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The World Cup semi-final between Germany and Italy here today rekindles memories of their two epic battles in previous tournaments.
   Their first classic encounter was the 1970 semi-final in Mexico, regarded as one, if not the greatest game in World Cup history.
   In the punishing afternoon heat at the Azteca stadium, Italy edged a titanic struggle 4-3 thanks to Gianni Rivera’s dramatic extra-time winner.
   The end-to-end match is best remembered for the heroics of rising star Franz Beckenbauer, who dislocated his shoulder but carried on playing with his arm in a sling.
   Gigi Riva, who scored Italy’s third goal that day, believes Tuesday’s match will be less of a goal fest.
   ‘It won’t be anything like Mexico in 1970,’ said Italy’s team manager, who as an international scored 35 goals in 42 internationals, a remarkable tally in an era dominated by catenaccio and a career disrupted by two broken legs. ‘There’s so much at stake and I expect it to be much, much tighter.’
   Riva believes beating Germany this time around will be far more satisfying because of all the negative press that has followed Italy since the Serie A match-fixing scandal erupted.
   ‘This game is more important than the one at the Azteca because it comes at a time when our football has taken a real bashing,’ he said.
   ‘From the first day that we got the squad together, it seemed as if we were on a boat that was being pounded by missiles and torpedos every day.
   ‘But we regrouped, and (coach Marcello) Lippi has unified the players.’
   Beckenbauer, now chief organizer of the World Cup, has fond memories of Mexico where Italy were eventually beaten by Pele’s Brazil in the final.
   ‘1970 was a magnificent tournament,’ the German legend told FIFA’s website.
   ‘The fans were fanatical and stadium security wasn’t quite so intense in those days. You could still do pretty much what you wanted to.
   ‘There was just one armed policeman who sat outside the entrance and watched the whole ground. Obviously, that would be unthinkable today.
   ‘Back then, it was simply more relaxed. The games in Mexico were colourful. The country laughed and football danced’.
   For those who watched the games at home, the combination of the baking Mexican sun and television in its early stages gave the images a magical sepia tint.
   The other enthralling Italy v Germany clash was the 1982 final, a more one-sided affair but equally gripping.
   Italy’s Antonio Cabrini missed a 25th minute penalty, before the Azzurri swept Germany aside with a superb display of counter-attacking football.
   The stand-out moment was Marco Tardelli’s wild celebration after scoring Italy’s second goal, his head shaking, fists pumping and eyes bulging in delirium.
   Italy won 3-1 and were crowned world champions for a third time.

Germany may have the whole country behind them, but Italy are confident they can cope with the host nation’s 12th man here in today’s eagerly anticipated World Cup semi-final.
   Vociferous home crowds have driven Germany to five straight wins and a place in the last four of the tournament.
   But Italy can take heart from their excellent record against Germany in the World Cup with two wins and two draws in four meetings, including epic victories in the 1970 semi-final and the 1982 final.
   Francesco Totti, whose performance in the 3-0 quarter-final win over Ukraine was his best of the tournament so far, wants Italy to emulate the great Azzurri teams of the past by chalking up another famous victory against their old foes.
   ‘On Tuesday we want to write another chapter in the duel,’ said the Roma captain.
   ‘Those games left their mark, but we want to make our own piece of history, if possible a more memorable piece.
   ‘To beat Germany in their own country in front of a hostile crowd, well it couldn’t get any better than that.’
   Despite some unconvicing performances on their way to the semis, Italy boast a 23-match unbeaten run - their best run of results since 1939 - and defender Fabio Grosso believes they can break German hearts at the Westfalenstadion.
   ‘We’re taking on a great team that has the backing of the whole country, but we believe in ourselves,’ said the Palermo left-back.
   ‘We need to play like we know how and put them in difficulty. They’ve got the wind in their sails at the moment, but we are more than capable of giving them problems.’
   Italy humiliated Germany 4-1 in a friendly four months ago, but coach Marcello Lippi insisted that result will have no bearing on Tuesday’s clash.
   ‘We won’t score four goals against Germany again,’ Lippi said.
   ‘They’re not the same side we met in March. Now they are exploiting the enthusiasm of the whole nation and it has transformed them.’
   Christoph Metzelder said Germany would not be resting on their laurels after their quarter-final win against Argentina.
   ‘We are happy with what we have achieved but it is not enough for us,’ stressed the 25-year-old defender.
   ‘As hosts we have a great chance of becoming world champions. We have used the atmosphere and developed as a team.’
   Germany coach Jurgen Klinsmann is wary of the steadily-improving Italians.
   ‘Italy are dark horses for the title,’ said the German coach who played in Italy’s Serie A with Inter Milan.
   ‘They are tactically very good and have been effective rather than spectacular. They take their chances and it will be difficult for us.’
   Italy defender Alessandro Nesta is almost certain to miss his third straight match due to a groin strain.
   Marco Materazzi will replace the AC Milan centre-back after serving a one-match ban.
   Three-time champions Germany could be hit by a late blow if FIFA decide to punish influential midfielder Torsten Frings for apparently punching Julio Cruz in the Argentina match.
   World football’s governing body are reviewing television footage of the incident.
   At the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, Italy beat a Germany side led by Franz Beckenbauer 4-3 after extra-time in one of the greatest games in World Cup history.
   The end-to-end match is best remembered for the heroics of Beckenbauer, who dislocated his shoulder but carried on playing with his arm in a sling.
   In Spain 12 years later, Italy defeated the Germans 3-1 in the final to become world champions for the third time.
   The defining moment of the match for most Italians was Marco Tardelli’s wild celebration after scoring the second goal, his head shaking, fists pumping and eyes bulging in delirium.
   In total, Italy have played Germany 28 times, with 13 wins, eight draws and seven defeats.
   Germany have never lost in Dortmund, winning 13 of their 14 internationals played there.

Four months ago sections of the German media were calling for Jurgen Klinsmann’s head after a 4-1 destruction by Italy in Florence but that is all a distant memory as the two teams prepare to do battle today for a place in the World Cup final.
   Germany coach Klinsmann is now worshipped by the home supporters after guiding the nation into the semi-final and the newspapers are singing his praises loudly ahead of the Italy game in Dortmund.
   A quarter-final win over Argentina, courtesy of a penalty shootout, had the fans celebrating like they had won the World Cup, but Klinsmann warned his players not to bask too much in the glory of the Argentina victory.
   ‘You can never look back after a successful match but look towards the next big challenge,’ Klinsmann said.
   ‘We can only be content if we are world champions on Sunday. I will give everything to make that happen.
   Three-time winners Italy stand in their way and Germany have an awful record against the Azzurri with just seven wins out of 28 meetings, with the last coming 11 years ago.
   ‘Italy are one of the best teams in the world and that is why they are in the final four,’ said Klinsmann.
   ‘But we think if we play our own game we can beat them. We will go into the match on Tuesday with the feeling that we will beat them.’
   With home support and confidence sky high after the Argentina triumph Germany are ready to take the next step and book their place in Sunday’s final.
   ‘I can now wait for this match. The team wants to reach the final and we all sense that,’ said captain Michael Ballack.
   Ballack was part of the Germany team that lost 4-1 to Italy and also tasted a 4-1 defeat against AC Milan in the Champions League with former club Bayern Munich.
   ‘We recently lost 4-1 against Italy and I lost 4-1 with Bayern Munich against AC Milan in Champions League. It seems we do not have any chance,’ Ballack joked.
   Many Germans feel it is a twist of fate that Klinsmann, who played for Italian giants Inter Milan between 1989 and 1992, and his Germany team have been paired with Italy, giving them the chance to avenge their painful Florence defeat and reach the final.
   If they can do that Klinsmann, a World Cup winner with West Germany in 1990, would then have the chance to become only the third coach in history to win the World Cup as a player and manager.
   Brazil’s Mario Zagallo and Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer have both managed that feat.
   This time Germany, rather than Italy, have home advantage and are playing at Dortmund where they have never tasted defeat.
   A record of 13 wins and one draw makes ominous reading for Italy.
   ‘They beat us 4-1 last time but we know there are two different teams now,’ said Borussia Dortmund defender Christoph Metzelder. ‘Our motivation is to reach the final not revenge.’
   Five straight wins shows Germany are in fine shape but the physical demands of playing extra-time against Argentina could stretch the sinews to the limit.
   Captain Michael Ballack and top scorer Miroslav Klose, with five goals to his name at these finals, both went down with cramp during the Argentina win but are expected to start against Italy.
   Germany are also sweating over the eligibility of midfielder Torsten Frings who is being investigated by football’s governing body FIFA over an incident at the end of the Argentina match.
   
