I adore you, Bucs - all my love and kisses, Julio

The lovelorn Brazilian told the media he was the happiest man in the world and was having the time of his life at the club. Well, Pirates fired a coach who won three titles and we wonder how long Leal's dreamy tenderness and affections for the club will last.

GOAL.COM reported that members of the Chile national team were victims of a robbery at their hotel in St Gallen, in Switzerland. Thieves broke into their rooms while they were losing 3-2 to Spain. Palmeiras star Jorge Valdivia, who was shown a red card in the match, was one of the players robbed. He vented his displeasure on Twitter. "The referee robbed us on the pitch and now we were robbed at the hotel. What a shame ... what a bad day in Switzerland. My computer ... I had pictures of my children ... Sons of a b*tch."

A CAR guard in up-market Greenside in Johannesburg had the thrill of his life when new bronco Buccaneer Benni McCarthy emerged from one of the trendy restaurants in Gleneagles Road last week and hopped into a parked vehicle. "Look what he left me," the guard exclaimed as the striker sped off, revealing a crisp, new blue note with a picture of a buffalo on it. We say big ups to Benni for his R100 tip and bringing such superstar style and class to Jozi.

TSAMAYA would like to be first with the goodies and offer advocate Ntietso Mofokeng our heartiest congratulations on being appointed to the legal affairs portfolio at the PSL. She replaces Zola "Motormouth" Majavu, a man fond of klapping you with legal jargon until your brain started to feel very itchy. Far be it from us to prejudge the issue, but we were rather tickled that Mofokeng's last job was at the crisis-ridden SABC. For soccer's sake, Tsamaya hopes she manages to put all that behind her.

WORD has it that the chartered plane that flew Bafana Bafana to Niamey in Niger for their Africa Cup of Nations qualifier last weekend once belonged to the president of Djibouti. Not all of the fully reclining seats work any more but the luxurious leg room and sexy stewardesses made for a more than pleasant flight for the national team. Pity it couldn't result in the win they needed.

SOLDIERS lined the 3km route from the team's hotel to the stadium. The Nigeriens were so intent on not having anyone, or being, disturb their visitors' trip to the ground that they even had some of paratroopers holding back the cows by a rope tied to one hind leg. In some places it's called crowd control - in Niamey they even "rope in" cattle control.