SANTA CLARA, Calif. — New San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan admitted at his introductory news conference that he will “go back through every play” of Super Bowl LI for the rest of his life. And though the ending of that Super Bowl and his tenure as Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator will undoubtedly be hard to shake, not everything from Shanahan’s Super Bowl experience will take on such a serious tone.

After last week’s news conference and making the rounds with various media outlets, Shanahan popped into the media room to chat with a group of writers in a more informal session. At the start of that sit-down, Shanahan recounted the case of his missing backpack, which included his iPad playbook, from early in Super Bowl week.

It was a particularly amusing story for Bay Area media considering the accidental thief of the backpack was Art Spander of the San Francisco Examiner. Spander is a local legend in San Francisco sports writing, earning the McCann Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1999.

Here’s Shanahan’s recollection of what happened in his own words:

“It was a very panicked feeling,” Shanahan said.

But Shanahan wasn’t panicked because of the presence of his game plan, which would still have needed a password to access.

“[But] that had all my Super Bowl tickets in it for all my friends and family, so it’s basically a $30,000 bag of cash that was missing,” Shanahan said. “So that was my panic.”

It was a panic that held Shanahan for a long time as he tried to figure out where the backpack went.

“I was just looking for my backpack,” Shanahan said. “I didn’t know who took it. But I couldn’t get more than five feet without someone stopping me. And I was getting insecure because people were trying to talk to me and I can’t even look them in the eye. [I was thinking] ‘I’ve got to find my backpack!’ And they’re [thinking] ‘this guy’s weird.’

“So finally I went back to my seat where I was and there was this one backpack sitting there. And so I just went and started looking in that backpack and finally I found Art’s name on it. I was asking some reporters around and someone had his cellphone, so they called him.”

But recovering the backpack wasn’t that easy.

“They talked to Art,” Shanahan said. “And I was like, ‘Does he have it?’ He goes, ‘I don’t know.’ I’m like ‘you just talked to him for 30 seconds, what do you mean you don’t know?’ [He said] ‘I don’t know. He’s coming down here, though.'”

So Shanahan sat down and waited 30 minutes for Spander to return with his backpack. He missed the team bus while waiting.

“Finally he came, he was wearing the backpack,” Shanahan said. “But he still didn’t know it was mine. I tried to grab it from him and he shook me off. And then eventually he realized it and then he was awesome. Just a mistaken backpack.”

Shanahan said the backpacks were placed in a dark area so it was understandable that his black backpack could be mistaken for Spander’s blue one. He also acknowledged that he has a knack for misplacing things.

Marc Ingla, a former Barcelona director who now occupies a similar role at Ligue 1’s Lille, believes there was a “little friction” between Lionel Messi and Zlatan Ibrahimovic in Catalonia, hence the latter lasting just a year at Camp Nou.

The gangly Swede fashioned 16 goals over 29 appearances en route to top spot in La Liga, but his relative lack of mobility – when compared to the rest of Pep Guardiola’s breathless ranks – was widely deemed detrimental to the side’s work.

In that campaign, Barca was eliminated from the last 16 of the Copa del Rey by Sevilla, and lost 3-2 on aggregate to Inter Milan in their Champions League semi-final.

“Why did Zlatan not get on at Barcelona?” Ingla told Telefoot, with translation from ESPN FC’s Samuel Marsden. “He’s a beast, a machine. But he was next to another machine, a smaller one (laughs).

“He was too static and Messi perhaps needed more space. Zlatan occupied too much. There was a little friction, I think.”

Ibrahimovic was shipped on loan to AC Milan in 2011, and made a permanent switch to the Italian powerhouse a year later. Since he was deemed surplus to requirements by Guardiola, the 35-year-old has been less than complimentary about the trophy-laden Spanish manager.

“Guardiola is a fantastic coach. But as a human? He is a coward. He is no man,” Ibrahimovic told Der Spiegel in 2013, as reported by ESPN FC.

“I told him that if I don’t fit here, you have to please tell me that. But all I got was sweet talk: ‘Ibra you are a super player, you do everything right.’ But I still ended up on the bench.”

The veteran striker has nabbed 15 strikes and four assists in 24 Premier League outings for Manchester United this term.

The New York Giants released wide receiver Victor Cruz and running back Rashad Jennings on Monday, creating significant salary-cap space by parting ways with two veteran members of their offense.

