Getting your player ready...
A beach ball from the stands floated on the field in the opening minutes of Saturday’s Sunderland-Liverpool game in the Premier League. It might as well have been part of a designed play. Sunderland’s Darren Bent took a shot that Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina appeared to have covered. But Bent’s ball hit a large red beach ball, deflecting past Reina and into the net. The goal, coming in the fifth minute at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland, England, stood. No referee — or lifeguard — waved it off. “We didn’t play well but we had bad luck,” Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez said after the 1-0 loss.
