Tottenham forward Richarlison has entered what can only be described as an existential spiral after Roberto de Zerbi made the unconscionable decision to leave him out of Tuesday’s Carabao Cup squad against Liverpool. The 27-year-old Brazilian took to social media to post a crying emoji—a move that, in his mind, apparently signals the collapse of the cosmic order itself.
This is not, sources confirm, a standard case of a player being annoyed about missing a cup tie. This is a man staring into the void and asking why the universe permits such cruelty. The Carabao Cup, Richarlison has now determined, is not merely a domestic competition. It is a crucible of human suffering, a test of one’s place in the grand theatre of existence. And he has been cast out.
De Zerbi’s squad selection was, by all accounts, tactical. Reasonable, even. But reasonableness is the enemy of melodrama, and melodrama is what we are here for. One crying emoji has somehow become a philosophical statement about the nature of suffering, unfairness, and whether any of us truly matter in this indifferent cosmos.
The match itself will proceed without him. Liverpool will play. Goals will be scored. The universe will continue its expansion. And somewhere, Richarlison will sit with his emoji, contemplating whether the Carabao Cup was ever real at all, or merely a beautiful dream from which he has been brutally awakened.
This is sport in 2026: where a squad rotation decision becomes an epistemological crisis, and a single crying emoji contains multitudes.