A soccer miscellany compiled by MARY HANNIGAN
Heads you lose : Pele choses Neymar over Lionel Messi as a striking partner
PELE was in London recently to launch his new sportswear collection, The Beautiful Revolution, and also found time to celebrate his 71st birthday and have a chat with the media.
The passing years, it has to be said, aren’t making the fella any more humble, but, then again, he doesn’t have a lot to be humble about.
Did he think, asked ESPN, the day would ever come when there’d be a player better than he?
“I think another Pele is a little difficult because my mother and father closed the machine,” he replied.
Fair enough.
Asked what current forward he would most like to play alongside he opted for Brazilian wunderkid Neymar (who, incidentally, had a quiet enough weekend with Santos, scoring just the four goals, and having two more disallowed).
Not Lionel Messi? Well, yes, he’d like to have played with Messi too, but: “He is an incomplete player because he can’t use his head.”
This photo of Edwin van der Sar’s face, during the 2009 Champions League final, would, you have to say, suggest otherwise.
Doughty drivel: Journalist’s remarks provoke backlash
“There are worse things to complain about (than racism) . . . so, Mr Evra and Mr Ferdinand, I know you feel insulted. But perhaps in this case you could just put up with it and get on with the game.”
– The Daily Mail's Steve Doughty, who got a whole heap of flak for his column last week. Just put up with it, Steve.
“We are all Chelsea fans and I can only hope that, on Saturday, we all get together, support this club and beat the crap out of Arsenal.”
– Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck at a meeting with supporters last week. Ooops.
“The Olympic tournament for me is not a real football tournament, for me the Olympics is for track and field basically. If I asked you who won the Olympics 20 years ago you would have problems to tell me.”
– Arsene Wenger, bizarrely unaware that the country that won Olympic football gold 20 years ago was . . . eh.
“No one wants to work for little money, otherwise they would be living on the streets.”
– Samuel Eto’o explaining that he only signed a €30 million-over-three-years contract with Russian club Anzhi to keep a roof over his head. Nice roof, though.
Spark is gone: Fulham owner rounds on Hughes
Reporter: "What do Inter need to start climbing the table?"
Massimo Moratti (Inter Milan president): "Points."
– No flies on Massimo.
“What a strange man Mark Hughes is . . . Fulham is a progressive club with a top manager in Martin Jol, the man we had really wanted when Hughes was appointed . . . when the challenge came, it was not the club but Mark Hughes who lacked the courage and ambition to take on the task of leadership. If people are looking for a flop, they need look no further than the man who has lost his spark.”
– Mohammad Al Fayed’s magnificently-outspoken response.
“I don’t want him banned because we need as many fans as we can get.”
– Oldham mascot Chaddy the Owl’s very generous response after being punched by a supporter. An Oldham supporter, that is.
“That’s when she started insulting me. She was following me with a telephone and a frying pan.”
– Macarena Lemos recalling a run-in with the mother of Lionel Messi when she was out shopping a few years back. Mrs Messi, apparently, didn’t approve of the lingerie model’s relationship with her boy.
Snakes alive: Terry is a no show for pet shop opening
IT’S been a testing old time for John Terry, accusations of racism followed by that 5-3 hiccup on Saturday not making it the happiest week in his career. To cap it all, a gaggle of Chelsea fans gathered outside Reptile Kingdom last week having heard that their captain would be officially opening the pet shop – but he didn’t turn up.
The owner of the shop claimed that he had arranged through a mutual friend for Terry to do the honours, but the player denied he’d ever made any such agreement. He even issued a statement to the Daily Telegraph, although snakes might not have been his priority on that particular day: “For the avoidance of doubt, I had not agreed to attend the opening of this or any other shop today. I had been asked if I would consider the opportunity and declined on two separate occasions. That is as far as the matter went.”
Hopefully that clarification will help cheer up the very disappointed child photographed by the Daily Mail outside Reptile Kingdom. Who knows, he might even switch his loyalties to QPR now, and maybe even buy himself an Anton Ferdinand shirt.
Working overtime: Palemero post hard to keep up with
THE hardest working person in sport? Quite possibly the poor soul who updates the Wikipedia page on managers of Palermo – and remember, s/he is doing it for nothing.
Since Maurizio Zamparini bought the club in 2002 he’s worked his way through 18 managers, give or take a couple of caretakers.
The latest man to give it a lash is Devis Mangia, the fourth person to sit in the hottest of hot seats this year.
Zamparini offered him some useful advice this week: “Mangia is young, smart and knows precisely why he must always listen to my advice.”
Take heed Devis. (We’ll update you on his replacement soon – as will the Wikipedia person).
Have boots: Will travel
JORDAN Ibe was the Wycombe player making the headlines last week when the 15-year-old scored his first senior goal for the club against Sheffield Wednesday, the referee joining in on the celebrations by booking the lad for whooping it up with his family in the stands.
Wycombe lost, not helped by Gareth Ainsworth’s sending off (who had made over 100 appearances for the club before Ibe was even born).
Lost in all of this was news that Wycombe had signed Nicholas Bignall on loan from Reading. You can only hope that Ibe has a more settled career than Bignall – he’s only 21 but has already played for nine clubs (eight on loan): Reading, Northampton, Cheltenham, Stockport, Southampton, Bournemouth, Brentford, Exeter and now Wycombe.
Have boots, will travel.
Super Mario: No shopper
IT'S BECOMING increasingly difficult not to love Mario Balotelli, especially after one Sunstory last week.
His mother, apparently, sent him shopping for a bunch of household products after the woman they hired to keep his Manchester home shipshape pointed out that it didn't contain a single item she could actually use.
So, Mario set off with a list, that including an iron, ironing board and a string of cleaning products, and according to a tweet from an "insider": "Mario returns 5 hrs later empty-handed.
Cleaner: "Er, where's the iron, iron-board etc?"
Then a big John Lewis van arrives. Contains nothing from the list but the following "practical" items: Giant trampoline, Scalextric, two Vespas, table tennis set."
The boy might be a genius, but his house is still a mess.
