Then Neil Warnock swapped him for Steve Morison in January. This always happens! Back in 2012, when Luciano Becchio was the last exciting player Leeds had left, I resolved to do all my writing about only him and he repaid me with nineteen goals. I feared the worst back in spring when Deebo edited his Instagram account, deleting eighty photos, changing his profile picture out of 49ers uniform to neutral, unfollowing the team account and removing their name from his bio. Shanahan was trying to get a message out in the middle of negotiations, in this case for the self-dubbed “wide-back” star and my favourite player on the four dash nines, Deebo Samuel. I wonder if Jesse Marsch had made a note of that before he tried stamping on transfer talk in Leeds with the same, “I love our team and that’s not changing” line. “You know, I love our team right now,” said head coach Kyle Shanahan, at the start of the pre-season camp. The torrential rain beating down on the helmet of young starting quarterback Trey Lance was his welcome to a season observers think could derail if a tilt at the Super Bowl becomes backstabbing drama, but the 49ers offices, either front or back or maybe both, think everything will be fine because they’re all fine guys. Leeds United’s kissing cousins have been through an off-season soap opera about want-away superstars and lines of succession, turning it Shakespearean just in time for the new season. Their visitors, the San Francisco 49ers, could claim that rain as a pathetic fallacy all of their own. There it was, a metaphor for the Chicago Bears and their turf troubles.

Ten minutes before kick-off for the season’s opening match, the workers were hastily repainting sidelines that had melted wonkily in the rain. For now a new playing surface installed a week before first use would have to do. The city’s gridironers keep promise-threatening to build a new arena, with a roof, because famously bears love being indoors. First as revenge on the Chicago Bears for relaying their game field with a brand of ‘Bermuda grass’ they said would be more robust in adverse weather than the bumpy divot ridden bog that was there last week. Rain poured inevitably in Chicago this Sunday.

Bon bon the forbidden game