All in the game

Compiled by MARY HANNIGAN

Broken promise: Bulgaria rip up verbal agreement

September 10th: “We have a verbal agreement, sealed with a handshake. For me this carries as much weight as a written agreement. For me it is perfectly clear that my contract will be extended until 2013. Gentlemen never retreat from their promises. So I am calm.”

– Lothar Matthaeus on his position as manager of Bulgaria.

September 19th: “There were many reasons to release Matthaeus, not only the poor results in the last matches. Pressure and negativity had also piled up in the squad, so the change was necessary.”

– Borislav Mihailov, president of the Bulgarian football association, announcing Lothar’s sacking.

Lothar? Well, not so calm now.

Out of Africa: Ferguson not keen on Leeds hotel welcome for his side

"I have to congratulate Levante for being clever, because they know how to provoke, simulate, not give back the ball, waste time, and that is also part of football."

– Jose Mourinho graciously doffs his cap to Levante after they beat Real Madrid.

"We had problems outside the hotel. I don't know how many hundreds of them there were. It was like the film Zulu. Jesus. I don't know what it is between Leeds and Manchester United. But it is there and it is not nice."

– Alex Ferguson on the warm welcome given to his team by Leeds fans during their League Cup trip last week.

"People scream at me to hurry up because we've got to go out for the game. But I keep playing Angry Birds. It's so addictive."

– On of these days Nigel De Jong is going to bring his iPad on to the pitch.

"He was the only 15-year-old I've seen who was 6ft 4in. All the other kids were midgets next to him. Mick was the leader, he was like Arthur Scargill."

– Neil Warnock on his Barnsley memories of Very Big Mick McCarthy.

"I don't know what it is but it's like his haircuts have magical powers because every time he gives me a trim I seem to go and score."

– Wayne Rooney on his miraculous barber. Dimitar Berbatov should probably drop in soon for a short, back and sides so.
Money no object : Braun brand a fine fit for Mourinho

FAIR play to Jose Mourinho, he only agreed to be an ambassador for Braun shavers because he feels something for the brand – loot most certainly did not come in to it: "Since the beginning I promised myself that I wouldn't just do brand partnerships for the money.

"First of all I do them because I feel something with the product. Braun is a brand that I like. It's a brand with prestige. They think I am good for their image. I also think being connected with Braun is good for my image. It's a good partnership."

Presumably, then, it's adieu to the Mourinho stubble, as the Braun-released photo suggests? Is it just us, or does he look like a Madame Tussaud's waxwork?)

BRAZILIANS GO NUTS OVER REF

BRAVEST refereeing decision of the weekend? That'd be the Brazilian fella who awarded Fluminense an injury time penalty that gave them a draw away to Atletico Paranaense. How did the home crowd take it? Not great. They gathered at the entrance to the tunnel to prevent him from leaving the pitch, so he stayed in the centre circle surrounded by police. When the supporters approached, a policeman pointed a rifle at them, with some reports suggesting rubber bullets were fired. The referee was eventually led to safety by riot shield-wielding officers.

"Jesus wept," Fifa most probably sighed on hearing the news. After all, it's one of the 12 venues for the 2014 World Cup. 

One is the loneliest number: Neuer just can't get the love from any supporters

SCHALKE supporters, to put it mildly, don't like Bayern Munich very much, so when their goalkeeper Manuel Neuer left to join the "enemy" during the summer there was a fair old chance he'd get a rowdy reception when he returned to his old club in a Bayern shirt.

Rowdy, though, really wasn't the word for it last week when Neuer and his new colleagues turned up in Gelsenkirchen for a league game, the Bayern coach driving under a bridge near the stadium from which an effigy of Neuer was hanging. Nice.

It was no more pleasant inside the stadium, huge banners displaying messages like "We regret the passing of M Neuer, 2005-2011, resurrected as a spineless puppet" and "Betray your origins for titles and gold. Even Judas had more honour."

And they were the kinder ones.

His every touch was, predictably, greeted with a cacophony of boos and abuse, but Bayern won 2-0, so his tormentors hadn't much to celebrate.

"Manuel did not deserve to get treated in that way. Several of those protests were crude and were blue, they went too far," said Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes after the game, but Neuer was calm enough about it all. "Schalke supporters are very emotional, I had got myself prepared for this," he said. "If you know it's coming you just get your concentration going and then it goes in one ear and out the other."

The irony of it all is that Bayern supporters didn't exactly give Neuer a warm welcome on his arrival at the club – because they reckoned his heart was still with Schalke, who he joined as a boy.

Indeed, he had cried at his press conference announcing his departure from the club. Bayern officials even had a meeting with a supporters' group, demanding that "hostility towards Neuer should cease".

After all, when he made his debut in a pre-season friendly this was the Bayern banner that greeted him: "You can save as many shots as you want, but we will never accept you in our jersey."

Poor lad, he's feeling no love at all.

GREEN SEES RED OVER FERGIE

YOU know the way the BBC and Alex Ferguson have just kissed and made up? Well, maybe not kissed, but at least they're talking to each other again after the knight blanked them for seven years. You have to hope, then, that he doesn't read the Belfast Telegraph, where BBC radio commentator Alan Green had this to say: "For someone of supposedly socialist leanings, I never fail to be amazed at how often Ferguson appears to favour control of the media that would sit easily in totalitarian regimes."

Do we sense another boycott in the offing?

Send an SMS to the world: O'Driscoll sacked by text

DONCASTER might be struggling badly this weather, lying bottom of the Championship, but chairman John Ryan was adamant last week that the club would stand by manager Seán O'Driscoll (right).

"For the people shouting for the manager's head, I ask the questions 'who would you replace him with? Who is better?' I can't think of any manager that is better equipped for the job, and those clubs who sack managers willy nilly end up relegated. The board and I are not going down that path."

A very, very solid vote of confidence, then.

Next day? Over to the Yorkshire Post: "Dean Saunders was unveiled as the new manager of Doncaster Rovers yesterday after Seán O'Driscoll was sacked via text message. Chief executive Dave Morris was told to contact O'Driscoll but, after getting no reply, left a text which O'Driscoll discovered at 6am."

"We did it in the best way we can – but there is never a right way to deliver bad news," said Ryan. "Football is a short-lived thing and it can change literally from day to day."

Indeed.

Court case: Ajax sued over Jewish-related songs

WATCH out for one of the more unique football-related court cases in the Netherlands next month. BAN, the Dutch campaign against anti-Semitism in the sport, is suing Ajax and the mayor of Amsterdam for racism because the club's supporters sing pro-Jewish chants.

BAN argue that, despite long-standing assumptions to the contrary, Ajax have no Jewish roots and very few Jewish fans. Indeed, earlier this year, the club's chairman, Uri Coronel – who is Jewish – said: "There's not much that's Jewish about Ajax. The club's image is Jewish and the supporters call themselves Jews, but they're no more Jewish than I am Chinese."

According to The Jewish Chronicle, BAN will argue that Ajax "chants such as 'We are the super Jews' encourage race-hate and are in themselves racist acts".

The group is taking the case as a result of a ruling in The Hague District Court in August when ADO Den Hague were ordered to stop its supporters singing anti-Semitic songs at games – and if they continued their matches were to be halted. The judge in the case also argued that the behaviour of Ajax fans was causing anti-Semitism, prompting the club and the Amsterdam Mayor to promise to try and end the Jewish-related songs and chants.

"It is on the basis of this pledge and the judge's comments in The Hague that BAN is pursuing its suit in Amsterdam next month."