A roundup from the world of soccer

Wing wizard Ronaldo may have match

“IT’S the kind of craziness we deal with on a daily basis”, said a Real Madrid spokesman when asked last week about a letter sent to Spanish newspaper El Mundo by a “wizard” who claimed to have been paid to cast a nasty spell on Cristiano Ronaldo.

“I have nothing against this great club,” wrote the man who described himself as “a mixture of priest and doctor”. “I am a professional and someone has paid me very well to use my powers. I have been hired to make Ronaldo suffer a serious injury. I can’t promise that it will be a serious injury, but he’ll certainly be out of action more than playing.”

Using photos of Ronaldo spread around his “laboratory” the wizard set to work. “It’s a step-by-step process and depends on various factors, so the result you are looking for is achieved sooner or later,” he said, claiming to have ended the player’s goal-a-game run in the league match against Tenerife.

Ronaldo must have had a right chuckle at this mumbo-jumbo bunkum. Until he limped out of Wednesday’s Champions League game against Marseille after being flattened by Souleymane Diawara (who was sent off). He was ruled out of yesterday’s game against Seville with the resulting ankle injury. Uh oh.

Quotes of the week

“She was considering her future, shall we say. But we saved the girl. Sweet talk, you can say. In the end she tootled off back to wherever she had come from. I think she saw us and realised, ‘Okay, at least it’s not that bad’.”

– Hull City manager Phil Brown on his and his squad’s encounter with an apparently suicidal woman on the Humber Bridge last week.

“We were looking for clarity. There are analogies if you want them. The bridge was built with engineering based on the fact that when an ill wind blows, it becomes stronger, a sturdier sculpture. As far as we were concerned, we just went for a walk.”

– Brown again, explaining why he’d taken his squad for a walk across the bridge in the first place. Stephen Hunt must love this fella’s team talks.

“The manager speaks perfect English, which helps. I’m not talking about anyone before but he gets his point across and you know exactly what he means.”

– Robbie Keane, relieved to finally have a manager (Harry Redknapp) who speaks the same lingo, as opposed to, say, Juande Ramos or Rafa Benitez. Or, eh, Giovanni Trapattoni?

More quotes of the week

“I was disappointed with the referee. He didn’t add on any time for the goal. He played four minutes and two seconds.”

– Alex Ferguson, unimpressed with Alan Wiley’s time-keeping.

“He was also walking up the pitch for the second goal needing a rest. He was not fit enough for a game of that standard . . . he was taking 30 seconds to book a player. He was needing a rest. It was ridiculous.”

– Ferguson again. We thought he was talking about Dimitar Berbatov, but no, Wiley again.

“I would love to see a stat of how many times they have scored to rescue a game in the last minute after they have not played well . . . that is the mark of champions. At the top of that is the Ayatollah himself who sits and watches it. That is what he has brought to the football club. They never give in.”

– Steve Bruce pays, eh, tribute to Ayatollah Alex.

“There are 46 games in the season and we’ve played just eight of them so far. There are still 30 left, so we are not worried.”

– Tranmere defender Shaleum Logan, a bit in need of an abacus.

Even more quotes of the week

“If this was a first date they haven’t even taken our order yet, the night might turn out to be rubbish, she might walk out on me. Who’s to say what will happen?”

– Ian Holloway not yet ready to claim his relationship with Blackpool is a marriage made in heaven.

“I love Blackpool. We’re very similar. We both look better in the dark.”

– Although Holloway admits to being in love – and to being no oil painting.

“You put one fire out and another starts up in the corner. But you can spit your dummy out and throw your toys out of the pram, or take it as another fire, put it out and get going again.”

– Paul Hart, nigh on drowning in metaphors, on Portsmouth’s current woes.

United’s twins don’t ring true

ALEX Ferguson once admitted that he can’t tell identical Brazilian twins Fabio and Rafael Da Silva apart.

The fact that Fabio is married and, so, wears a wedding ring, used to be a help the Manchester United manager, but then the auld rascals took to sharing the ring just to add to the confusion (we’ll trust that Fabio’s wife isn’t fooled by these high jinks).

We’re guessing, then, that Ferguson joins in lustily when the fans start singing: “Viva Da Silva, Viva Da Silva, When they’re on the pitch, We don’t know which one’s which”.

All fine for Ade

EMMANUEL Adebayor, you might have read, has been complaining about the €27,281 fine handed out to him by the FA as punishment for his goal celebration against Arsenal the other week, describing it as “excessive”. Yesterday’s Observer, though, revealed that for his exclusive interview with the Sun (“Adebayor Opens Heart on Abuse Row”) the player was paid €21,825 plus VAT, giving him a total net punishment of €2,182. Considering he’s earning over €163,686 a week you’d have to imagine, in time, he and his finances will recover.