A soccer miscellany compiled by MARY HANNIGAN

Bieber: The special one

JOSE Mourinho, you might have spotted, is fairly fond of himself, but even he might have been surprised when a gaggle of screaming girls surrounded his car in Madrid last week.

Spanish paper Sportdescribed the scene as the girls blocked the car and began whacking it, in the hope that their hero would emerge from behind the tinted windows.

Alas, if he had, they'd have been gutted: they thought Justin Bieber was inside. Mourinho had taken his daughter to meet the teeny-bopper in his Madrid hotel, and the throngs outside assumed it was Bieber's car that was leaving. Jose's ego. Deflated.

But only temporarily.

Messi business: Polls apart

THERE's good news and bad news for Barcelona's Lionel Messi from Timemagazine's poll for the 2011 Person of the Year.

The good? He's currently in 11th spot in the 'most popular' list in the online voting, one place below US president Obama, but ahead of luminaries like Silvio Berlusconi and Rupert Murdoch.

The bad news? He's also currently rated as the 21st least popular person in the world, getting almost as many votes as Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund.

You can only assume Brazil and Real Madrid supporters have been voting early – and very often.

No defence: Golec's private tweets cost him dear

ADELAIDE United defender Antony Golec wasn't overly impressed by the performance of referee Ben Williams when he was watching the game between Melbourne Victory and Brisbane Roar on television last week. He decided to share his opinion of the official with his brother on Twitter, but, he claimed, he intended the message to be private, and not shared with the entire Twitterverse.

The tweet? "Ben Williams you are gay, biggest homo going around, you gypsy." 'Bloody Nora,' was the gist of his club's reaction when they heard the news – before Golec had a chance to delete it, it was re-tweeted over a 1,000 times.

Adelaide chief executive Glenn Elliott informed the 20-year-old that his contract would be terminated if he repeated the offence, while Football Federation Australia have handed him a one-match ban.

"What I thought were private comments were sent in a moment of excitement, without proper thought being given to them," said Golec.

"The tweet was intended to be a private exchange in which I attempted to be humorous. I didn't sleep on Saturday night, I was a mess. I'm really sorry for the distress I must have caused."

Sensibly enough, though, Golec has deleted his Twitter account.

Twit or trend: Name game

"THE Twitters are coming in," announced Bill O'Herlihy after Friday's game, one of them rather critical of Giovanni Trapattoni, despite the night that was in it. "Is that a twit or a tweet," asked an unimpressed Liam Brady, who'd strike you as a man not madly fond of this form of social media.

You'd wonder, then, quite what he'd make of Twitter-addict Gabriel Zakuani, a defender with Peterborough. The Sun revealed last week that Zakuani has named his son 'Trendy'. "People have asked if his name is because of 'trending topics' on Twitter," he said. "Maybe it was in the back of my mind."

Facebook Zakuani, by all accounts, is delighted to have a baby brother.

Okay, we made that up.

Fulham love: Phoney stuff

Blushes all 'round at Fulham? Possibly, after the Sun picked up on an extract in a book by retired Danish tennis player Frederik Fetterlein: "One day I visited one of my good friends at Fulham FC. Shortly after the training session ended an assistant took a basket filled with mobile phones and passed them on to various players. Some used these phones for about an hour or so until they left the football complex to drive home. It was their girlfriend-mobile – the phone they could use to speak freely to their mistresses."

Uh oh.

Whistle unhappy: Estonians have it in for the referee

HUNGARIAN referee Viktor Kassai is experiencing a bit of what Swedish referee Martin Hansson endured two years ago after sending off those two Estonian players on Friday night. He already stars in one of those Hitler Downfallparodies on YouTube, and has a few new Facebook pages dedicated to him too: including one titled 'Viktor Kassai to be shot'.

Crikey!

The gospel according to Trap: Waxing lyrical on cats, cliffs, wolves, wine and God

"The cat is in the sack, but the sack is not closed. The cat is in it, but it's open – and it's a wild cat." – Giovanni Trapattoni warning everyone not to count their Euro 2012 chickens.

"At this moment, we are near qualifying at 4-0. But I repeat: don't jump the gun. I have been many times at the edge of a cliff. I know these situations." – Another warning.

"I'm not God, I don't speak English very well – I don't speak Italian very well – and I make many mistakes. But after 30 years in football, I think I understand it a little bit." – Explaining that selecting Jon Walters on Friday wasn't down to divine intervention, just footballing wisdom.

"One of my friends, many years ago when I was a very, very young manager, said to me, 'Why do you want to go? Remember, the more woods you visit, the more wolves you find.'" – From wild cats to wolves, insisting he wants to stay in the Irish job.

"No, no. I would continue life. In Italy, we say the older wine gets, the better it tastes – if you are still clear in your mind, and thank God, I think I am still clear in my mind." – On what he'd do if he left.

"I'm not going to single individuals out, but Yakubu has missed loads of great chances." – Not for the first time, TalkSports's Alan Brazil.

"He's a good player but you can't really compare him to me. I scored a lot of goals. I don't know if Rooney has." – Pele waxes lyrical about young Wayne.

"When I was a kid we had two kittens. I cannot now remember their gender. And we also had a hamster. However, they all disappeared under unclear circumstances." – Andrey Arshavin on the mystery of his disappearing pets.

"Messi! Messi! Messi!" – Cristiano Ronaldo's airport greeting from locals when he arrived in Bosnia last week. That went down well.