FC St. Pauli Replace Manager With Random Guy In a Mask to Unveil New Signing

No matter how meticulous or organised we may be, we have all made a basic administrative error at some point in our lives. Whether it's forgetting an elderly relation's birthday, or accidentally sending our mums an offensive meme intended for our lads' WhatsApp group, all of us are susceptible to making honest mistakes. As Seneca once wrote, "Errare est humanum est."

To err is human; to attempt to make up for one's error by means of an ill-fitting mask, divine.

Ahead of the official unveiling of new signing Marvin Ducksch on Wednesday morning, it seems that someone at FC St. Pauli may have made a small but significant oversight. For whatever reason, St. Pauli manager Ewald Lienen failed to show up to the presentation. Maybe someone forgot to send him an email, or drop him a text, or whatever. We can only speculate on the circumstances behind his absence.

It's not the absence itself which interests us, however. We imagine that administrative errors are relatively common in the second-tier of German football and, as such, the manager's no-show might have gone largely unnoticed, had St. Pauli not tried to cover it up by means of a complete stranger wearing an crude, two-dimensional Ewald Lienen mask.

At first glance – just for a moment – this picture looks completely normal. When the eye has time to refocus and adjust, however, it becomes apparent that Ewald Lienen's face is tied to a random bloke's head by a piece of string. The chin has blended well, as has the hair but, unfortunately, the side of the face is a jutting piece of cardboard. Moreover, it's something of a giveaway that Lienen's stand-in appears to have a small ear growing out of his his own, much larger ear.

All in all, the disguise is less than convincing.

While it's quite possible that this is a deliberate stunt, we'd like to think this is the least successful cover up of all time. Having forgotten to tell the manager about Marvin Ducksch's arrival, we'd like to think that the club secretary panicked, hastily improvised an Ewald Lienen mask and proceeded to unveil the player himself. There he is, in front of a baffled photographer, desperately hoping that nobody will notice. There he is, waiting for the click of the camera, and thinking: "I've definitely got away with one here."