THIS IS IT. OUR LAST FIVER STORY BEFORE THE END OF EURO 2012. UNLESS THERE'S ANOTHER LIGHTNING STORM ON SUNDAY AND IT'S POSTPONED FOR SOME REASON. BUT DON'T WORRY, BIG CUP STARTS ON TUESDAY ...[FIVER SINKS TO KNEES, WEEPS AND BEATS GROUND IN FRUSTRATION]
The Fiver has had a few Special Appeals in the past. You might not remember the LET WEIRD UNCLE FIVER WEAR HIS MANKINI DOWN THE PARK campaign, but the Fiver does. The Fiver will never forget. Or forgive. Weird Uncle Fiver is now banned from the park. More memorable was The Fiver's STOP FOOTBALL! campaign, launched three years ago and only now taken up by smug tiki-taka-taliban outfit, The Spanish Art Project. TSAP reached Sunday's Euro 2012 final after boring Portugal into submission on penalties on Wednesday, but only because Paulo Bento failed to see the bigger picture, step aside and let The Special One be manager for just one game. He could have had the job back for the final once The Special One had put an end to this nonsense, but no. He had to go it alone, the fool. So here we are, dear, reader with nowhere else to turn. Which means it's time to back our GET JOSE appeal. Desperate times, desperate measures.
After last night's semi-final win over Germany, it's Italy who have to GET JOSE to beat this soft-shoed tyranny, the Italian FA morally obliged to thank Cesare Prandelli for all his hard work, but Jose will take it from here if you don't mind. Jose, of course, is the world's foremost tiki-taka-expunging expert, having had experience of winding up Barcelona while in charge of Chelsea, Inter and Real Madrid. Spain have asked for this thanks to their OCD obsession with "control", even if the Fiver has a modicum of sympathy for their approach, seeing as the last time it tried an offensive pass, it ended with HR sending us on a three month sensitivity training course.
But they've pushed us to this. Jose's a'comin and Prandelli knows the jig is up. "My lads were extraordinary against Germany," said the soon-to-be-former Italy manager. "I was proud to be their coach." See? Proof right there – he was proud to be their coach. Congratulations to Italy for entertaining us along the way and fitting up favourites Germany, but this is a new dawn. Expect Jose to adopt the tried and trusted tactics on Sunday: parcheggiare il serbatoio, have nine men lined up on the six-yard line, all flicking Vs at the Spanish, put Mario Balotelli and Mario Balotelli's mum up front and equip every player with a brand new set of golf clubs. Out: Andrea Pirlo. In: 58-year-old Claudio Gentile.
The only stumbling block facing Jose and the only bright spot for doomed Spain is that England's Howard Webb won't referee the final, another Michel Platini-led Uefa snub to Roy's Brave Boys. Portugal's Pedro Proenca gets the gig instead, but we won't let that sway us. GET JOSE. You'll be thanking us on Monday.
QUOTE OF THE DAY I
"I thank [Blackeye] Rovers, the fans, fellow players for making my one season there seem like a decade" - Yakubu, 29, bids a tearful farewell to Blackeye Rovers after agreeing a deal with Chinese side Guangzhou Fuli.
QUOTE OF THE DAY II
"Money cannot buy you happiness and what I have found from the people in China is love, happiness, sincerity and warmth and I can't wait to get started here" - Yakubu, 29, explains his motivation for agreeing a three-year deal estimated to be worth $9m with Chinese side Guangzhou Fuli.
FIVER LETTERS
"I may be the first and only MLS-following pedant to mention this, but Chris Wondolowski (yesterday's Quote of the Day) is a member of the San Jose Earthquakes, not the Seattle Sounders, which means Eddie Johnson of the Seattle Soundersis not his teammate and explains Wondolowski's umbrage-taking at Johnson's supposed eye-gouging goal celebration. Although I do share your judgment that said goal celebration is indeed interesting, especially considering Johnson did not score a goal in the match and was celebrating after the final whistle. Still, credit must be handed to him for his exceptional (albeit delayed) EBJT impression, celebrating a goal he had nothing to with almost 80 minutes after it occurred" - Patrick Sheehan (and 1,056 other MLS-following pedants).
"Maybe Team GB could employ the so called ambassadorial skills of Beckham by sending him to our embassy in Islamabad to concentrate on his facial hair manoeuvres and give us all a break from his over-active publicity machine this summer" - Graham Kerr.
"How long can the BBC keep paying Alan Shearer to basically repeat what the pundit before him said? When he's being shown how to do it by people talking in their second language, surely it's time to call it quits?" - Jason Tew.
Can you please confirm that I do actually possess a functioning visual cortex by telling me that the graphic at the top of the football blog is indeed a penguin failing to save a rugby ball. I cannot for the life of me see it as anything else and am growing concerned" - Bob.
Send your letters to the.boss@guardian.co.uk. And if you've nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver.
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BITS AND BOBS
Andre Villas-Boas will ink a three-year deal to manage Spurs on Monday, then immediately annoy chippy Liverpool fans by making Anfield target Icelandic Gylfi Sigurdsson his first signing for the club.
The Russian and Spanish football associations have been fined a total of £40,000, or half the cost of a pair of Uefa-unapproved bookie pants, for the racist chanting of their fans during Euro 2012.
Having received assurances that none of Croatia, Spain or Italy will be playing in the Championship next season, Republic O'Ireland midfielder Keith Andrews has agreed a three-year contract with Bolton Wanderers.
West Bromwich Albion have completed the signing of goalkeeper Ben Foster on a three-year contract from Birmingham for an undisclosed fee.
And the Fiver was gutted to learn that rumours Cristiano Ronaldo missed his team's flight from Donetsk to Lisbon today after going to the airport cafe to buy a bread roll were untrue, because it meant we couldn't use our joke about him waiting too long to take the last one.
STILL WANT MORE?
Dominic Fifield's been away from home for so long he's now reduced to hunkering down on the banks of the Vistula River in Warsaw, hand-washing his smalls with a rectangular bar of grey, Eastern European carbolic soap. Here's his take on Mario Balotelli's match-winning performance against Germany last night.
Sid Lowe's been away from home for so long, he didn't bother writing anything today, but instead bought a souvenir mug in the Dynamo Kiev club shop, stuck it behind a microphone in the press room and proceeded to conduct an impromptu press conference with it.
AC Jimbo's pretended to be away in so many different eastern European locations over the past three weeks, he's now taken to arriving in Kings Cross for European Football Daily podcast recordings swigging from a bottle of horilka and singing Hej Sokoły at the top of his voice. Here's last night's offering.
Apart from wandering around Big Office, occasionally lifting things up, looking at them and putting them back down again, Marcus Christenson has been anywhere. Here are 1,481 words he wrote on Antonio Cassano's recovery from his recent brush with death.
And Scott Murray was looking forward to this misty-eyed trip down memory lane to come up with The Joy of Six: European Championship finals, but is currently seething because he had to pay £40 for excess cabin baggage, then his flight was stuck on the runway for two hours.
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DARTY'S GOT HIS RENNIE HAT ON AND HE'S OFF TO MANCHESTER TO PLAY
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