   HEAD-TO-HEAD
   Italy and Germany have met on 28 occasions, with Italy winning 13 and Germany seven. The pair have contested six competitive matches which all took place at major championships. Italy are unbeaten in this respect winning twice and drawing four times. In four previous World Cup encounters, Italy have won twice and drawn twice. The sides have met only once at the World Cup semi-final stage. In 1970, the Italians secured a dramatic 4-3 victory in extra time setting up a final meeting with Brazil. Germany missed a chance to vindicate that loss in the 1982 World Cup final, in which they fell 3-1 to the ‘Azzurri’.
   In the last meeting between these teams, Italy hammered Germany 4-1 in a friendly in Florence. Alberto Gilardino, Luca Toni, Daniele De Rossi and Alessandro Del Piero netted, before Robert Huth produced a late consolation goal for the visitors.

Christoph Metzelder is just 25 and already he’s Germany’s senior defender.
   Metzelder returned in October from an Achilles’ tendon injury that sidelined him for nearly three years. Since, he has struggled with more minor injuries, form and timing.
   This is the guy who is going to have to stop Luca Toni when the host nation takes on Italy in Tuesday’s semifinal at the World Cup?
   ‘It won’t be easy,’ Metzelder acknowledged. ‘We won’t get too many chances, and we can’t allow any. At this stage the focus is more on not conceding.’
   Toni led the Italian Serie A with 31 goals at Fiorentina last season, and has two in Germany, both coming during Italy’s 3-0 quarterfinal victory over Ukraine when the Azzurri’s offense finally got on track.
   And Toni is not the only threat. The Italians have depth at forward, able to choose from Francesco Totti, Alessandro Del Piero, Filippo Inzaghi, Alberto Gilardino and Vicenzo Iaquinta. In their last meeting, a friendly in Florence in March, Italy won 4-1.
   And so far this World Cup, the Italians have allowed only one goal, an own-goal against the United States, meaning not allowing the Azzurri to score first is imperative.
   That responsibility will fall to the 6-foot-3 Metzelder, who is paired with the even taller (6-5) Per Mertesacker in the middle of the German defense, with Philipp Lahm to the left and Arne Friedrich on the right.
   ‘The back four’s prime objective will be to prevent them from scoring,’ said Metzelder, who has stopped shaving for as long as Germany stays in the tournament. ‘I think our forwards will be in for the same kind of treatment. So it will be a kind of waiting game.’
   Metzelder is not a novice to the World Cup, grabbing a starting role in 2002 after regulars Jens Nowotny and Christian Woerns were injured shortly before the tournament began. He helped Germany all the way to the final, where it lost to Brazil.
   But the Achilles’ tendon injury required two operations and he missed 32 months. When he returned to Borussia Dortmund, he struggled to regain form, spent a lot of time on the bench and was not included on last year’s Confederations Cup squad.
   Germany coach Juergen Klinsmann had faith, though, and invited him back in October. A torn right calf muscle in May continued to raise questions.
   If Germany’s young and inexperienced defense was considered the team’s vulnerability at the start of the World Cup, it has grown up in the past three weeks.
   After yielding two goals in its World Cup opener against Costa Rica, the side has allowed only one in the four games since, and that came from a set piece during its quarterfinal victory over Argentina.
   Until the quarterfinal, Germany had played a fast, attacking style, but preferred a more patient, cautious approach against Argentina, hardly allowing—or taking—any chances.
   The team is expected to take the same approach against Italy.
   ‘I think the Italy match will be fairly similar,’ said assistant coach Joachim Loew, a tactician who creates the team’s game plan. ‘They are wanting to score on the counter. It’s their style of play.

Bank robbers disguised as football World Cup fanatics slipped past guards in Germany, decked out in wigs, scarves and hats in the national side’s colours, police said Monday.
   The three purported supporters, who blended in thanks to nationwide euphoria about Germany’s winning streak at the tournament, stormed a bank in the southern Berlin district of Marienfelde covered from head to toe in black, red and gold souvenirs. One was even wrapped in the German flag. Brandishing handguns and an automatic weapon and threatening tellers, they collected the cash stored in a safe in less than a minute and ran.

Referees have shown an average of more than five yellow and red cards per match at the World Cup finals, compared with less than two at the 1982 tournament, according to FIFA.
   So far in Germany, and with four matches still to play, referees have brandished a record 293 yellow cards in 60 matches and 27 reds, also a record for the finals.
   In Spain in 1982, some 98 yellows and just five red cards were shown in 52 games. In contrast to the rash of cards, there has been a dearth of goals. If less than four goals are scored in the last four games, the tournament will go down as the lowest scoring ever.
   So far, 138 goals have been scored for an average of 2.30 per match. The only tournament with a lower average was Italy 1990 when 115 goals were scored in 52 games for an average of 2.21.
   On the brighter side, attendances are higher than at any finals apart from in 1994 in the United States.
   Some 3.11 million spectators have seen the games in Germany, an average of 51,791 per match. At the US an average of 69,991 spectators watched the games, a figure FIFA regards as unbeatable because of the size of American stadiums.

