German Club Unveils New Player Alongside Some Dude Wearing Mask Of Manager's Face

The guy on the right of this photo is Thomas Meggle, sporting director for German second division club St. Pauli. The guy in the middle is Marvin Ducksch, the team’s brand-new striker as announced just hours ago. The guy on the left, well, is not who he appears to be.

The guy on the left sort of resembles St. Pauli manager Ewald Lienen, only if Lienen’s head had been refracted by a funhouse mirror or maybe misshapen in a significant though curiously non-injurious car accident. That’s because the warped visage atop the regular body isn’t actually Lienen’s real face, but rather a mask.

The team’s official Twitter account posted the picture above in it’s first announcement of the Ducksch move. About a half hour later, they tweeted out a picture of the mask, calling it a “one-off”:

Was the club intentionally trying to trick people into thinking the masked man really was Lienen? The second tweet seems like evidence against that interpretation, but it did take them a while to own up to it, and the club’s website still has the masked man photo at the top of the page about the Ducksch signing.

Did they make the mask specifically for this purpose, or are similar ones sold in the gift shop? Either way, I’ll bet that Lienen masks now would be even hotter sellers than Ducksch jerseys if made available.

[ Guardian]