{"id":13407,"date":"2018-08-31T18:25:14","date_gmt":"2018-08-31T18:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13407"},"modified":"2018-08-31T18:25:14","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T18:25:14","slug":"usain-bolt-makes-professional-football-debut-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13407","title":{"rendered":"Usain Bolt makes professional football debut in Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Usain Bolt<\/a>, Jamaica’s sprinter turned footballer, has made his first appearance as a professional footballer in a\u00a0pre-season friendly in Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bolt, who has been trialling with Australia’s A-League club Central Coast Mariners since last week, debuted against an amateur side at the club’s stadium in Gosford, 80km north of Sydney, in front of more than 12,000 people.<\/p>\n

Bolt took on the field with a smile in the 71st minute, wearing jersey number 95, after the crowd chanted “We want Bolt”.<\/p>\n

The Mariners had already scored six goals by the time Bolt came on as a left winger.<\/p>\n

\n

Usain Bolt’s first touch in a Central Coast Mariners shirt didn’t go quite to plan, then. pic.twitter.com\/so5SzPQuQ9<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 FourFourTwo ?? (@FourFourTwo) August 31, 2018<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bolt has been training with the club for an “indefinite training period” and the 32-year-old admitted earlier this week he was struggling with the physical demands of professional football.<\/p>\n

“I know I’m not going to have a perfect game,” the eight-time Olympic gold medallist and 11-time world champion said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Coach Mike Mulvey has said Bolt has “rudimentary skills” and was “doing ok” but would take some time “to adjust”.<\/p>\n

The 100 and 200-metre world record holder Bolt ended his running career<\/a> last year and has been trying to start a new career as a professional footballer, trialling with German, Norwegian and South African teams.<\/p>\n

\n

Usain Bolt’s game by numbers:<\/p>\n

Minutes – 22
Touches – 9
Times dispossessed – 3
Step-overs – 2
Completed passes – 1
Key passes – 0
Shots on target – 0
Shots off target – 1<\/p>\n

Cameramen employed to follow his movements – 26<\/p>\n

\u2014 @Georgebakhos1 (@GeorgeBakhos1) August 31, 2018<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Usain Bolt, Jamaica’s sprinter turned footballer, has made his first appearance as a professional footballer in a\u00a0pre-season friendly in Australia. Bolt, who has been trialling with Australia’s A-League club Central Coast Mariners since last week, debuted against an amateur side at the club’s stadium in Gosford, 80km north of Sydney, in front of more than…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":13408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}