You can't help but admire Luigi Di Biagio. Having suffered the misery and pain of missing the penalty that cost Italy a place in the World Cup semi-finals in July (in a penalty shoot-out against France) the Roma midfielder had the courage to step up and take another spot-kick in yesterday's Serie A match against Empoli. Fair play to him. (By the way, he missed again. And the match finished 0-0).

Ronaldo is feeling less than media-friendly these days, following run-ins with Italian and Spanish newspapers in the past fortnight. Last week he announced that he was taking the editor of Italian paper La Nazione to court after it published his mobile phone number on its front page (carefully noted by AC Milan fans who, by all accounts, inundated the Inter Milan star with less than friendly phone calls). A few days later, when he arrived in Madrid, for the Champions League match between Inter Milan and Real, he was greeted by a front-page picture, in the Spanish sports paper Marca, of the French hotel room where he suffered convulsions before the World Cup final. Tasteful, eh?

Everton Chairman Peter Johnsen successfully set about alienating much of the Goodison Park first team squad at the club's AGM last week, in an attack on previous manager Howard Kendall's lack of success in the transfer market. "Gareth Farrelly was the first signing and that went on right through the season. There was no problem with the cash side, just the quality of player coming in," he said, in a remark that must have done a lot for the Irish international's self-confidence. Next week might prove to be a happy one, though, for Johnsen, who was chairman of Tranmere before he took over at Everton. Rumour has it that Everton will step up their bid (in the region of £3 million) for Tranmere goalkeeper Steve Simonsen in the coming days.

Handy that, because Tranmere owe Johnsen £3 million, a sum he lent them a few years back and one they are unable to repay. . . unless of course they sold a player for £3 million.