Planet Football

Football news from around the world

Kahn's flighty statements

Scot Gemmill, currently on loan to Preston from Everton, admitted this week that the approaching end of his contract with the Premiership outfit, "scares me to death". Anyone involved in compiling columns like this is surely possessed of a similar sense of dread at the thought of Oliver Kahn hanging up his gloves.

A leading member of the elite group whose members we return to time and again for their wisdom and wit, Kahn was at his best once more this week. On Monday the German international gave a moving interview on the need for "harmony" and "collective responsibility" at a club like Bayern Munich if there is to be any chance of real success.

The next day, as the rest of the club's players clambered onto Bayern's team plane for the trip to a game, the great man reportedly asked nobody in particular: "You think I am getting on that?" He swiftly supplied the answer too. "I am not," he said.

True to his word, the 34-year-old stayed behind and travelled business class on a scheduled flight later the same day.

Cantona still in top form

Journalists attending the launch of a Manchester United-backed football summer-camp scheme in Disneyland Paris made the mistake of assuming the club's former French star Eric Cantona would have some strong opinions on a difficult year back at Old Trafford.

Instead, Cantona revealed: "I don't follow football anymore. Sometimes I catch an occasional match on television, but I like to do what I do now and prefer not to watch. When you are with a woman you love and she does not love you anymore," he added, "it's better not to see her."

Clearly in top form, the former French international was then asked whether he had been on the phone to his old mate Alex Ferguson lately.

"I don't like the phone," he replied. "When I speak to somebody I like to see their face and look into their eyes. How can you see people smile when they call you - you do not know if they are happy to speak with you."

Quotes of the week

"I want to be the owner, not the dog."

- Claudio Ranieri before last week's Champions League game with Arsenal on his desire (we think) to end Chelsea's losing record against their London rivals.

"You know me, I'm the Tinkerman. Anything could happen!"

- Ranieri before the Champions League game again. The Chelsea boss actually surprised everyone by fielding an unchanged side.

"For a long time, we have not listened to what Alex Ferguson says. I do not understand what he means. I am not intelligent enough."

- Arsene Wenger reacts to the latest salvo from Old Trafford

"They've been absolutely brilliant this season, they've stuck with the team through thick and, well, even more thick."

- Brian Marwood on Sky Sports regarding Leeds fans on Monday.

"(Stefano) Fiore was able to sing as well as carry the cross."

- Italian coach Giovanni Trapattoni on the performance of his all-singing, all-cross-carrying midfielder in the recent friendly with Portugal.

One minute hero

Once tipped as a future Republic of Ireland striker, Joe Sheerin was named by the Guardian last week as one of four players to have played just one minute of Premiership football before slipping to relative obscurity.

Sheerin's moment of glory came in April 1997 when he was brought on to replace Gianfranco Zola during the closing 60 seconds or so of a 1-0 win over Wimbledon. It might have been the start of something big for the striker but it turned out to be his only taste of first-team league football with the Londoners.

A succession of injuries ensured that his remaining time at Stamford Bridge involved more frustration than football, while his reported inability to settle outside the English capital meant he had limited options after being released by the club.

Sheerin, though, is still banging them in. These days he plays for AFC Wimbledon in the Seagrave Haulage Combined Counties League where, up until the end of February (when the league's website people gave up on their leading scorers page) he had found the net no fewer than 15 times this season. Not bad, although it's worth noting that the club have scored more than 150 times in their 37 league outings to date.

More quotes of the week

"You can't just pick confidence out of a refrigerator."

- Ole Gunnar Solskjaer plucks a post-match gem from the oven.

"It's great to see the so-called smaller clubs, without the money, doing well - just like with Chelsea last night."

- Andy Gray suggesting that his lucrative deal with Sky is so big that he is unimpressed by Chelsea's summer spending last year.

"While I was sitting on the bench in Sweden watching him, I was offering bets of £1 - and that's a lot for me to risk - that Jermain would score. Not one person was prepared to bet against him - they could all have been a quid better off by now."

- Joe Cole becomes the latest player to reveal big-time gambling in the England camp.

"With the number of injuries we have had this season, I just take my hat off to the players that we are still competing at this level. Since everybody has been back, just look at the results"

- Plucky Gerard Houllier prior to Friday's 4-2 defeat by Arsenal.

"I would like to come to England. I love to watch English football and would like to help young people stay off drugs."

- Diego Maradona suggests he is willing to provide a much needed boost to the war on illegal narcotics. Well, either that or he means there'd be none left for anybody else.

Gregory gets his sums wrong

Already heavily in debt, Derby County this week reached a £1 million out-of-court settlement with former manager John Gregory who was suing the club for unfair dismissal. While out of the game Gregory has been putting food on the table by working with Sky as a pundit. Judging by his observation last week that, "Wolves have got five home games left and I think they can get 18 points from them," he would do well to get somebody else to count his pay-off for him.

Naked truths seen on streaker

Police in the Dutch town of Enschede said they are pursuing a definite line of inquiry after a masked streaker invaded the pitch during last weekend's Eredivisie game between local side FC Twente and FC Volendam.

The naked man sported only an orange lion's head mask and carried a large Twente flag as he raced around the pitch. He subsequently escaped, but some witnesses noted that he was wearing a large amount of adhesive tape, apparently to cover up his tattoos.

This prompted suspicions that the offender may have been the same, heavily tattooed man who, when Twente played De Graafschap in February 2002, treated the crowd to what was described as a "particularly graphic streak" while wearing a mask depicting members of the Dutch royal family.

The man in question is said to be distinctive in at least one area of his anatomy. Police have yet to rule out the use of identity parades.

Essential Chelsea fashions

Having achieved the seemingly impossible task of making Chelsea popular winners with neutrals last week, it appears that Claudio Ranieri may now be holding a strong hand in his negotiations with his employers over his future at Stamford Bridge.

Firmly in his corner are a group of the club's supporters who recently established a campaign to keep the great man in his job. Its website,  www.saveclaudio.co.uk, provides tips on how to show support for the Italian, news on how he is faring behind the scenes and, most recently, the opportunity to buy T-shirts that proclaim the wearer's devotion to the Tinkerman.

Here on Planet Football we shall henceforth be seen in nothing else.