Mary Hannigan's Planet Football: If Saturday was a grim day for Wayne Rooney it wasn't the best for his uncle either. Only three days before the game at Stamford Bridge the Star revealed Rooney's uncle stood to win £50,000 if Wayne played in the 2006 World Cup finals, having backed him at 250 to 1 when he was just 12.
"A pal said: 'The only thing that could get in the way is if Wayne is injured. We're all on tenterhooks.'" Oh lord.
Mourinho's medal
"The medal was for everybody but the person who has it is lucky," said Jose Mourinho on Saturday after he chucked his Premiership winning medal into the crowd at Stamford Bridge. "He has a great souvenir, unless he puts it on Ebay and makes a fortune," he laughed. Not long after . . . on Ebay: "Jose Mourinho's Premiership winner's medal - I caught the second one!!!" the seller claims.
Last we checked the highest bid was £10 million. We trust the "winner" will see to it his cheque bounces, not least because the seller hasn't even provided a photo of said medal. You don't think he's telling porkies, do you?
Song of the week
"There's only one Nakamura, one Nakamura, he eats chow mein, and votes Sinn Féin, walking in a Naka wonderland." Celtic supporters' rather sublime tune for Shunsuke Nakamura.
Quotes of the week
"They have to concentrate not only when they have the ball or when their opponents have the ball, but also when neither of them has the ball. "
- Graham Taylor, on BBC Radio 5 - that degree of expertise could very well persuade the FA to give him the England job again.
"I think you had better get somebody else to listen to it because I wasn't impressed with it at all. It's not loud and it's not the sort of song that you would want to sing and it's not the tune that you would want to listen to."
- Jack Charlton reviews the official England World Cup song - and puts himself in the running for the job of judge on the X Factor.
"Why should I care if he's in the final? I couldn't care less. In fact, I couldn't give a s**t."
- Barcelona's Samuel Eto'o, excited about meeting Thierry Henry in the Champions League final.
"Milan Baros is our most expensive player and after the World Cup you could get an offer for £15 million, but I've no idea where that sort of offer would come from."
- David O'Leary. Probably from Cloud Cuckoo Land, Dave.
"This is as good a squad of players as we have ever had."
- Who ever said Alex Ferguson doesn't have a sense of humour?
"We now consider Middlesbrough as our brothers."
- Rapid Bucharest supporters' association leader Gigi Corsicanu after Boro knocked Steaua Bucharest out the Uefa Cup.
"We did everything but, at times, football is not just. I guess God wanted Arsenal to go through."
- Villarreal's Guillermo Franco on the divine inspiration that put Arsenal through to the final.
Blokhin is out of order
Fifa president Sepp Blatter backed down last week from his earlier suggestion teams be docked points at the World Cup if their fans, coaches or team officials were found guilty of racial abuse. Good news, then, for Ukraine, who, in light of remarks made by their coach Oleg Blokhin (who's also an MP), might have started their campaign on -9 points: "The more Ukrainians there are playing in the national league, the more examples there are for the young generation. Let them learn from Shevchenko or Blokhin and not some zumba-bumba whom they took off a tree, gave two bananas and now he plays in the Ukrainian league. When I played, if we lost it was not easy to walk the Kiev street. There were many friends out there who could beat you up for that. Is there any sense in beating up a foreigner? Okay, so you beat him up, next thing he does is pack up and go."
Luxemburgo sees pink
Yet another coach who's got himself in to a spot of bother is Vanderlei Luxemburgo of Santos. The former Real Madrid and Brazil coach was given a 60-day touchline ban for comments he made about referee Rodrigo Martins Cintra after Santos lost to Sao Paulo.
"He was flirting with me," said Luxemburgo after the game, "he blew his whistle and looked at me with every decision he made. Maybe it was because of my pink shirt." Alternatively, of course, Cintra might just have been wondering why any self-respecting football coach would choose to wear pink.
More quotes of the week
"An agreement is a very different thing to a meeting. I can meet a person on a dancefloor."
- Luiz Felipe Scolari insisting he hadn't yet agreed to become England manager.
"After the smorgasbord, the samba. After the passive, the manic. After the Mekon from Swedish outer space, the Gene Hackman lookalike from Rio by the sea-o. After Sven the Impaler, Phil the Philanderer."
- After hearing news of Big Phil's imminent appointment the Daily Mail's Jeff Powell gets the red carpet ready.
"In his handling of the England headhunting business, Brian Barwick makes Mr Bean look like Alan Sugar."
- The Telegraph's Henry Winter on the FA chief executive's role in the muddle.
"I am a man with two legs, two arms and a head and my mother would expect me to be treated properly and fairly."
- Scolari, em, explains why he turned down the England job.
"Kicked in the Brazil nuts."
- The Daily Mirror's take on Scolari's decision.
Kiely shows true colour
Dean Kiely might have retired from international football but he's still keen on the colour green, as noted by his Portsmouth team-mates. When he turned up on Sky Sports' Goals on Sunday the weekend before last he was wearing a "vivid green jumper", according to the Telegraph, the same one he had worn on a previous appearance - five years before. When he turned up for training next day the Portsmouth squad was wearing a similar jumper, bought by Svetoslav Todorov in "a local low-budget clothing store".
Kiely, meanwhile, displayed modesty when he chose his all-time Irish team on his website - he gave Shay Given the nod over himself.
TEAM: Shay Given; Chris Hughton, Paul McGrath, Kenny Cunningham, Steve Staunton; Ray Houghton, Roy Keane, Liam Brady, Damien Duff; Niall Quinn, Robbie Keane.
