“I feel sorry for my colleague (Bahrain coach) Milan Macala because his team played very well and he's going home with zero points.”

Being Dutch, Pim Verbeek manages to gloat really politely.

He may be older, very much fatter and have far dodgier taste in women, but the other Ronaldo should not be forgotten. It looked like the grinning genius’s career was over a year ago, when his knee exploded under the tremendous stress of carting him about, and with his Milan contract up and the knee still hurting, that could well be the case. At only 32, it’s a shame to see the end of a man who scored more World Cup goals and created more transvestite-related mirth than anyone ever has.

Not that the Bucket gives a flying dwarf about the fate of Spanish sport, but this is pretty amusing. The wife of a Spanish doctor has woken up one morning and thought, “I could bring down Spanish sport!” and taken herself off to the media, where she’s been blabbing ever since about her husband’s involvement in making sure Spain got umpteen more medals than usual at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Now, on with my own campaign to bring down Australian sport!