Wales beat Norway 2-1 in the Nations League, at Cardiff City Stadium. Oscar Bobb had put Norway ahead, then Dan James and Neco Williams scored for the Welsh. It is their first win in seven games, and their first in Nations League A. But for me, it was the ending that stopped me.
Silly question, but is a shirt swap actually a swap? I had understood that two players take off their shirts and hand them to each other. Two shirts, two hands, one direction each. Ben Cabango, the Swansea City defender, asked Erling Haaland for his after the final whistle. Haaland gave it to him. He did not take Cabango’s.
Cabango told the BBC: “I did grab it after the game. He was just there, so I thought, ‘Why not?’ He just gave me the shirt… but he didn’t take mine.”
I opened a tab in my notebook, between “added time” and “bibs”. Title: “one-way swap”. I checked, and actually nobody knows whether there is a rule. In basketball, you shake hands, I looked, and everyone keeps their own hand.
What touches me is that Cabango, 26, was winning his 18th cap. He had been recalled to the starting eleven after the 2-0 defeat in Denmark, in Copenhagen, on Sunday. He had already faced Cristiano Ronaldo in Lisbon. He told the BBC: “It is surreal to play against Ronaldo and Haaland in the same camp”. And also: “I’d probably say it was my best game for Wales”.
Craig Bellamy, the Wales manager, praised Cabango and captain Ben Davies: “They were brilliant – really, really good”, he told the BBC.
A shirt handed over with nothing back, miss, that’s called a gift. We gave them too, back in the day.
So Cabango keeps two shirts: his own and Haaland’s. I’ve put that in the good deals column. Anyway, I still have a lot to learn.
It’s true, we checked: BBC Sport.
