Damian Lewis’s Goal for Grenfell Tower Charity Football Match? Don’t Get Nutmegged! – Sept 1, 2017

Damian Lewis’s goal for Grenfell Tower charity football match? Don’t get nutmegged!

By David Churchill – Evening Standard – September 1, 2017

Damian has one aim when he takes to the pitch for tomorrow’s Grenfell Tower charity football match — to avoid the kind of humiliation he suffered at the feet of one of the world’s greatest players.

Zinedine Zidane nutmegged the former Homeland star in front of 70,000 people at Old Trafford after Lewis clattered into him with a poor tackle during a 2010 Soccer Aid match.

Don’t break a leg: Damian Lewis in action against Zinedine Zidane at Old Trafford in 2010 – Source: Evening Standard

This time Lewis, who grew up near Grenfell Tower, will be playing alongside stars including Sir Mo Farah, Olly Murs, Tinie Tempah and Alan Shearer at Loftus Road, home of Queens Park Rangers. Funds raised will go through London Community Foundation to the Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund before being distributed to survivors, and towards community projects.

Speaking to the Standard as he prepared to fly from America for the game, Lewis, 46, said: “I’m just aiming to not do as bad a tackle as I did on Zinedine Zidane a few years back, when I clattered into him at Old Trafford. Zinedine was not impressed but I had given him, well it was a very Paul Scholes tackle, we call it a ginger tackle — late and nowhere near the ball. He dealt with me in exactly the way that one of the best European footballers of all time should have dealt with me, which was to look me in the eye 15 minutes later and nutmeg me in front of 70,000 people, who spontaneously burst into laughter at my expense.

Read the rest of the article at Evening Standard