While Real Madrid have made the biggest splashes in the transfer market this summer with Ronaldo and Kaka joining their ranks, Bruno Alves is still looking to make a little ripple of his own.
Despite talking about moving to one of Europe’s giant clubs Alves still finds himself at Porto. Consequently he has started heading balls over the back garden fence of one José Mourinho in an attempt to get some attention.
Unconfirmed reports suggest Alves will hide in Mourinho’s shed until the start of the season when, under a loophole in Italian law, Inter will be forced to offer him a box of kinder eggs and a contract of employment.
A couple of other FC Porto players, Lisandro Lopez and Aly Cissokho, are being tracked by Lyon. The French side have already had a €23m bid for the pair turned down, which is no surprise considering Porto think Lisandro is worth €20m on his own and have already told Lyon that Cissokho will cost €14m.
Don’t Lyon know you can pick up a really top drawer calculator at WHSmith for just £19.57?
Elsewhere in Portugal, Benfica have axed manager Quique Flores two weeks after promising not to. Braga's Jorge Jesus is looking the most likely replacement. His understanding of the tedium of Portuguese football, as well as the basic rules of football, should make him a much better manager than Flores.
He’ll have to do without Katsouranis though, who is on his way to Hamburg, Cheeseburg or McChicken Sandwich, and Luisão, who is still being half-heartedly linked with Manchester City.
On the plus side, he’ll have the hilariously named Jose Shaffer in his squad, once South American side Racing Avellaneda get the last few laughs out of their system.
Meanwhile, on the green and white side of Lisbon…Sporting are trying to get Nani back by offering Man U João Moutinho, who is, if we’re being honest, not good enough to play for Man U.
Miguel Veloso is still kicking about, but Bolton and Arsenal are supposedly interested in having a bit of him.
“If you’re interested, why don’t you fucking do something about it,” someone probably said once, but not in relation to this story.
Derlei has left, but guess what? The big liar said he’d retire at the end of the season, but he's apparently going to go to Japan or somewhere else to kick balls with both of his feet for another two years. The cheeky blighter.
And last of all, Sven isn’t manager yet and is now being linked with Trabzonspor in Turkey instead. Someone should probably make a footballing and sexual promiscuity joke about now.