Croatia chief Zorislav Srebric's shoplift drama

IT WAS a great night for Croatia last week as it beat England 3-2 at Wembley to advance to the Euro 2008 finals, but the nation's football chief almost didn't get to see it.

Zorislav Srebric was arrested on suspicion of shoplifting a newspaper at Gatwick Airport, but the situation was sorted out and written off as a misunderstanding. If only England could have explained its loss in the same way.

Mountain of a gaffe, my dear

AS EMBARRASSED as England was, it was trumped pre-game by opera singer Tony Henry, who performed the Croatian national anthem. It seems Henry mispronounced a word, which went undetected by most of the 80,000 fans, but not the Croatian players. The line in the anthem was "Mila kuda si planina". Rough translation: "You know my dear how we love your mountains." But Henry sang: "Mila kura si planina." Rough translation: "My dear, my penis is a mountain." While Henry was red-faced on learning of his blunder, the Croatian players loved it and have invited him to the Euro 2008 finals.

Keane blasts England players

FORMER Manchester United and Ireland captain Roy Keane is prone to call a spade a shovel, and he didn't hold back after England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008. Now Sunderland manager, Keane took a shot at the superstars with the super egos. "From the outside looking in, I tend to think there are too many egos in there, too many big heads," Keane said. "You look at the England set-up and they don't appear to be a happy bunch. Watching the highlights and some of the players . . . and their body language, I don't think international football is that important to a lot of these players these days."

The Sun rises on 'black night'

IT'S still hard to top The Sun headline, "Swedes 2 Turnips 0" when England lost to Sweden under manager Graham Taylor. But the paper didn't hold back after the loss to Croatia. Shaun Custis wrote: "Useless, pathetic, insipid, spineless, desperate, rubbish and all those other words we are not allowed to print. There have been some black nights in the history of English football. But this, surely, was the darkest of them all."

Victory driven by billionaire

RUSSIAN billionaire Leonid Fedun came up with the right incentive to get Croatia over the line against England, helping Russia to make the Euro 2008 finals. The owner of Spartak Moscow, Fedun offered four Mercedes Benz cars to Croatia's best players if they won."What will I do now?" Fedun said. "I'll deliver on my promises and transfer those cars to the Croatian federation."

Thieves work through team sheet

LIVERPOOL striker Dirk Kuyt has become the fifth Reds player to have his house burgled in the past 18 months. Kuyt's luxury home was broken into while he was on international duty with Holland last week. Among the players' stolen items have been two Porsches, jewellery and a Champions League medal. But Everton winger Andy van der Meyde might have had the most unusual item stolen: his pedigree puppy.

Goalkeeper banks on 'blind' faith

RULE No. 1 for any rookie goalkeeper is have a good excuse to explain any soft goals conceded. France debutant Sebastian Frey had his get-out-of-jail card ready to go after the 2-2 draw with Ukraine. Basically, Frey helped Andriy Shevchenko's header into the net, but protested to the media: "I was blinded by a floodlight."

No half-measures for coach

DYNAMO Kiev acting coach Oleg Luzhny is obviously following the philosophy that a coach needs to keep apart the players who hate him and the players who still aren't sure. Which might explain why he wants to sack half of the squad. "I have what you might call a black list of players who, in my opinion, do not meet Dynamo's requirements," he said on the club website. Whoever said it's not worth doing things by halves?