In a fitting conclusion to John Obi Mikel day here at WAGNH, Chelsea's defensive midfielder - also known as Nigeria's attacking midfielder - has laughed off the whole interview that the Turkish newspaper Sabah claimed they conducted with him.

Even before Nigeria's match with Uruguay, Chelsea had called the interview fake, while a well-placed journalist doubted the veracity of the story as well:

Re those Mikel quotes. As far as I know, he's done just one interview in Brazil, at training in Salvador. Did not say that then #CFC — Colin Udoh (@ColinUdoh) June 20, 2013

Udoh then promised to try to get confirmation from Mikel.

And I doubt he has done any phone interviews either. But I've sms'd the link to the quotes to him. Should get a response maybe postgame #CFC — Colin Udoh (@ColinUdoh) June 20, 2013

It took a little bit, but sure enough, an SMS came back. In a story published about an hour ago, Mikel's text message laughs off the whole thing:

[...] in an SMS to KickOffNigeria.com, Mikel literally laughed off the quotes, saying 'Hahaha no I did not say that." -Source: Colin Udoh, KICK OFF

Depending on how much of a cynic you may be, those seven words can be emphasized in various ways. "Hahaha no I did not say that" (i.e. the move is still on) is very different from "Hahaha no I did not say that" (i.e. what a stupid question) or even "Hahaha no I did not say that" (i.e. you should know better). I'm choosing to go with either of the latter two interpretations, which seems to be in line with the tone of Udoh's article as well.

So now that all that is behind us, hopefully, I'm going to go back to watching Mikel's goal on infinite loop. You know what they say, once a #10, always a #10. And if they don't say that, well now they do!