A round-up of today's other stories in brief

Pele cheesed off with 'Pele'

We were always fond of that old yarn about Pele getting his name from Irish missionaries in Brazil (ie "Peile"), but, alas, the myth has long since been dispelled. By all accounts the name came from a team-mate of his father, a goalkeeper called Bile. When, so the story goes, the young Pele was playing football with his friends he pretended he was Bile - his pals thought he was saying "Pele" and the name stuck.

Now, 60 odd years later, Pele has revealed his loathing for the nickname and that he wants to be known from here on in by his proper name, Edson Arantes do Nascimento. "Pele isn't my name," he told a German magazine, "my name is Edson and I really don't like people calling me Pele. Over the years I've learnt to live with two persons in my heart - one is Edson, who has fun with his friends and family; the other is the football player Pele."

"I didn't want, and have never liked this nickname. Pele sounds like baby-talk in Portuguese. Edson sounds like Thomas Edison, the man who invented the light bulb. One of the other kids at school used to get on my nerves by calling me Pele, until one day I had enough and punched him." Edson it is, then.

Quotes of the week

"We want to be the nearest to Chelsea, in case they do a Devon Loch and collapse. You never know, malaria might hit the camp. We've got to hope something like that happens."

- Alex Ferguson, wishing a plague on the house of Stamford Bridge.

"He's making light of a killer disease and a major worldwide disaster. He may as well have said 'wouldn't it be great if a tsunami hit where Chelsea are playing?' People would be outraged, but it's effectively the same thing."

- Dr Mary Galinski of the Malaria Foundation International, a touch unimpressed by Ferguson's desire for Chelsea to come a cropper.

"You can be a professor of mathematics at the best university in America and you can ask your class to add two and two to make four, but the student adds three. Who is the culprit?"

- Atletico Madrid president Enrique Cerezo giving a vote of confidence to his coach Carlos Bianchi while implying his players are thick.

"Everyone has their own opinion but it's not always important that you hear them."

- Livingston manager Paul Lambert after Shelbourne's Pat Fenlon suggested that by leaving Shels and joining Livingston Wesley Hoolahan had moved to a lesser club.

"The buck always lies with the manager . . .".

- Bobby Robson on Graeme Souness's current woes - not only does the buck stop with him it goes to bed with him too.

"He can say anything he wants about me but the fact that he thinks I'm a p***k does not mean that I think he's a p***k."

- Ruud van Nistelrooy offers a, eh, olive branch to Patrick Vieira.

Chant of the week

"Who needs van Nistelrooy, we've got Keith Gilroy."

- Burton Albion supporters hailing their Sligo winger during yesterday's FA Cup game against Manchester United.

Argentina need some big 'uns

While Argentina are some people's fancy for the World Cup this summer their Football Association president Julio Grondona is less sure about the team's prospects. His main concern, it would seem, is that they don't have enough big lads, with players like Lionel Messi, Carlos Tevez, Javier Saviola and Sergio Aguero a little too pocket-sized for his liking.

"We need a striker who is a good header, like Crespo, and tall players like Daniel Bilos," he said. "We cannot hurt the European teams with that four all together. Football is a mixture of physiques and different techniques. The fans who want to see Messi, Tevez, Saviola and Aguero all together should go out and rent Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to Germany they go.

More quotes of the week

"I can't get them to play any better and I can't get them to work any harder. If this isn't good enough, then I can't do anything else. This is me doing the best I can . . . there comes a point where there's nothing else left to say as a manager, as a coach."

- Mick McCarthy, in buoyant form as he previews the remainder of Sunderland's league campaign.

"Have you ever thought I might be good at this job? I might be having a bit of a tough one in the Premier League at the moment but have you ever considered that, if things keep on not going great here and we do end up going down, I might be the best bloke to bring us back up?"

- McCarthy again, sort of suggesting that he's not banking on his team avoiding relegation.

"We currently have eight top players missing. Please God, shine on us."

- Graeme Souness, whose Newcastle injury list is as long as the odds on him still being in the job at the end of the season.

"I don't want anybody to go but I am not stopping anyone going - it is just that no one has come in and asked me about them."

- David O'Leary, still waiting for a flurry of enquiries about Mark Delaney, Ulises de la Cruz and Lee Hendrie.

"I believe that Liverpool is a team that defends well. In fact, they defend VERY well. But they offer nothing other than that . . . if you are playing this sort of team you have to do it with your head. You have to take away your heart and place it on one side."

- Are we misreading the situation or is Jose Mourinho not a Liverpool fan?

"I don't like some of them. On the pitch they want to kill me."

- Bolton's El-Hadji Diouf after his emotional reunion with his former Liverpool team-mates.

Santa gets it wrong

Bournemouth's attempts to treat 500 of their young supporters just before Christmas by getting Santa Claus to give them gifts didn't, alas, quite work out. Santa, the Telegraph told us, dropped in to the club's Dean Court ground just before their game against Gillingham and gave out presents to the kids - mainly boys. But when they were unwrapped it was noted that the gifts were all for girls, presumably of the My Little Pony and Barbie variety. To prevent a riot a Bournemouth official legged it to a local shop to try and find boys' toys but on his return the police refused to allow Santa present them at half-time, for security reasons. Well, even if they're all under 10 it's best not to arm football fans with bows and arrows.