FC Köln striker vaults a fence to show appreciation to fans

Those who dipsair at Emmanuel Adebayor’s attitude and Gary Neville’s defence of outrageous salaries can find solace in Lukas Podolski.

The Polish-born German national team striker played for FC Köln from the age of ten, but was begrudgingly sold in 2003 when Bayern Munich turned up with an irresistible €10m cheque. When the arrival of Luca Toni pushed him down the pecking order in Munich, however, Podolski returned to his childhood club for a similar €10m fee. Such was the Cologne fans’ love of their returning hero that they set up a website in order to raise money to fund the re-signing.

Since his return to North Rhine-Westphalia, Podolski has reciprocated the love shown to him by fans. Last night, FC Köln caused an upset in the DFB-Pokal cup (the German equivalent of the FA Cup)

Also appearing on a computer near you…

LA Galaxy players bet Beckham he can’t hit window in stadium, Beckham hits window in stadium, viewer forced to listen to cameraman’s stoner laugh repeatedly
[Off The Post]

Darren Bent is back on Twitter!
[Tribal Football]

Robinho puts Brazil ahead of Manchester City
[Fox Soccer]

Adrian Mutu can’t afford to pay Chelsea £14.5m for breaching his contract - did somebody say karma?
[Daily Mail]

Herr Ballack to consider his future after the World Cup
[The Mirror]

Ruud van Nistelrooy explains why he didn’t move to ‘lesser club’ Tottenham
[The Telegraph]

Ancelotti claims his first piece of English silverware

Chelsea 2/ Manchester Utd 2 (Chelsea win 4-1 on penalties)
With all the over-hyped and stupidly named pre-season tournaments this summer (yes, The Peace Cup, we’re looking at you) the Charity Community Shield has lost most of impact as a tantalising curtain raiser for English domestic football.

Despite the game’s utter insignificance, Alex Ferguson turned a Boris Yeltsin shade of red when Michael Ballack laid the smackdown on Patrice Evra, and wasn’t much happier when watching his side’s pathetic attempt at winning a penalty shootout.[Video: 101GG]

Also appearing on a computer near you…

Michael Ballack competes with the man standing next to him for the ‘Worst dressed man at Wimbledon 2009′ award
[ONTD]

Carlos Tevez is on a mission to wind up Manchester Utd fans
[Pies]

Are Manchester City about to make a move for Barcelona’s Captain Caveman?
[Caught Offside]

The big news from Americaland: Quarterback Steve McNair may have been murdered by his WAG
[SportsByBrooks]

Manchester Utd close in on Bordeaux winger Gabriel Obertan
[The Telegraph]

Amr Zaki was the subject of an £11m bid from Aston Villa, says Amr Zaki
[Goal.com]

Chelsea’s recent freebies haven’t had much success at the Bridge

Chelsea’s decision to bring in Ross Turnbull on a free transfer makes sense: they get to fill the squad place vacated last January by Carlo Cudicini on the cheap and if a year or two down the line they want to upgrade, he’s young enough for them to make a profit on him.

But is the former Middlesbrough keeper going to stay the duration of his four-year contract and prove a shrewd acquisition or will he be swiftly written of as a failure? Chelsea’s recent record at signing out-of-contract players suggest that the latter is more likely.

The last four players that the Blues have picked up for nothing - Steve Sidwell, Tal Ben Haim, Claudio Pizarro and Mineiro - started a combined 21 league

Rumour spreads like wildfire through social networking site

Apparently, it has yet to dawn on most Twitter users that the site is a humongous waste of time, as thousands of German users were last night duped into believing Michael Ballack was about to return home.

A ‘Tweeter’ named @sachark set the ball rolling yesterday with the following message, which we have clumsily kindly translated:

“On the next table on the ICE [a type of German train], there are two prominent agents and a lawyer. For the last fifteen minutes they have been discussing Ballack’s transfer to Hamburger SV.”

Within minutes, the rumour spread across the social networking site like a Danielle Lloyd STD across the Tottenham dressing room. Many excited football fans were convinced the German captain was about to become a Hamburg player, and were apparently undeterred by the fact that the club could never afford his €20m+ transfer fee or extortionate wages.

The story has been picked up by the major players in the German media, including Bild and the Hamburger Abendblatt, forcing HSV spokesman Jörn wolf to issue a denial:

“This is a duck [a German idiom that means it isn’t true]. We have had no contact with Ballack.”

Twitter user @sachark is still adamant that his train-based discovery is valid, and has since responded by saying “the bluebird of Twitter is no duck.”

Vampire/ werewolf franchise gets a little bit more German

The Spoiler isn’t a teenage girl or a lonely women who owns more than one cat, so we won’t be seeing the next installment in the Twilight franchise, but it’s good to see that Michael Ballack is branching out into acting.

[click picture to enlarge]

He didn’t even get booked! It’s a f**king disgrace!

Michael Ballack may have avoided physical contact with Tom Henning Øvrebø, but Sergi Busquets wasn’t so lucky.

Top marks to the anonymous fellow who spotted this sport/ porn hybrid. If you’ve seen any great Sporno, send it here and we’ll send you one thousand shiny English pennies if we use it.

Click here to see the full Sporno gallery