Two European powerhouses hosts Germany and fighting Italy will take to the field in the first semi-final with a strong motivation. Both teams have won the coveted trophy thrice and after Brazil no team has more than three glories. So winning the semifinal will be the first step towards being crowned world champions for the fourth time — a magnificent record indeed.
   Both teams play an ultra-defensive style of football with the motto of not conceding goals. But my point is that the Italian defence is more stubborn than the German and the Italian defenders are more experienced than their counterparts. And so far in this World Cup, the Italians have allowed only one goal, an own-goal against the United States.
   At the same time Germany’s young and inexperienced defence was considered the team’s weak point at the start of the tournament it has improved a lot. The Germans conceded two goals in their World Cup opener against Costa Rica, they have conceded only one in their last the four games and it was a result of a set-piece — a corner.
   Italian coach Marcello Lippi has warned his team about the 4-1 friendly victory three months back. It was a friendly match and the result will not affect today’s procedure. Germany have changed a lot these days and now the World Cup semi-final is in their own backyard. Italy certainly had to put on an extraordinary show to go past the Germans.
   Germany adopted a fast, attacking style before the quarter-final but preferred a more patient, cautious approach against Argentina. Italy also will be in that frame.
   Up front Bayern Munich play-maker Michael Ballack, the national captain has a lot to do with his experience class and insight. Rising stars such as Bastian Schweinsteiger and Lukas Podolski along with Miroslav Klose will be a constant thorn the Italian defence.
   The Italians have a lot of resources in the attacking zone with Francesco Totti and Luca Toni leading the way. Alessandro Del Piero, Filippo Inzaghi, Alberto Gilardino and Vicenzo Iaquinta are the other names to choose from.
   This is a do or die match and a simple mistake or fumble can be more than disastrous. Availing the opportunities that fall in the way is also another characteristic. And a little luck is very much needed for success. A soft touch from lady luck can convert a half chance into a goal and that goal can rule who is the winner or loser.

He is a giant of Italian football and as a young player orchestrated his team’s success in Euro 2000 where they reached the final. However, like most individual stars in this World Cup he has failed to take the tournament by storm. Nevertheless, World Cups are won by something special from the stars, especially in the later stages when the heat is really on.
   If Italy are to win, Totti will have to relive the magic he so often produces for Roma in the Serie A.
   To be fair to Totti though, he was injured coming into the tournament. And then into the tournament again, Totti was down with fever in the match against Australia coming on as a substitute to score the winner from the penalty spot. So far, that has been his only entry into the scoresheet.
   Not that Totti has played badly so far. Playing in the hole behind Gilardino and Luca Toni, the three have teamed to produce some impressive attacks for an Italian side, which is playing an
   attacking game, possibly, for the first time in their history.
   It’s only that most of the goals have come from the midfield apart from the game against Ukraine when Totti played up front alongside Toni.
   For those who have seen Totti on song, they will be aware of what this player is capable of producing.
   A breathtaking playmaker/ link-up forward, Totti has scored and assisted some of the finest goals scored in the Serie A in recent years with his fascinating touches, silky movement, and
   clinical finishing. Germany 2006 still awaits.
   And to do it in this tournament will be special. Fours year back Totti disappointed his fans with that infamous spitting incident which saw him being sent off.
   Also, in 1990, the World Cup was held in Italy and Germany won it.
   Italy would love to do a reverse on them. And who better than Totti to do it for them.
   
   The most surprising part about Germany’s campaign this World Cup is that Michael Ballack’s services have not been called upon to the extent that you would have expected. The new boys, Behl, Frings,
   Schneider, Podolski, Schweinsteiger, Mertesacker, Metzelder and Klose have all done an excellent job. They even held up well against Argentina. But against Italy, possibly the finest defence in the tournament and much more experienced star-studded side than Germany, the onus will be on Ballack to do something special, to lead his charges, and finally get that goal from 30-yards off that he has been trying since the second game.
   Ballack’s performance in club football is satisfactory but you will not believe what this player means to the German side until and unless you had seen him action in national colours before the World Cup. He orchestrates every single attack from the midfield, rushed forward to score from rebounds, free kicks, and long-range efforts, and then rushes back to defend in almost every attack that the opponents’ create. In the build-up to the World Cup, it was being said that if Germany were to win, Ballack would have to do something Maradona-esque. Well, Germany have converted themselves into favourites, it remains to be seen whether Ballack can fill Maradona’s boots.
   Ballack’s performance so far, however, cannot be underestimated at all. He has orchestrated attacks, played throughs, made important tackles, and played that wonderful chip from which Klose scored against Ecuador in the first round.
   It’s only that he has not scored or dominated his side’s performance like he did the last time around in Asia. Well, if Germany does make it to the final, and Ballack plays, which he did not in 2002 because of suspension, and they go on to win, Ballack would gladly swap that performance for this.

Germany coach Juergen Klinsmann has kept a settled 4-4-2 formation throughout the World Cup while Italy boss Marcello Lippi has changed his lineup for every match and operated a number of tactical systems.
   In the quarter-final with Ukraine, Italy used Luca Toni as a lone striker but Lippi might be tempted to bring back forward Alberto Gilardino for Tuesday’s showdown with Germany and switch to a 4-3-1-2 system with Francesco Totti behind two forwards.
   Germany
   Defence
   Germany’s tall centre backs, Per Mertesacker and Christoph Metzelder, have improved beyond all recognition since their nervous start in a 4-2 win over Costa Rica.
   The hosts kept clean sheets against Poland, Ecuador and Sweden and conceded just once from a corner against Argentina in the quarter-final, which ended 1-1 after 90 and 120 minutes before Germany won 4-2 on penalties.
   Fullback Philipp Lahm, who scored the first goal of the tournament against Costa Rica, takes every opportunity to get forward on the left. Arne Friedrich is less active on the right, usually relying on passes to Bernd Schneider as his outlet.
   Midfield
   Michael Ballack and Torsten Frings form an aggressive partnership in the centre of an orthodox four-man midfield.
   Ballack gets forward more often, leaving Frings to scurry around in a defensive role. Ballack is an excellent header of the ball and will be the dangerman at set-pieces. Both central midfielders will try their luck with long shots if given space.
   Left winger Bastian Schweinsteiger has not been in his best form at this World Cup but can be a big threat, particularly when combining with his Bayern Munich team mate Lahm.
   Attack:
   Striker Miroslav Klose has scored five times for the second World Cup in succession. His all-round play has been excellent, too. He acts as a target man and will try to chest the ball down and control it rather than head it on to striker partner Lukas Podolski, who has scored three goals himself.
   Oliver Neuville, a skilful ball player, is the super-sub and came off the bench to get a last-gasp winner against Poland.
   Klinsmann also tends bring on midfielder Tim Borowski, an elegant passer, and the terrifyingly quick winger David Odonkor if Germany need a goal.
   Italy
   Defence
   With Alessandro Nesta almost certain to miss out again due to a groin injury, Marco Materazzi, who was suspended for the quarter-final win over Ukraine, is expected to return in place of the relatively inexperienced Andrea Barzagli.
   Captain Fabio Cannavaro has been in outstanding form at the heart of an Azzurri defence that has conceded just one goal in five matches and will win his 99th cap against Germany.
   Fullbacks Gianluca Zambrotta and Fabio Grosso like to get forward and have done so to good effect in the knockout stage.
   Grosso’s run in the last minute against Australia secured the penalty that won the game. Against Ukraine, Zambrotta opened the scoring with a fine solo goal and then set up Luca Toni’s second strike to make it 3-0.
   Midfield
   The most stable part of Lippi’s team.
   Andrea Pirlo operates in a deep, playmaker’s role in front of the defence with Gennaro Gattuso and Simone Perrotta covering plenty of ground in their harrying roles ahead of him.
   If Lippi plays with two out-and-out strikers then Francesco Totti, showing signs of returning to full form after his three-month injury lay off, will be expected to play as an attacking midfielder.
   A lone striker system would mean Argentine-born winger Mauro Camoranesi getting another chance in his free role on the right flank.
   Forwards
   With a single striker, Totti would be free to play close to the front line but if Lippi opts for a more offensive lineup, with Gilardino and Toni operating as a pair, then Totti will drift deeper.
   Italy’s nine goals have come from eight different players—Toni scored twice against Ukraine while Gilardino, Totti, Filippo Inzaghi and Vincenzo Iaquinta have all found the target once.
   Inzaghi is likely to start on the bench but is an option if the Italians need a goal in the second half, while Iaquinta could offer fresh legs if Toni tires.

