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Real road trips, Oscar and apology accepted: some of the week's best sportswriting

Here’s the best the internet had to offer last week, sports fans.

1.He is not a gregarious individual.

We both arrived early for the Christmas occasion in 2011 and it was like getting blood out of a stone until David Platt bowled up and put him at ease. But his responses to the extraordinary volume of questions about Mario Balotelli certainly became an art form and his press conferences seemed to be more than those exercises in football club propaganda which we’re so familiar with these days.”

Ian Herbert of The Independent looks back on “Mr. Five Billion”, Roberto Mancini’s time with Manchester City.

2. “Some blamed Oscar’s predicament on his having grown up white in Johannesburg, the largest city in the former South African apartheid state, which nourished racism, terror, oppression, and violence from 1948 to 1991. Others, including Oscar’s father, Henke, pointed to the high crime rate in South Africa, where more than half the population earns less than $65 a month.”

Mark Seal takes us back to the Valentine’s Day shooting of Reeva Steenkamp and beyond for Vanity Fair.

3. “Then there was Irwin. One morning in April, 2001, shortly after the Premiership title had been secured, Ferguson sat down to talk about him. For close to half an hour, he waxed as lyrical as one would expect about the player and the man. When the cameras were finally turned off, Ferguson lingered in his chair.

“What exactly is this for again?” the Manchester United manager asked.
“It’s a documentary about Denis’s career for RTE,” I said.
“It’s about bloody time ye did one,” he replied.”

Dave Hannigan delves into Alex Ferguson’s relationship with his Irish players.

4. “Everybody was just in awe on the ground. Then all of a sudden, everybody started yelling like we had won a game that night. Everybody was slapping each other on the back. Then, they had to open the back for us to get off the plane, and we were in three feet of snow. Guys were making snowballs and hitting each other. We were so happy to be alive.”

These days, NBA teams’ road trip just ain’t as terrifying as they used to be, writes Jonathan Abrams on Grantland.

5. “Gary’s most recent piece of arriviste-bashing was meted out to BT Sport’s Jake Humphrey, who displeased him by suggesting people wanted analysis by “current or recently retired players”. “Be careful Jakey in your choice of words,” warned Gary.

No irreverence had been meant, Humphrey replied, only for Lineker to reply: “Apology accepted on behalf of those you know you would have offended. People with a lifetime’s experience in the game and TV.”

Take 100 lines, Humphrey”

The Guardian’s Marina Hyde trumpets the arrival of BT Sport to liven up the old boys’ club of football punditry.

6. “They remember the hard hits – most of them, at least. The brain-rattlers that left them blank-eyed and disoriented, they have no recollection of at all. But the ones that snapped ligaments, rendered bones the consistency of crushed ice or bent joints in ways they ought not to bend are still felt every morning years later.”

The Washington Post examine what life has in store after a career in the national football league.

Here are our writers’ predictions for the 2013 GAA championship season

Opinion: Leinster’s European final takes secondary importance to Pro12