ALL IN THE GAME:A soccer miscellany
HERO of the week? No contest, that’d be Hoffenheim general manager Ernst Tanner.
Off he went jogging at 6.45am, like you do, when he heard screaming from outside his neighbour’s house.
"I looked around, I could not believe my eyes," he told Bild, "my neighbour was trapped under the rear wheels of her Mercedes."
Tanner enlisted the help of two binmen to lift the car off the 58-year-old woman, who is now recovering well in hospital.
“I only did what everyone would have done, it’s hardly worth mentioning,” he said, a touch too modestly.
Like you, we suspect, Tanner was a bit curious about how the woman had ended up under her Mercedes, learning that she’d forgotten to put on the handbrake and the car had rolled over her as she was closing the garage door.
Behave.
Bar room brawler: Making a game of violence
YOU might have read last month about Colombian manager Hernan Dario Gomez (El Bolillo to his friends) resigning from his job after an incident in a bar in Bogota when he hit a woman two to four times, depending on which report you trust.
“What I have done makes me ashamed because of my mother, my wife and each and every one of the women in my family and in my country,” he said in his apology.
Still, there was plenty of support for Gomez, not least from his players who issued a statement appealing for him to carry on in the job. “We know that, being human, he committed a very grave mistake, which he recognised immediately, giving an example of his bravery and his love for Colombia and his family,” they said.
Colombian FA vice-president Alvaro Gonzalez was supportive too, accusing “false moralists” of creating “hysteria” over the matter. He noted, too, that if a man hit a woman not widely liked – citing former senator Piedad Cordoba as an example – he would be praised. “It’s such hypocrisy,” he sighed.
Meanwhile, a chap called Segun Pabon has created an internet game based on the incident. In it, you have control of Gomez as he potters about a pub, armed with what looks like a baseball bat and fuelled by beer. Your target is to hit 550 women with the bat, and “when this figure is achieved you immediately get a message that says you’re a bad person,” Pabon explained. “Some people like it, others do not,” he said. No kidding.
Finger licking bad: Salgado cries fowl over chicken advertisement
"The analogy I use is if a man takes a woman out 85 times and then she's not your girlfriend at the end of it, you've wasted a lot of time. You measure success by achieving things." – Gary Neville on playing for England 85 times but not even getting a goodnight kiss.
"I got a little caught up with the game . . . I didn't sleep well last night." – Tony Cascarino reflecting on that moment he told Sky Sports viewers that Armand Traore was having a "holocaust" against Manchester United.
"There is a comfortable state of mind at Bordeaux, and it has infuriated me. Rather than playing with ballet shoes they will have to wear stud boots." – Bordeaux coach Francis Gillot after his team pirouetted to another defeat last week.
"I would say give him a week or 10 days more and he will give up. The first week he said: 'I've got English today.' The second week he said the same but with a different expression on his face . . . and the third week he went off for a siesta instead." – Carlos Tevez on Sergio Aguero's sleep-inducing efforts to learn English. Tevez was speaking through a translator.
"When we found out that Blackburn's owners wanted us to do a chicken advert for Venky's, we didn't really know what to think. I had to pretend to love it, but the truth is, one bite and my stomach was in knots." – Michel Salgado, you fear, might be looking for a new club in January.
"They are kids, they don't think about the eventualities . . . if they are on the street and a car hits them, what happens? – Giovanni Trapattoni contemplating arming his squad with the Safe Cross Code before they next hit the town
