flicked home in added time to put Spurs in dreamland, most fans’ joy turned to instant horror at the sight of their bald Brazilian again racing to the corner dressed only in shorts, socks and boots. A yellow card waited patiently for him to get dressed again. The initial feeling was that surely he was offside, but no, replays showed Manuel Ugarte waving Tottenham traffic onwards. That meant only one thing: Manchester United were going to score an equaliser.
He had already had one Richarlison moment even before the yellow card. Early in the first half, Brennan Johnson curled a peach of a cross towards his bonce, and if Richi had simply stood still, the ball would have hit him on the head. Instead, he went to power a header at goal and missed the ball entirely.
This is the same guy who scored an incredible scissor-kick on the opening day of this season. He also scored just six goals across two Premier League seasons for Spurs and Watford, but he has 20 goals for Brazil in 52 internationals, one of which was a bicycle-kick against Serbia, named the goal of the tournament at the 2022 World Cup.
Spurs aren’t stupid; they are just a club filled with people who like doing stupid things. Richarlison is a Spurs player, and he loves doing stupid things, sometimes after doing something wonderful, but almost always involving him standing around topless.