Germany captain Michael Ballack admits his team’s strength has been sapped after going through extra-time and penalties to defeat Argentina, but promised the prospect of reaching the World Cup final would get the adrenalin pumping against Italy on Tuesday.
   Germany take on Italy in Dortmund in the first of the semi-finals with the host nation trying to recharge their batteries for the final push.
   ‘It was a hard slog playing 120 minutes against Argentina but we have had a few days to recharge and can give everything again. There is no problem there,’ Ballack said at Monday’s press conference.
   Italy cruised to a 3-0 win over Ukraine in their quarter-final match while several Germany players - including Ballack - went down with severe cramp.
   ‘Everyone is fit and refreshed. Italy did not have as many problems in terms of the result and the length of the game but it is not a problem,’ said the new Chelsea man.
   ‘It is a long tournamemt - almost six weeks with preparation - but we are all targeting the final and you do not feel tired when you are winning.’
   Germany are doing just that with five consecutive wins and go into the Italy match full of confidence.
   ‘I can not wait for this match. The team wants to reach the final and we all sense that,’ said the 29-year-old midfielder.
   ‘We have been good so far and have a lot of confidence. We have been very consistent in every game and that has to continue.’
   Another reason for German confidence is that the game is being played in Dortmund where Germany have never lost, winning 13 out of their 14 internationals at the venue.
   ‘We have never lost in Dortmund so we can not wait to play there,’ said defender Philipp Lahm.
   ‘Dortmund is a bit different to the other stadia and it gives us a bit more self-confidence.
   ‘We scored in the last minute against Poland there to win and would take the same again.’
   Italy crushed Germany 4-1 the last time the two teams met in Florence on March 1 but Lahm says a lot has changed since then.
   ‘We are now in the World Cup semi-final and you can not compare the atmosphere with after the Italy game in March,’ said Lahm, sporting a black eye from a training accident.
   Along with Lahm, skipper Ballack was in the team that night in Florence and the pair both suffered against Italian opposition at club level too with Bayern Munich receiving a 4-1 mauling from AC Milan in the Champions League.
   ‘We recently lost 4-1 against Italy and lost 4-1 with
   Bayern against AC Milan in Champions League. It seems we do not have any chance,’ Ballack joked.
   The two defeats give Ballack plenty of incentive to turn over Italy with the the hurt of 2002 - when he missed the World Cup final through suspension - also driving him on.

When Germany 2006 began on Friday 9 June, 41 players were eligible to be crowned as the Gillette Best Young Player of the tournament.
   So far these young stars, born on or after January 1, 1985, have received over 600,000 votes between them. Now, with voting set to close on 5 July, they need your support more than ever before.
   After voting closes, the fans’ top three choices will be added to another three, selected by members of FIFA’s Technical Study Group (TSG). The TSG will decide upon the eventual winner of the award, who will be presented with the beautifully crafted Gillette Best Young Player Trophy.
   A surge of support from his home country has left Ecuador’s Luis Valencia currently occupying top spot in the voting, with Cristiano Ronaldo , Lionel Messi and Lukas Podolski closing in behind. That order could change significantly in the next few days, however, as FIFAworldcup.com prepares to receive a host of votes from around the globe.
   Podolski and Valencia were the first candidates on show during Germany 2006 as the hosts defeated Costa Rica 4-2 in Munich and Ecuador earned a 2-0 victory over Poland in Gelsenkirchen.
   Two days later, Ronaldo announced his arrival in style. In Portugal’s 1-0 win over Angola, the Manchester United player showcased the many facets of his prodigious talent, with the fleet-footed forward only lacking a clinical finish to add to his excellent approach work.
   Then Asamoah Gyan entered the limelight. Operating as a lone front man for Ghana against Italy, the 20-year-old showed maturity beyond his years to cause the Azzurri defence all kinds of problems. A trio of Swiss stars, meanwhile, had the chance to shine in their 0-0 draw with France in Munich on 13 June, while on the following day, Cesc Fabregas became the youngest player to appear for Spain in a FIFA World Cup.
   Friday 16 June was the day that Wayne Rooney made his bow on the world football stage, but his introduction to the proceedings was somewhat overshadowed when a number of his challengers began to hit the goal trail. In the space of the next 72 hours, Messi, Gyan, Ronaldo and Podolski all scored their first goals in the competition.
   In the Round of 16, Ghana’s Haminu Draman and Ukraine’s Artem Milevskiy displayed their prowess, but found their teams’ progress curtailed by Brazil and Italy respectively. Meanwhile, England and Argentina’s poor fortune in penalty shoot-outs means that out of the original list of 41 candidates, only Podolski and Ronaldo remain in the tournament.
   Before the shortlist is revealed both Podolski and Ronaldo have one last chance to shine. Together with Miroslav Klose, the tournament’s leading scorer, Podolski has the arduous task of penetrating an Italian rearguard which has conceded just one goal so far.
   Ronaldo on the other hand, will be coming up against a France side full of confidence following their 1-0 win over Brazil. Chelsea defender William Gallas will be given the uneviable task of trying to stop the flying winger. The pair know all about each other from their battles on the Premiership stage, but now the eyes of the world will be upon them.
   Youth against experience, a country’s pride on the line and the greatest players in the world on display. There really is no stage like the FIFA World Cup.

Recent history shows Germany have no chance of beating Italy in the semi-finals of the World Cup, captain Michael Ballack joked on Monday.
   Ballack was part of the Germany team that lost 4-1 against Italy in Florence and lost by the same scoreline in the Champions League with Bayern Munich against AC Milan.
   ‘We lost 4-1 with Germany and 4-1 with Bayern in Milan,’ Ballack said at a news conference. ‘Basically, we’ve got no chance, have we?’
   Ballack seemed amazingly relaxed on the eve of the semi-final in Dortmund and his comments raised laughs from the assembled reporters and his coach Juergen Klinsmann.
   ‘Yeah, after those defeats it’s a really great feeling to have going into the semi-final,’ he added.
   Speaking more seriously, Ballack said he was fully fit and eager for the match to start.
   ‘I’ve had time to recharge my batteries,’ said Ballack, who needed lengthy treatment for muscle cramps during the quarter-final penalty shootout win over Argentina.
   ‘We beat one of the big teams to reach the semi-finals and playing in Dortmund only adds to the faith that we will win.’
   Germany have never lost an international match in Dortmund, winning 13 and drawing the other one of their 14 games there.
   The winners of Tuesday’s game will go on to face either Portugal or France in the final in Berlin on July 9.
   The losing semi-finalists will contest the third-place match in Stuttgart a day earlier.

