Soccer stars put weight behind eating right

Worried that European children are starting to match their American cousins pound for overweight pound, the European Union has turned to some big-name soccer players for help.

The EU has published a cookbook called “Eat for Goals!” that is intended to encourage youngsters to chow down on the supposedly healthier food enjoyed by their favorite players.

Included are recipes for Thierry Henry’s rice cubana, Ruud van Nistelrooy’s salmon grilled with cloves, Steven Gerrard’s aromatic sea bream, Miroslav Klose’s power omelet, and Fabio Cannavaro’s pasta a siciliana.

Not coming under consideration, apparently, were Wayne Rooney’s chip butties -- French fries between two slabs of butter-laden bread.

Trivia time

The world’s longest race of any sort, the 37,000-mile Volvo Ocean Race, starts Saturday in Alicante, Spain. When and where will it end?

Fore taste

Don’t count Dom Joly, a columnist for England’s Independent newspaper, among the fans of plus-fours, checks and plaid, but he’s getting there.

“I play golf quite a lot,” Joly wrote, “and have got used to donning the tasteless clothes that seem to be de rigueur if you play the game.

“Basically, the rule is: if it looks ludicrous in the real world, you will be fine on the fairway.”

What’s the point?

Others were scratching their heads, but Dave Thomas of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram put it best in assessing the Rams’ decision last week to fire coach Scott Linehan and replace him with Jim Haslett.

“The Rams allowed 36.7 points per game through their first four games,” Thomas wrote, “so they fired Scott Linehan and replaced him with the coordinator of the defense that has allowed 36.7 points per game.”

Double time

Noting that O.J. Simpson had spent 13 years on the golf course rather than seek the “real killers” of his ex-wife and her friend as he had vowed to do, Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle said Simpson’s recent robbery and kidnapping conviction might change things.

“Once inside the joint, Simpson can work the room, use his charm and his cigarette allotment to buy friendships and get the low down on who killed whom,” Ostler wrote.

“If Simpson is sent to a prison like Lompoc -- which, last time I visited, had golf facilities for the inmates -- he can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.”

Swell guys

Surfer Kelly Slater recently clinched a record ninth world championship.

“Just one more plaque,” wrote Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times, “and he’ll be hanging . . . nah, too easy.”

Adding to that, from Fark.com:

“In second place was a surprised Sri Lankan on a patio lounger.”

Trivia answer

In June 2009 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

And finally

From Janice Hough of LeftCoastSportsBabe.com: “Many pundits say the only way Barack Obama could lose is if he puts on a Cubs jersey.”

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grahame.jones@latimes.com