ALL IN THE GAME:A soccer miscellany

Nigel de Jong: "I think he is getting it now . . . you have to give him credit for the last couple of weeks, not just on the pitch but in the training sessions. He is behaving quite normal for him."

Balotelli: "The real Mario is coming now and it isn't the same Mario as last year . . . I've changed my life. I don't live in town any more. I'm outside now so it's more quiet. I try to stay at home more."

The Guardian: "Mario Balotelli had to escape from his burning house after a fire caused by letting off fireworks in the bathroom in the early hours of Saturday morning. He has told club officials he and four friends were setting off fireworks through an open window. The bathroom towels set on fire and the blaze quickly spread."

Sunday: Scored twice in Manchester derby. Got booked for revealing T-shirt that read: "Why always me?"

A good question.

"To be this close to him, playing against him, we felt like we were in a movie." – Vaclav Pilar, of Czech side Viktoria Plzen, just a little overwhelmed after facing Lionel Messi in the Champions League last week.

SONG OF THE WEEK

"Oh Balotelli, he's a striker, He's good at darts, has an allergy to grass, but when he plays he's ****ing class, he drives around Moss Side with a wallet full of cash."

– Manchester City fans pretty much sum up Balotelli's City career to date in one short tune.

Uli fails to move on: Pen mightier than computer

JURGEN Klinsmann has moved on, now busying himself managing the United States national team, but the same can't be said for Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness who is still, by the sounds of it, a little sore about Klinsmann's brief spell in charge of the club.

"With Klinsmann, we had Powerpoint presentations and we spent thousands of euros on computers so that he could show the players in epic proportions how we wanted to play, with the emphasis on the word 'wanted'," he told newspaper Donaukurier.

"Jupp Heynckes (the current manager) has a flip chart with five marker pens which cost €2.50 each. He draws the opponent's formation on the chart and says a few things about it. We are winning games with Heynckes for €12.50, whereas we spent lots of money with Klinsmann for little success. A coach is not young or old, he is just good or bad."

Ouch.

€210mThe combined cost (give or take a few quid) of the City and United substitutes in yesterday's Manchester derby. Yep, just the substitutes.

No comic clown: Polish footballing legend Tomaszewski causing a stir

IF you're very, very old you might recall Jan Tomaszewski, the Polish goalkeeper dubbed a "clown" by Brian Clough before he played against England in a World Cup qualifier at Wembley back in 1973. Needless to say, Tomaszewski went on to have a blinder in a 1-1 draw, a result that saw Poland qualify for the finals at the expense of England.

Well, he's has had a lively old time of it since, first as a rather controversial football pundit and now as a newly elected MP for the right wing Law and Justice party.

Polish manager Franciszek Smuda has long been a target of Tomaszewski's ire, partly because of his involvement in a club match-fixing scandal and because, Tomaszewski says, he hasn't the required coaching qualifications.

"If he wants to check anything, let him check it, I don't give a damn," was Smuda's response. "It's even got to the point where I can't bring myself to say his name."

Well, Tomaszewski, now 63, has upped the ante, this time attacking Smuda for selecting players for the national side who weren't born in Poland, an issue he raised during his election campaign. "I don't want people who weren't good enough to make the first team for other nations to play for us, out of the kindness of their hearts – because we, true Poles, we've won things," he said.

French-born Damien Perquis, who qualifies to play for Poland through one of his grandparents (who emigrated to France after the first World War), made his debut last month in the friendly against Germany, an occasion that didn't exactly excite Tomaszewski. "How can he pull on the White Eagle shirt, the one in which we true Poles won honours, a piece of French trash who never made his mark at home?" he said.

Perquis is now threatening to sue Tomaszewski and has the support of the Polish section of Football Against Racism. "It's a shame Tomaszewski has been turning from a footballing legend into a nasty xenophobic campaigner for the radical right," said Rafal Pankowski of the group.

Cripes, maybe Clough was right.

No thanks: Banner riles Klose

GERMAN striker Miroslav Klose was, no doubt, pleased to see Lazio supporters saluting him during the recent derby against Roma, but he could have done without the references in this particular banner.

"Klose mit uns" ("Klose with us") is a play on the Nazis' "God with us", with a nod to the SS thrown in for good measure.

"I'm furious," he told La Gazzetta dello Sport. "Politics should stay out of the stadium."

It being Lazio, though, that's highly unlikely to happen.

Chirpy chirpy: Tweet tweet

NOTTINGHAM Forest striker Ishmael Miller had a narrow enough escape last week after a Twitter run-in with some rather critical Forest supporters who reckoned he wasn't exactly giving his all for the cause.

Just two days after he responded to his detractors on the social network, manager Steve Cotterill introduced a Twitter ban for his players, who will be fined £1,000 a word for any tweets referring to club matters.

By our calculation, then, Miller's tweet . . .

"Listen I don't wanna hear anything bout I didn't look interested! Everyone can **** off if you don't like it don't follow me!!" . . . would have cost him £23,000. Not a cheap tweetin' cheep, so to speak.

A world away from the top rank: Romario sets standard for work-in-progress Messi

"You cannot compare him with Pele. You cannot say he is the same when he has never won a World Cup. Messi has all the conditions to be the best, but first he has to beat Maradona, Romario and then eventually Pele."

– Eh, Romario.

"They are celebrating 25 years with Sir Alex Ferguson on the bench – we are celebrating 25 weeks since we have had floodlights at the stadium."

– Marius Stan, president of Romania's Otelul Galati, putting things in context ahead of last week's Manchester United tie.

"I don't know what I was doing, but it wasn't very good. The teacher tried to get my leg up and I couldn't do it. So she lifted it and I felt my back go. I had sciatica for the next three nights."

– Harry Redknapp, in knots after joining in on his squad's yoga session.

"English managers don't get a chance at the top. Years ago, the Chelsea job would have gone to someone like David Moyes."

– Jamie Carragher suggesting that if Moyes was from Glasgow, Italy, rather than, say, Glasgow, England, he'd be in a big job now.

"The question is whether Capello should still take Rooney to Euro 2012. Unquestionably he should."

– Unquestionably David Pleat.

"Until the rules are resolved I won't be riding – I'd rather retire. I can't ride horses like this. It's like telling Lionel Messi he can't use his left foot."

– Jockey Richard Hughes

"All they are interested in is more money. How much can they spend? I don't know, but they are p*****g it down the drain."

– Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood on the spending habits of his less than thrifty players.

"I've seen him on TV and he seems to have adjusted to life in the dugout with the suit on instead of the tracksuit. If he lost as much weight as he has hair, then he'd do fine."

– Kenny Dalglish pays tribute to Ally McCoist's managerial potential, if not his waistline.