The shiny, bald pate of goalkeeper Fabien Barthez. The uncatchable swiftness of Zinedine Zidane’s feet.
   Many things cry out for comparisons with France’s World Cup-winning team in 1998.
   Don’t even try, France coach Raymond Domenech says.
   After his team was all too often linked to the World Cup disaster of 2002 ahead of Saturday’s win over Brazil, he doesn’t want people to go deeper in search of lost time, however glorious those days may have been.
   ‘It is another team, another story we have to live. In the end, comparisons are tiresome,’ Domenech said Sunday when assessing France’s stunning 1-0 win over Brazil and a place in the semifinals against Portugal.
   Yet the analogies are impossible to ignore.
   After all, Domenech picked Barthez for his big-game World Cup experience over the in-form Gregory Coupet, and Zidane was lured back from retirement to rekindle the spirit of 1998.
   Now, Patrick Vieira is dominating the defensive midfield to seek his second World Cup final and Thierry Henry has developed from a prodigy into a star at the height of his powers without losing any of his youthful elegance.
   And, on Saturday, Lilian Thuram was charging into the Brazil penalty area, just like his attacking forays that resulted in two goals in the 1998 semifinals against Croatia.
   And Zidane is again the undisputed leader. Throwing around passes at will, setting up goals and finishing them off, looking like anything but a player who will retire after next weekend.
   With veterans like that, it makes France a favorite for Wednesday’s semifinal match against Portugal in Munich.
   And the French public also senses the spirit of 1998.
   ‘Each time, people tell me: We are back in 1998, we are back in the same rush of happiness,’ said Aime Jacquet, the coach of that championship team. ‘It is fantastic.’
   Joyous Parisians already set off fireworks and climbed atop historic statues waving red-white-and-blue French flags, further rekindling the memories.
   For Domenech, it is time to put the brakes on. Immediately.
   ‘Wait, there still is the July 5 match,’ he said. ‘It is time to bring back everybody to reality.’
   Domenech has already shut off his mobile phone, which was overflowing with congratulatory messages. Even getting to the semifinals could be considered a huge success for a coach who has been derided for so long.
   ‘A successful World Cup only applies to the team that wins,’ Domenech says now.
   Barely a month ago, Domenech and his team were booed and whistled off the field at Stade de France, where they won the World Cup eight years earlier, after a bad preparation match against Mexico. Parisian fans thought they were ready for another first-round exit.
   In South Korea four years ago, France failed to score a goal and became the first champion to fail to make it past the opening round.
   That team was stunned by Senegal in the opener and Domenech admitted ‘the ghosts of Senegal’ still weighed on the team early on.
   ‘It is true, it may have counted,’ he said in a candid admission. ‘I felt it, too, a little bit.’
   It didn’t help when some retired heroes of the 1998 campaign, including Laurent Blanc and Didier Deschamps, started sniping at the team.
   Once Les Bleus squeezed out of the first round despite poor play this year, everything changed.
   ‘It created a sense of freedom,’ said Domenech.
   It also created a 3-1 win over Spain in the second round and the shutout of Brazil.
   The 2002 comparison is history now and Domenech wants to avoid a new one.
   ‘The players don’t want to be compared to 1998,’ he said. ‘This is 2006.’
   Defender Willy Sagnol, however, took exception and said the championship squad still had a magic the current edition cannot capture.
   ‘We are no longer a team that can dominate opponents, but we have other qualities. Defensive qualities. We have become a team that is tough to budge,’ he said. ‘The Brazilians tried to play, could not and got testy.’
   In a sense, this year’s team has already achieved more. Before the semifinals, it already eliminated favorites Spain and Brazil. Eight years ago, the only team of renown it had to beat to get to the final was Italy.
   Now it may play Italy again next Sunday. The Azzurri meet host Germany in the other semifinal match Tuesday.

Brazil or France, France or Brazil—Portuguese players knew they’d be playing a soccer heavyweight in their World Cup semifinal.
   While Portugal avoided the defending champions, it faces a France squad that is peaking at the right time.
   ‘We’ve been saying among ourselves here all along that France would get to the semifinals, despite their bad start,’ goalkeeper Ricardo said Sunday at Portugal’s training camp. ‘Some said France wasn’t going to do anything, but it’s not easy to beat Brazil.’
   After Portugal beat England 3-1 in a quarterfinal shootout Saturday, the players awaited word of the outcome of the Brazil-France game as they traveled back to their training camp. France won 1-0, making this the first all-European World Cup semifinal in 24 years.
   Portugal is the only team left never to have lifted the World Cup trophy—France won in 1998 and Italy and Germany both have won three times.
   The Portuguese meet resurgent France on Wednesday in Munich.
   Forty years after they finished in third place, the Portuguese could exceed their best-ever showing.
   ‘Records are there to be broken,’ Ricardo said.
   Portugal’s Brazilian coach Luiz Felipe Scolari stretched his World Cup unbeaten run to 12 matches—including five straight wins this year—and the Portuguese are on a 19-game unbeaten streak dating to February 2005.
   ‘We know it’ll be extremely difficult,’ Ricardo said. ‘They’ve got a great team with fantastic players.’
   Scolari gave his reserves a training session but rested the players who beat England on penalties after a 0-0 draw that with extra time lasted 120 minutes.
   Captain Luis Figo and winger Cristiano Ronaldo, who complained of feeling heaviness in his right thigh after skipping training all last week with an injury, underwent special treatment.
   Scolari has stuck with Ricardo despite broad criticism of his form at his club Sporting Lisbon. The gamble paid off in Germany, especially on Saturday as Ricardo stopped three shootout shots.
   In the 2004 European Championship quarterfinals against England, he pulled his glove off to save one and scored another in a penalty shootout that sent Portugal through.
   ‘It doesn’t matter how many videos or games you watch, a penalty is a special moment,’ Ricardo said. ‘You try to read in their eyes and their soul what they’re going to do.’

Napoleon said that all he wanted from his generals was that they were lucky - the four coaches still standing in the World Cup will need that and more.
   Two of the quartet - Luiz Felipe Scolari and Jurgen Klinsmann - may feel they already have had their luck with Portugal and Germany winning their quarter-finals on penalties.
   Italy’s Marcello Lippi may also count his blessings that someone up there likes him after his Azzurri won their second round match against the Australians with a penalty five minutes into injury-time.
   France’s Raymond Domenech could also surmise that the blessing for him was the second yellow card of the group stage that ruled out playmaker Zinedine Zidane from the final first round match against Togo.
   Having looked jaded and every inch his 34 years, the former Real Madrid star returned for the 3-1 win over Spain
   reinvigorated and outplayed the superstars of Brazil to a man.
   Aside from luck, the four men, with whom the buck ultimately stops with success or failure, also need qualities of their own to inspire their troops to victory.
   All four have very different ways of going about it, owing of course to their contrasting characters.
   Scolari is as he is on the sidelines of the pitch - animated, charismatic and a brilliant mindgames manipulator - and Brazil may well be rueing the fact one World Cup was enough for him.
   ‘This is a new Portugal team and it’s a new spirit. It’s a warrior spirit. This is what we were missing in the past,’ said the 57-year-old of his squad.
   Domenech by contrast cuts a different character entirely.
   A dormouse to Scolari’s bulldog he may be but both his coaching and motivational powers are just what his squad needed after the uninspiring reigns of Roger Lemerre and Jacques Santini.
   ‘I made every tackle, I jumped up and down, I kicked every ball along with the team. I am exhausted but immensely happy,’ Domenech said after the Brazil match.
   Lippi is very much the classy-looking, smooth-talking Italian.
   Not for him the pre big match superstitions of predecessor Giovanni Trapattoni of sprinkling holy water on the turf, but that has come as a refreshing change for hardman midfielder Gennaro Gattuso.
   ‘Nothing against Trapattoni but Lippi has his own way of preparation which has made us a more solid squad.
   ‘Also as a man he is always able to tell us things straight to our faces. I hope that he stays with us as long as possible,’ said the 28-year-old AC Milan stalwart.
   Whether the 58-year-old Champions League winning coach does renew his contract rather than leave and return to his faovurite past-time of fishing on his boat remains to be seen.
   The same question can be posed about Klinsmann, the 41-year-old US-based former star striker has not yet decided whether he will stay on.
   However previous sceptics about the rookie coach’s free spiritedness he has brought to the job have been won over after watching a German side playing for the first time in years with enterprise and joy.
   ‘Klinsmann has installed a philosophy in this team and that needs to continue as we owe it to the fans - even if there is the risk it sometimes doesn’t work,’ said German Football Federation president Theo Zwanziger.
   ‘Klinsmann’s way is the right one and we want to continue with it.’

