17-Year-Old Lazio Youth Player Closes All Social Media Accounts After Being Harangued For Looking 40 (Photo)

Chris Wright

12th, February 2014

18 Comments

By Chris Wright

lazio

Born in 1996?

Lazio youth player Joseph Minala, who is 17-years-old, has had to actively shut down both his Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts after being mercilessly harangued by fans for looking far, far older than the age on his passport.

Strangely, no-one saw fit to pick fault with his sparkly little gold handbag at all.

According to his Lazio registration documents, Minala was born in 1996 – though the internet was awash with disbelieving quips about the Cameroonian midfielder after his photo began circling a few days ago.

Since then, he’s found himself bombarded with guffawing messages from people around the world via his various social media channels, signing off with a Tweet which read “Envy is the weakness of man, and those with a poor soul hurt others when you are in Serie A. Love you! Forza Lazio,” before shutting down all his accounts.

So, go ahead: heckle away, but, as we know only too well here at Pies, drastic premature ageing is a serious condition that affects an inordinately high number of professional footballers.

We’ve done a study and everything.

Posted in Media, Newsnow, Serie A

Share this article: Email

18 Comments

  1. bob says:

    I dont intend to be mean here, but legitimately looks way older. his face just doesnt suit his body. his body looks like a typical 17 year olds. very strange

  2. scottazzurri says:

    I really don’t care how old he is, but I do think its strange that he has a scudetto on his shirt. Only Juventus are allowed to have this surely as the winners of last seasons Serie A??
    Lazio won the Coppa Italia, thus having a cockade on their shirt, no?????

  3. Al says:

    @bob – I’m not sure what they feed people around your way but that certainly isn’t the body of a typical 17 year old in my neck of the woods

  4. bob says:

    Im sure micah richards was bigger than that at age 17. i meant ‘typical’ in terms of young pro footballer. you need to have a good diet to last in this day in age. and in response to your jibe – looks like they need to feed you better round your way

  5. Francis Ondoro says:

    Are you sure that’s not Augustus Kwembe from facejacker?

    http://i.ytimg.com/vi/COluINBXfA4/0.jpg

  6. Francis Ondoro says:

    Are you sure that’s not Augustus Kwembe from facejacker??

    http://i.ytimg.com/vi/COluINBXfA4/0.jpg

  7. Dennis says:

    I’ll bet you 7000 cameroonian rupels Liverpool tried to sign this guy before deadline day but was yet another deal they were incapable of doing.

  8. Reg says:

    Wayne Rooney; anyone??????

  9. Chris says:

    Greg Oden (NBA player) was harassed for exactly the same thing. He came out of college looking about 20 years older than he said he was. Some people just have this “old” look about them for some reason.

  10. PATROL says:

    You people are so unbelievebly dumb / naive it’s really embarassing.
    Here are two quotes that perhaps make you realize something:

    “We use over-age players for junior championships, I know that. Why not say it? It’s the truth. We always cheat”
    Anthony Kojo Williams, former Nigerian Football Federation chairman

    “Most of the players are beyond the age they professed (…) Our boys are old, we are paying the price for age cheating”
    Ken Anugweje, a former national team doctor and board member of the Nigerian Football Federation.

    • Russ says:

      You know, if you’re going to act like a complete knob on the internet, it usually behooves you to get your facts right;(a) He’s Cameroonian, not Nigerian, so throwing quotes from Nigerian officials into the debate is senseless, and (b) do you even know the meaning of either the word ‘dumb’ or the word ‘naïve’? Apparently not, as you seem to think that they’re interchangeable. They mean two completely different things – e.g. “Patrol is naïve to think that people give two sh*ts about his opinion” is completely different from “Patrol’s opinion was so dumb it was embarrassing”. See? It’s quite easy once you get the hang of it. You’re welcome, a-hole.

      • FirstTimer says:

        Hi, Russ. This is my first ever internet comment – I’ve always passed message boards by, as I thought I had nothing to offer. However, after seeing your post, I feel I must let you know that you should not speak like that. Well, I mean, you can. It just makes you look like a real jerkwad.

  11. LeMecduFF says:

    C’est les noirs ça ils sont souvent plus développés plus vite genre Lukaku

  12. patrick says:

    Bullying disgusts me.

  13. THWANGO says:

    This is normal in Africa players cheat on their age where they find clubs outside Africa. We had a player some years back who was not even playing for the under 23for the national team but when he got an opportunity in Germany I was surprised to here that the player was 17 years old.So for this guy it is 17+12 years old.

  14. Tango says:

    no offence but he atleast 30.

  15. Fred Matundura says:

    Minala’s older than Arsene Wenger.

    Hehe!.

Leave a Reply to Russ