Funny old world: the week's offbeat news

From Germany's new teenage hero to why time will have to wait for the EU... your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world.

NO LEG TO STAND ON

Italy's goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma is no shrinking violet.

But he got so carried away complaining to the referee during Sunday's crunch Nations League showdown with Germany that he left his goal wide open for Jamal Musiala to score into an empty net.

The bizarre fail cost Italy a place in the semifinals, and had millions of German fans toasting quick-thinking ball boy Noel Urbaniak who spotted the distracted keeper off his line.

The 15-year-old quickly threw the ball to Joshua Kimmich for a corner, who passed to Musiala for an easy tap-in.

Donnarumma's fury at the referee quickly turned to embarrassment, with his manager blasting a "lack of maturity".

But the ball boy was hailed as "world-class and unbelievably smart" by German manager Julian Nagelsmann. Kimmich even gave him the ball and his shirt after the match.

THERE IS A MONSTER

A babysitter in Kansas trying to reassure a child who thought "there was a monster under the bed" found a man lurking there.

"When the victim attempted to show the child there was nothing under the bed, she came face-to-face with a male suspect who was hiding there," Barton County Sheriff's Office said.

A 27-year-old suspect, who was barred from the address by a restraining order, was arrested the next day for battery and kidnapping.

SOMETHING MISSING

A United Airlines pilot failed to carry out one rather important pre-flight check before taking off from Los Angeles to Shanghai. They forgot to pack their passport.

So the Boeing 787 with 270 people aboard had to divert to San Francisco while the airline tried to find another pilot with travel documents.

The airline finally arrived in China the next day, six hours late.

NOT QUITE LEGIT

Former French president Niclolas Sarkozy has been accused of lots of jiggery-pokery since he left office in 2012.

But at his latest graft trial, where he is accused of taking campaign finance from former Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi – a man Sarkozy later helped depose – things got really surreal.

Police burst into the courtroom to arrest a "fake lawyer" who had been attending the Paris trial for at least two days after she was allegedly caught trying to steal a real lawyer's robes.

French media said the "lawyer" had previously turned up at other courts in the capital.

Sarkozy – who is wearing an electronic tag after being jailed for a year in another case – denies illegally accepting cash from Kadhafi, saying, "You will never ever find a single euro, a single Libyan cent, in my campaign."

NO TIME TO WASTE

With the clocks set to go forward an hour in many countries Sunday, Europe is inching towards a big time revolution.

The European Parliament has already voted to do away with daylight saving – one of the few things on which it agrees with US President Donald Trump – but the wheels of change turn slowly in Brussels.

The 27 EU member states have to vote before it comes back for final approval.

Irish lawmaker Sean Kelly said "the time has come to say bye-bye" to moving the clocks forward in spring and back in autumn because it is "bad for human health, bad for animals, bad for road traffic..."

The Polish EU presidency said it is on board, but "as the clock is ticking, we will take our time to assess the situation".

Neighbours Lithuania are in a hurry, however, with an official insisting it will waste no time to make the change a priority when it takes the presidency... in 2027.