France have suddenly woken up from a six-year nightmare and owe their World Cup progress to the faith of the coach who kept saying his ageing team could shine in Germany.
   Les Bleus, who had struggled since winning the European Championship in 2000 two years after their World Cup triumph, surprised everybody but Raymond Domenech by knocking out Brazil 1-0 with a classy display on Saturday to reach the last four.
   ‘We are satisfied but not surprised,’ Domenech said after les Bleus, inspired by a rejuvenated Zinedine Zidane, played their best match in years.
   ‘You reap what you sow,’ added the grey-haired 54-year-old with the bushy eyebrows, who took over from Jacques Santini in the wake of France’s quarter-final exit from Euro 2004.
   ‘If the seeds are right and you work hard enough, the harvest will be good,’ added the coach, now looking forward to a semi-final against Portugal on Wednesday in Munich.
   France, who had looked ordinary for most of the past six years, made a sluggish start to the finals and seemed headed for another fiasco after being eliminated from the 2002 World Cup finals without a win or a goal at the group stage.
   Fears that the ghosts of four years ago might come back to haunt them were one of the reasons why the France players looked nervous at first, Domenech said.
   ‘I did feel it was in the back of their minds,’ he said. ‘They did not want to go through that sort of experience again.
   ‘After the victory over Togo (for a place in the second round), some of the players actually said that they could forget about South Korea at last.’
   Then came a convincing 3-1 win over Spain followed by a masterful performance against Brazil that was reminiscent of the times when France were the ultimate winning machine.
   ‘It did not happen overnight,’ Domenech said. ‘I knew what the players were capable of and I noticed they were improving every match.’
   Domenech, an uncompromising character not interested in making himself popular, had experimented since taking charge two years ago. The games with Spain and Brazil marked the first time he had picked the same lineup for two successive matches.
   ‘I’m glad you noticed that,’ he said after eventually finding the right formula, a compact formation with Zidane in a playmaking role and Thierry Henry on his own up front.
   A much better atmosphere, after internal squabbling marred the 2002 campaign, the desire of several ageing players to end their careers on a high and the rise of top prospect Franck Ribery are other reasons for France’s unexpected revival.
   More than any of that, however, the decisive factor against Brazil was that 34-year-old Zidane, who will retire after the finals and realises every match here could be his last, has recaptured his brilliant best with perfect timing.
   That, too, surprised many, but not Domenech.
   ‘We knew we could count on him,’ the coach said of his captain. ‘He’s Zidane.’

Claude Makelele claims France have proved age is no barrier after Les Bleus reached the World Cup semi-final.
   The team of Zinedine Zidane and co have rediscovered their golden touch and made the last four of the competition in Germany with a 1-0 defeat of defending champions Brazil.
   Many believed the all-conquering heroes who won the tournament eight years ago were finished as an international force but midfielder Makelele insisted he had always dismissed such a notion.
   Makelele said: ‘In football there’s no age, I have always said it.
   ‘We are proving in football there’s no age.’
   Veterans like Makelele, who is 32 and plays club football at Chelsea, and 33-year-old Zidane have been the key to beating teams like Spain and Brazil after a stuttering start to their group campaign.
   But this French team may be even better than the sides in 1998, and at Euro 2000 - Thierry Henry is at the peak of his game and the Marseille’s Franck Ribery has emerged as one of the stars of the tournament.
   Henry provides an attacking threat that is second to none while Ribery’s runs into the final third have wreaked havoc on opponents.
   There is also Zidane, who is to retire after this World Cup, much to the regret of football lovers and of his fellow team-mates.
   Zidane provided the assist for Arsenal’s Henry to strike the goal that sealed their triumph against Brazil.
   ‘Henry is a player that works well,’ said Makelele.
   ‘He accelerates in any time and is a pleasure to have him up front.
   ‘We all know Zidane, I think his CV speaks for itself.’
   Next up are Portugal, a team coached by the man, Luiz Felipe Scolari, who led Brazil to glory four years ago in Japan and South Korea and Makelele is under no illusions as to the size of the task.
   ‘We must keep our heads down because we face a serious team that plays very well,’ he said.
   ‘There’s a place up for grabs for the final and we are in a beautiful position.’
   Scolari’s tactics have proved right so far, with the Portuguese beating England despite the absence of playmaker Deco and defender Costinha.

As expected uncapped cricketers Sakib Al Hasan and Forhad Reza were included on Monday in the 15-member squad for the upcoming tour of Kenya and Zimbabwe.
   Sakib, a left-handed batsman and a useful spinner, got the selectors’ nod after performing quite well for the Bangladesh Under-19 team for last one year.
   Forhad also a top-order batsman and right-arm medium-pacer, has been considered as the natural successor to former captain Khaled Mahmud, who retired in February
   Both Sakib and Forhad are now touring Zimbabwe with the Bangladesh A team. Their performance in the three-match four-day series against Zimbabwe A, however, has so far been very mediocre.
   The selectors also recalled young wicketkeeper Musfiqur Rahim, who played two Tests, but is yet to get his one-day cap while middle-order batsman Tushar Imran and left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak have been dropped.
   ‘We feel this is high time to give our young players some exposures and that is why we included the young trio. With all of them having all-round capacity, we believe they can contribute to the team,’ chief selector Faruque Ahmed told New Age on Monday.
   Bangladesh will play eight one-day internationals against Kenya and Zimbabwe in July and August. The three one-dayers against Kenya will be on July 19, 22 and 23.
   The five-match one-day series against Zimbabwe begins on July 29. The other matches are on July 30, August 2, 4 and 6. All five are at the Harare Sports Club.
   Squad: Habibul Bashar (captain), Khaled Mashud, Javed Omar, Mohammad Rafique, Rajin Saleh, Mohammad Ashraful, Mashrafee bin Mortuza, Aftab Ahmed, Mushfiqur Rahim, Alok Kapali, Shahriar Nafees, Shahadat Hossain, Syed Rasel, Sakib Al Hasan and Forhad Reza.

