All in the game

A soccer miscellany compiled by MARY HANNIGAN

A soccer miscellany compiled by MARY HANNIGAN

"Before I came here I had never seen a postman kneel on my doorstep and kiss my feet. It is amazing how crazy Italians are for their football."– Lazio's German striker Miroslav Klose on the surprise he gets when he collects his post every morning.

Does Darron not like this?

FOOTBALL supporters can be a touch cruel. Just ask Darron Gibson. You might remember he deleted his Twitter account last year, two hours after opening it, due to not entirely complimentary comments from Manchester United fans. And what happened when United announced on their official Facebook page that Gibson was leaving for Everton? The news was ‘liked’ by, at the last count, 33,254 fans. Hopefully the Everton fans will be kinder to the fella.

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Operation transformation: How to look your very Best

YOU have to wonder how Leon Best responded when he was told last week, as he surely was, that a young woman from Nepal by the name of Promise Tamang, who lives in America and is a make-up artist of some repute, had posted a video on YouTube called ‘How to look like Leon Best’.

The gist of his reply was most probably: “Eh?” If he tracked the video down and clicked play, he’d have seen it start with his photo and the caption “Leon Best is my favorite soccer player eva”.

Then, using hair lotion, eye shadow, bronzer and eyeliner, he’d have seen Tamang attempt to transform herself into, well, Leon Best. Was she successful? Hmm. . .

Some rather strong opinions were expressed in the comments under the video, many alleging the ‘transformation’ had been a failure, with one plaintive ‘voice’ asking: “Why do you like Leon Best so much?” In or around 155,000 views later you’d imagine the maker of the video was still weeping. After all, it was a parody on Tamang’s efforts to transform herself into singer/actor Drake. There was, in fairness, a clue in his message: “Please subscribe to see more videos of how to make yourself look like James Perch, Jean-Alain Boumsong and Keith Gillespie.”

Sunderland or Saudi? O’Neill nonplussed at Gardner’s short-haul homesickness

“It is England and you can get from one place to another. It isn’t impossible these days. It’s not as if he’s playing in Saudi Arabia.”

– Martin O’Neill, a bit puzzled by Craig Gardner’s homesickness

– Sunderland to Birmingham isn’t, after all, a long-haul flight.

“I wish to say yesterday’s incident with Leo Messi was unintentional, but I nevertheless want to apologise to him if he was offended . . . the thought of hurting a colleague has never entered my mind.”

– Real Madrid’s Pepe after offending Messi’s hand by stamping on it. It’s the way he tells ’em.

“I laugh at Rooney. There are many saints, but in heaven. If you want to be a saint you must practise what you preach.”

– Real Madrid old-boy Guti tweets back at young Wayne after he criticised Pepe for the Messi incident. Guti, you have to say, had a point.

“Sneijder, Huntelaar, Robben, Van der Vaart . . . they’ve left there one after another. They are like baguettes in a hot oven. We are betting who will be next.”

– You’d imagine Royston Drenthe might be the next to be baked after this observation on the fate of Dutch players at Real Madrid. The Everton midfielder is, after all, Dutch and, well, on loan from Real Madrid.

“The Ivory Coast are like Arsenal, they have not won a trophy since 1992.”

– Gervinho, a bit aggrieved that both his club and country trophy cabinets are bare.

“It’s like flirting with a girl. Perhaps she will resist you at first, but if you continue to ask her out, it always ends well. Never give up. Everything is going well so far.”

– Zhu Jun, owner of Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua, on his efforts to woo Didier Drogba.

Stumped: Hamann loses big

THERE’VE been a few eyebrow-raising extracts from Dietmar Hamann’s new autobiography, The Didi Man: My Love Affair with Liverpool.

The Guardian, though, picked out a snippet that can only be described as eye-popping.

“That night I bought Australia for £2,800 at 340 runs. That meant for every run over 340 you win £2,800, but for every run under you lose the same amount.

“Australia collapsed for 237. It is a score I remember well. It cost me £288,400. Every wicket felt like a stab in the heart.”

As Hamann wrote of his gambling problem, “the wheels came off good and proper”.

He was bowled over by it.

Dangers of sexy football

AC Milan statement:"Kevin-Prince Boateng has sustained a muscular lesion in his left thigh and the estimated time of recovery is around four weeks, unless there are complications."

Boateng's model/TV presenter/actress girlfriend, Melissa Satta: "The reason why he is always injured is because we have sex seven to 10 times a week."

AC Milan:No comment.

Who’s the greatest of them all?: Pele and Maradona go head to head in dispute

IN an interview with Le Monde last week Pele continued to express a doubt or two about claims that Lionel Messi is now as good as he was in his heyday, saying “when he has scored 1,283 goals and won three World Cups, then we will talk”.

So, Messi’s definitely not the new Pele?

“People ask me all the time when there will be a new Pele. I tell them: ‘Never’. My parents shut down the factory,” he said, moving joint first with David O’Leary at the top of the list of ‘football people who most often refer to themselves in the third person’.

Oddly, he then went on to imply that there are even folk out there who think he wasn’t a very good footballer at all.

“Some people will say that Beethoven didn’t know how to play the piano, that Michelangelo couldn’t paint and that Pele didn’t know how to play football.”

Who might he have had in mind? Cue Diego Maradona, not a man to allow a Pele-disputing-Messi’s-greatness comment go by: “This is maybe due to old age affecting his thought processes. You can’t blame the guy, he hasn’t been doing anything for the past 20 years. I haven’t even seen him in a supermarket. I don’t know what he does.

“Usually, when you see him these days, it’s only at award ceremonies next to the president of Fifa and looking like a doll that’s being moved by remote control. His comments come as no surprise.”

It’s a top quality contest, you have to say.

Stewart is shot down

Friday: Kenny Dalglish defends Stewart Downing from criticism over his form since joining Liverpool, who has yet to score or create a league goal for the team. "Stewart is a fantastic footballer. He's put more crosses in than anybody else, according to the figures. He can only do what he is doing, which is to put some decent balls into the box. We've got to get on the end of them."

Saturday: Drops him.

Keane reception: McCarthy finds result a tad too warm

“I hope he is on the losing side, but he will get a warm reception from me and, I hope, from everybody. I love him as a lad, but hope he gets slapped professionally.”

– Mick McCarthy before Robbie Keane’s visit to Wolves on Saturday – when Keane slapped his former club and gaffer with two goals.

“Mario has no intention of leaving City. Strangely for him, he is admitting that Manchester isn’t as bad as he thought or said.”

– Mario Balotelli’s agent Mino Raiola. He’s settling in, then. Ask Spurs.

“I am a moderately practising Muslim. I don’t eat pork, but I’ll drink alcohol at times – and I love chasing girls!”

– There’s no holding Newcastle’s Ben Arfa back.

“I’m really well, I’ll be out on the pitch again at any moment.”

– Paraguay striker Salvador Cabanas after rejoining his first club, third division side 12 de Octubre – two years after being shot in the head. The bullet is still lodged in his skull. Comeback of the week. Any week at all.

Stars, stripes and goals

THE US women’s team steamrolled over a young Dominican Republic side to open the 2012 Concacaf Olympic women’s qualifying tournament with a 14-0 victory in British Columbia, Canada on Saturday.

The 14 goals set a US women’s record for most goals in a game, breaking the previous mark of 12 established during back-to-back 12-0 wins in 1991 Concacaf World Cup qualifying ties against Mexico and Martinique.