Cruz, an undrafted free agent from nearby Paterson, New Jersey, described his seven-year stint with the Giants as an “amazing journey.”

“I pretty much grew up in front of the eyes of this entire organization,” Cruz said as part of a statement released by the team. “The Giants fan base, the community, my hometown, my family. I grew up there. It’s very much a family atmosphere and it’s very much like leaving your family. That’s what it feels like. I did some great things there.”

Cruz, 30, is 2½ years removed from major knee surgery and would have counted for $9.4 million against the Giants’ salary cap in 2017. New York frees up $7.5 million in cap space with his release.

Jennings would have counted $3,062,500 against the cap in 2017. Releasing him frees up $2.5 million in cap space.

Giants general manager Jerry Reese described Cruz as “one of the great stories in the National Football League.”

After spending most of his rookie season on injured reserve, Cruz burst onto the scene with back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons in 2011 and 2012, and he caught a touchdown pass in the Giants’ Super Bowl XLVI victory. But he has struggled to regain that form since suffering a torn patellar tendon in October 2014. He missed the entire 2015 season and had just 39 catches for 586 yards and a touchdown this past season.

Cruz’s role diminished as he fell behind Odell Beckham Jr. and Sterling Shepard on the Giants’ depth chart in 2016.

The further the Champions League progresses, the less predictable it becomes.

The vetting begins early as teams with the slimmest of odds for European glory gradually bow out once the group stage concludes.

Surprises aren’t uncommon at that point, but sustained success is much tougher to achieve over the duration of a six-match qualifying period.

However, the Round of 16 offers a greater chance for a handful of the continent’s unlikely contenders to jolt the competition and pull off a giant slaying over the span of two matches.

Here are three teams poised to shock the world and make a deep run in the Champions League:

Sevilla

There’s no other team over the last 40 years that’s enjoyed quite as much success against continental foes like Sevilla.

On the heels of another Europa League triumph, there’s literally nowhere Sevilla would rather be at this point of the season than in the knockout stage competing with the world’s best teams for a chance to win a ludicrous fourth consecutive European title.

This season, the Spanish side – which became the first team since Bayern Munich in 1973 to claim three straight European trophies – was rewarded for its latest Europa League title with a place in the Champions League, where Sevilla’s impressive performances continued despite being lumped in a difficult group.

Jorge Sampaoli’s men now look poised for a deep run as they get set to clash with a Leicester City outfit in the midst of a goalless drought of epic proportions for a defending English champion.

Related: Leicester hits new low as barren scoring run reaches 10-hour mark

Perhaps the confidence associated with a presumably painless two-legged triumph will propel Sevilla to further success, and potentially see Los Rojiblanco become the first team since Chelsea in 2013 to win consecutive European titles in separate tournaments.

AS Monaco

With one of Europe’s most potent attacking units, there were likely no shortage of teams happy to avoid Monaco during the Round of 16 draw.

In contrast to the past two seasons, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about Monaco’s chances of producing a deep run. The team’s comfortable progression past the group stage is even more impressive when the club’s domestic success is taken into consideration, as Leonardo Jardim’s side attempts to usurp Paris Saint-Germain as France’s top-flight champion.

The objective in the knockout round, however, is far from comfortable against a Manchester City unit that presents a massive obstacle. Yet, Monaco’s historically impressive away record against English teams – five wins, two draws, two losses – could provide an injection of confidence heading into the first leg at the Etihad Stadium.

A morale-boosting victory over Pep Guardiola and a City side loaded with talent could give Monaco the confidence it needs to carry out bigger upsets as the competition evolves.

Napoli

Napoli has the potential to be one of the biggest banana skins on Real Madrid’s route to a 12th European title

The Italians enter the two-legged affair with little to no pressure against a Real squad predicted to steamroll its way into the quarter-finals.

Yet, betting against Napoli – and its chances of preventing Madrid from becoming the first club during the Champions League era to defend its title – is far from guaranteed.

The Italian side has several players to thank for its success of late, but the scoring rampage that Dries Mertens has produced will likely have Real boss Zinedine Zidane scrambling to contain the gifted Belgian attacker.

With a scoring record (14 goals) over the past 10 games unrivalled by the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Edinson Cavani, and former teammate Gonzalo Higuaín, Mertens could be the driving force behind one of the biggest upsets in Champions League history.