Li Na created history for China at Wimbledon on Monday while the United States departed from the singles with its tail firmly between its legs.
   Li, 24, overcame Czech teenager Nicole Vaidisova 4-6, 6-1, 6-3 in the fourth round to become China’s first grand slam singles quarter-finalist.
   Li beat Russian French Open runner-up Svetlana Kuznetsova in the third round and she recovered strongly after Vaidisova, who reached the last four at Roland Garros, took the first set with a deft drop shot.
   The Chinese used her withering forehand to cow Vaidisova in the second set and saw out the biggest win of her career by controlling the decider. She plays Belgian second seed Kim Clijsters in the last eight.
   Before Wimbledon the best singles showing by a Chinese player was Zheng Jie’s run to the French Open fourth round in 2004.
   Her achievements won praise from French Open champion Justine Henin-Hardenne who also made the last eight on Monday.
   ‘Beating Kuznetsova and Vaidisova shows what a good player she is,’ said the Belgian.
   ‘There are a lot of players coming from China and I’m sure we will see more of them especially on grass because they are great fighters.
   ‘Li showed what a fighter she is by twice coming back from a set down in her last two matches.’
   China, with one eye on the Beijing Olympics in 2008, had six women in the main draw here but Li was the only one to make the second week.
   She was the first woman from China to win a WTA tour title when she triumphed in Guangzhou as a qualifier in 2004 and was a runner-up in Estoril this year as well as making the semi-finals in Berlin.
   Shenay Perry’s 6-2, 6-0 defeat by Russian Elena Dementieva meant there would be no American man or woman in the quarter-finals of the singles for the first time since 1911.
   ‘I was really nervous and I think it showed in my match,’ said Perry, the world number 62. ‘I’ve never been in that situation before and I didn’t handle it as well as I would have liked to.’
   Americans Venus Williams, Andre Agassi, Andy Roddick, James Blake and Mardy Fish all lost in the men’s third round.
   Dementieva will play fellow Russian Maria Sharapova in her first Wimbledon quarter-final.
   Sharapova, the 2004 champion dropped her first set of the tournament in a tough 7-6 3-6 6-3 win over Italian Flavia Pennetta.
   French Open champion Justine Henin-Hardenne was an impressive 6-3 6-1 winner over Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova and will face French qualifier Severine Bremond in the quarter-finals.
   Bremond shocked 18th seed Ai Sugiyama of Japan 7-6 6-3 to reach her first grand slam quarter-final.
   Henin-Hardenne will complete her full set of grand slam titles if she wins the grasscourt event. She said: ‘I’m very happy. Being in the quarters is good but I don’t want to stop here.’

India (200 & 171) beat West Indies (103 & 219) by 49 runs
   India earned their first series win in the Caribbean for 35 years as they beat West Indies by 49 runs in the fourth Test in Jamaica.
   Sri Sreesanth claimed three top order wickets and spinner Anil Kumble cleaned up the tail for figures of 6-78 as West Indies were all out for 219.
   West Indies still had hope while Denesh Ramdin was at the crease.
   But he ran out of partners on 62 as Kumble took the last two wickets in the space of three deliveries.
   It was only India’s fourth victory in 42 Tests in the West Indies and followed draws in the first three games of the series.
   India began the final day on 128-6 and their last four wickets only managed to add another 33 tot the total during the morning session.
   Corey Collymore picked up the wickets of Anil Kumble (10), Rahul Dravid (68) and Harbhajan Singh (nine) to finish with 5-48, and Jermoe Taylor (4-45) removed Sri Sreesanth for 16.
   It left the home side with a victory target of 269, which would have been the highest fourth inngs score to win a game at Sabina Park.
   But their hopes immediately suffered a setback when Chris Gayle was caught at slip from Sreesanth’s second delivery with the new ball to complete a pair on his home ground.
   Sreesanth returned refreshed after lunch and bowled Daren Ganga with a yorker for 16 before Munaf Patel made a telling contribution by winning an ibw decision against Brian Lara (11).
   Shivnarine Chanderpaul became Kumble’s first victim when he was leg before for 13 playing across the line, but Ramnaresh Sarwan and Dwayne Bravo halted the slide as they shared a partnership of 70 in 16 overs.
   Sarwan reached his half century off 95 balls, with seven fours, before Sreesanth produced another good one to find the edge and Dravid took a sharp low catch at clip to send him on his way for 51.
   West Indies needed to hold their nerve, but the situation proved too much for Bravo, who attempted an ambitious slog sweep off Kumble in the next over and was bowled off stump for 33.
   Marlon Samuels did not last long before he was pinned on the back foot by a straight one from Kumble and given out lbw for five.
   Ramdin, however, batted with impressive maturity to reach only his second Test fifty with a well-placed drive for four through mid-off, and celebrated by thumping Kumble back over his head for a straight six in the next over.
   But by that stage he had also lost Taylor, who made 20 off 24 balls before becoming yet another lbw victim for Kumble.
   And the end came quickly following Ramdin’s six as Pedro Collins was lbw for three and Collymore edged Kumble to the keeper to spark a joyous celebration among the Indian players.

Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene was proud of the ruthless way his side finished their tour of England with a 5-0 one-day series whitewash here at Headingley.
   While being savaged by the 37-year-old Jayasuriya, who marked his record-equalling 362nd one-day international with an almost contemptuous 152 off 99 balls, is an experience common to many attacks, his fellow left-hander Tharanga, still only 21, scored a far from sluggish 109 in 102 balls.
   That was evidence of the progress made by Tharanga and other younger players such as 22-year-old quick Lasith Malinga, who took an impressive four for 44 at Headingley on Saturday.
   It was widely thought Sri Lanka might struggle in English conditions. But after going 1-0 down in the Test series, which they went on to level at 1-1, Sri Lanka reeled off seven straight wins against England in three different forms of the game.
   Their success was all the greater given that a team with a modest playing base were deprived of injured opener and captain Marvan Atapattu for the whole of the tour and that their best one-day wins were achieved when star off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan had left to be with his ill son.
   ‘Once you have an opponent without much confidence and looking for direction you make sure you keep them down,’ said Jayawardene, understandably pleased by his team’s refusal to let-up while they enjoyed a rare success outside the sub-continent.
   ‘That is what we have made sure we have done since winning the Test match at Trent Bridge. Rather than just beating England it was important for the team to retain that killer instinct.’
   Jayawardene, whose astute leadership was a feature of the tour, was fittingly in at the end to see the side home against a demoralised England.
   ‘They were pretty down and out when I walked out there,’ the captain explained. ‘But the way Sanath and Upul went about it was not in our gameplan at all.
   ‘I have not seen a better opening stand than this, particularly as it was away from home.’
   After four crushing defeats, England stand-in skipper Andrew Strauss could be forgiven for trying something new. But his decision to open the bowling with Kabir Ali and Tim Bresnan, rather than senior quick Stephen Harmison, saw the novice duo’s combined first three overs go for 46 runs.
   ‘When you are defending it is very important to take early wickets to slow the opposition down, England didn’t manage to do that and paid the penalty. I was very surprised they didn’t open with Steve Harmison.’
   Reflecting on the tour overall, Sri Lanka’s modest captain insisted: ‘It’s nothing to do with me personally. Everyone worked really hard as a team.
   ‘As a group of players, everyone wanted to improve themselves. Especially the young guys, they were so determined to do well here. They had to prove a point because when they left Sri Lanka even Sri Lankans were not very optimistic about how they would fare in England.
   ‘I’m very pleased with the way the youngsters went about this series. You have to let them express themselves but also see where they are going wrong and make sure they come back into line.’
   He added: ‘Lasith has been the find of the tour for us. He has shown character and he wants to improve himself, which is excellent.’

