So much for our mothers telling us when we were five year's old that we could never ask for divine intervention to help our team because higher Godly powers had to be neutral on these matters. Well, what about this then? Two Sundays ago the Pope blessed Ronaldo in a special mass in Rome, the next day he was back in training, seemingly cured of his knee injury, and a few days later he was playing again.

And now he's raring to go against Manchester United in Wednesday's European Cup quarterfinal, second leg. Either this means the Pope is an ABU man or our mothers were talking through their hats. Both, perhaps.