Comprende, guv'nor?
English soccer fans wonder if the limited vocab of their team's Italian coach, Fabio Capello, might be a problem.
Capello's explanation isn't reassuring. "But when you talk about tactics, you don't use lots of words," he said. "I don't have to speak about a lot of different things.
Maximum 100 words."
Thankfully, scientists at the University of Cambridge plugged in one of those supercomputer things to analyse hundreds of thousands of match reports to find out what words would be the most useful for a fuming Italian coach to get his point across to a bunch of lumpen-headed Chavs and squeaky-voiced northerners.
Boffin Dominic Glennon, of Cambridge University Press, said: "I suspect Fabio needs more than 100 words to manage the England team effectively but we believe his statement is not far from the truth."
The top 10: ball, cup, player, game, match, win, lose, play, team and goalkeeper. But it might be more instructive to note what came at the bottom of the list: #97 defeat, #98 disappointment, #99 humiliation and #100 sack.
Mana from heaven
The Catholic schoolboys at St Peters were down 4-0 to Sacred Heart at the weekend. But they had cause to give thanks for a late consolation strike from Nathaniel Hailemarian (say it out loud... seven times).
Lessons in love
More highlights from Jacqueline De Laurentiis' guidebook for WAGs, So You Married a Footballer: "Behind every great man stands a great woman," she tells us.
Unencumbered by modern notions like feminism, she says: "Great players are such when they feel that way, especially in their heads; make sure your partner always manages to feel that way. We are counting on you for these last five matches of the season: please avoid useless family tension."
Open season on Jose
It's Jose-kicking time and Ottmar Hitzfeld, one of only three coaches to win the European Cup with two clubs (Mourinho and Ernst Happel are the others) is limbering up.
"Luckily, Mourinho's destructive tactics, aimed solely at provoking and destroying the opposition's gameplan, did not work," he wrote in soccer magazine Kicker.
"Such a way of playing does not relate to the demands of Real, it's really shameful for Real Madrid. It harms the good name and image of this legendary club. I've met him [Mourinho] at Uefa meetings and his behaviour is faithful to his image: arrogant, haughty, chewing gum and somewhat of a boor. Barca should make him pay on the pitch."
THEY SAID IT
"For a woman, sex before a match is not only allowed, it is fantastic. It raises your hormone levels and brings advantages to all of your points. In recent years I have grown, and my feminine side is a lot more visible. But it is a gift reserved for just a few."
Anyone for tennis? Francesca Schiavone on the benefits of pre-match action.
"The strongest brands in New Zealand industry - and it's not Fonterra because if you're from Germany you've never heard of them - are the All Blacks and Emirates Team New Zealand."
TNZ supremo Grant Dalton forgets for a moment those global icons Pineapple Lumps and Jandals.
"The team that wins the World Cup will be the one that understands the pressure and uses that to their advantage. I think 25 of the 30 players who won the World Cup in 2007 can still go out there and play for us."
Springbok octogenarian John Smit keeping frontrowers even when they're so run-down they can't play for 80 minutes without pulling a swift one on the frontrow interchange rules.
"One perspective is that no team has won the Tri-Nations and then the World Cup in the same year. The peaking scenario is mostly mental, but you have to make sure your body can follow through on that."
Smit, again, on the value of losing.
"There is an exclusive after-party and at night is when it all happens. The music pumps, the drinks flow and the cricketers come and go. The real fun happens in the VIP rooms where the players and night owls can cause scandal!"
Cheerleader Gabriella Pasqualotto who got booted out of the IPL for revealing that - gasp, shock, horror - some cricketers like to party.
The World's Baddest Pigeon Fancier is in action with his feathered friends on our screens. Taking on Tyson Tuesday, 7.30pm, Animal Planet. Photo / Supplied by Sky
Comprende, guv'nor?
English soccer fans wonder if the limited vocab of their team's Italian coach, Fabio Capello, might be a problem.
Capello's explanation isn't reassuring. "But when you talk about tactics, you don't use lots of words," he said. "I don't have to speak about a lot of different things.
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