El médico
Pablo Alfaro has announced his intention to leave Sevilla for pastures new. In the twilight of his career, Alfaro is in search of grass under his feet and the chance to take off his tracksuit after a year spent lingering on the bench.
The Spanish defender occupies a dark corner of La Liga that other players would rather not set foot in. Sent off more than anyone else in the league, the shadow of his black reputation lengthened irretrievably after a Copa del Rey quarter-final in 2004.
A qualified doctor, Alfaro performed an on-field internal examination of Atlético’s Toché, plunging his finger inside his unwitting patient. Surely this level of dedication should remind us all that medicine is a vocation.
Marca - Spain’s football-obsessed daily - captured the incident in glorious technicolor. If anyone out there has a copy of the photo and you want to share it with the other children, please get in touch. Reality’s often less scary than the imagination; perhaps we can all unclench with documentary evidence.