The Indian media on Monday hailed captain Rahul Dravid as the country’s best ever batsman after leading his team to a rare Test series victory in the West Indies.
   India clinched their first series in the Caribbean in 35 years on Sunday when they won the decisive fourth and final Test in Jamaica by 49 runs.
   The 1-0 verdict against Brian Lara’s home team also enabled India to win a major series outside the sub-continent for the first time since the 2-0 success by Kapil Dev’s men in England in 1986.
   Dravid led from the front with 81 and 68 on a bowler-friendly Sabina Park wicket in which the highest team total was 219 and no other Indian batsman scored a half-century.
   The 33-year-old, dubbed the ‘Wall’ for his impeccable batting technique, crossed the 9,000-run mark during the match to become the sixth highest run-getter in Test history.
   Only Lara (11,505), Australians Allan Border (11,174) and Steve Waugh (10,927) and India’s Sachin Tendulkar (10,469) and Sunil Gavaskar (10,122) have scored more Test runs than Dravid’s 9,049.
   The legendary Gavaskar and current superstar Tendulkar have long been regarded as the greatest Indian batsmen, but Dravid appeared to have leapfrogged ahead in the eyes of the media.
   ‘If there were any doubts about Rahul Dravid being his country’s greatest ever Test batsman, he dispelled them in the fourth Test,’ wrote the Hindu’s cricket correspondent from Sabina Park.
   The Indian Express concurred. ‘Let’s say it once again here: Rahul Dravid is today the greatest batsman in Indian cricket, the finest in the world on all pitches,’ it said.
   ‘Even Sachin Tendulkar will shake his head to that, clap his hands.’
   Since taking over as captain from Sourav Ganguly last October, Dravid has been in prime form, scoring a century or a fifty in nine of his last 10 Tests.
   He was the quickest to 9,000 runs in Test history, achieving the landmark in his 176th innings, one less than previous record holder Lara.
   Dravid rated the two half-centuries at Sabina Park as ‘probably two of the best I have played’, but preferred to give credit to the entire team for the success.
   ‘Winning the series is the most important thing,’ he was quoted as saying by the Indian media. ‘We played the better cricket right from the first Test. It’s sort of nice that it all bore fruit in the end.’
   Dravid also heaped rich praise on match-winning bowler Anil Kumble, whose six for 78 in the West Indian second innings secured India victory.
   ‘Anil is a legend, nothing he achieves surprises me,’ the Indian captain said. ‘Give him the ball and he will deliver more often than not.’
   The 35-year-old spinner took his career tally to 533 Test wickets, the fourth highest behind Australian record-holder Shane Warne (685), Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka (635) and Australian paceman Glenn McGrath (542).
   India return home later this week for a short break before travelling to Sri Lanka next month for a limited-overs tri-series against South Africa and the hosts

Former director Ramon Calderon was named the new president of Real Madrid on Monday the day after claiming a narrow victory in a chaotic election campaign.
   ‘Given the situation created by the election and the existence of a judicial decision that has provisionally suspended the postal vote, the club has decided to name Ramon Calderon as the new president of Real Madrid,’ a club spokesman told a news conference at the Bernabeu.
   ‘The decision was made due to the fact that we are unlikely to have a decision over the legality of the postal vote in the near future and in order to allow the club to function properly and try to build a new era of sporting success.’
   Calderon, a 55-year-old lawyer who joined the Real board in 2002 under former president Florentino Perez, gained 246 votes more than rival candidate Juan Palacios and 1,642 more than Juan Miguel Villar Mir.
   The other two candidates, former president Lorenzo Sanz and lawyer Arturo Baldasano, trailed well behind in the poll.
   Approximately 42 percent of the 66,355 club members who were entitled to vote attended Sunday’s poll in person.
   A judge provisionally suspended the postal vote on Friday after Calderon and other candidates raised concerns over the lack of guarantees to ensure its legitimacy.
   It is not yet clear if the judge will allow the postal votes, which the media estimate could be as many as 10,500, to be counted. If they are, they could change the result of the election.

Bangladesh and Zimbabwe A team finished the three-match four-dayer series 1-1 after the hosts won the final match by seven wickets at Bulawayo on Monday.
   Bangladesh A team paid the price for their poor batting in the first innings, in which they were all out for 150 to concede a 203-run deficit, which also made sure they followed-on.
   In the second innings, the tourists batted a little better with all-rounder Alok Kapali hitting a superb 138, his second century in the series, which helped them to make 292 before being all out in 96.2 overs.
   However, it was not enough to deny the hosts a deserved victory, who only needed 90 runs to win.
   The Zimbabwe A team reached the target in only 18.4 overs for the loss of three wickets, two of which were claimed by Bangladesh’s experienced seamer Hasibul Hossain giving away 34 runs.

Shoaib Malik warmed up for the Test series against England with an unbeaten 110 to see Pakistan to an eight-wicket win over Leicestershire at Grace Road.
   Malik hit three sixes and 12 fours and shared an unbeaten stand of 153 with Younis Khan (55) as the tourists made 207-2 in just 40.2 overs.
   Leg-spinner Danish Kaneria took 4-32 earlier in the day as the county side were bowled out for 191. Their last five wickets went down in just six overs after lunch.
   The morning session had seen Tom New and John Sadler keep Pakistan in check as they added 105 for the fifth wicket.
   Sadler was eventually caught by Imran Farhat off Kaneria for 51 and from 177-5 at lunch, Leicestershire folded in disappointing fashion.
   New’s two and three quarter hour innings came to an end on 67 when Kaneria had him caught by Younis Khan, who again showed a safe pair hands to remove Nick Walker for a duck - one of two victims for Shahid Afridi.

Lleyton Hewitt won a tough battle with David Ferrer to reach the quarter-finals at Wimbledon for the fourth time on Monday, while still finding time to hand his Spanish opponent some unwanted style advice.
   The Australian, the 2002 champion, was on Court One for the best part of three hours before finally wrapping up 6-4, 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 victory, courtesy of a break of serve in the 11th game of the fourth set.
   Meanwhile, Wily 34-year-old Swede Jonas Bjorkman beat his doubles partner Max Mirnyi of Belarus 6-3, 7-6, 4-6, 2-6, 6-3 on Monday to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals.
   British interest in the singles ended at Wimbledon on Monday when Andy Murray went down 6-3 6-4 7-6 to Australian Open runner-up Marcos Baghdatis.
   Baghdatis, two years older than the 19-year-old Murray, is the first Cypriot to reach the quarter-finals of Wimbledon.
   He will now play Radek Stepanek for a place in the semis after the Czech’s five-set victory over Fernando Verdasco.

Brian Lara is to reconsider his position as West Indies captain after the Caribbean side lost the fourth Test against India at Sabina Park on Sunday to relinquish the series 1-0.
   After India took the decisive match by 49 runs to claim their first victorious tour of the West Indies in 35 years, Lara expressed his frustration with regional cricket authorities.
   Lara said he would make a decision on his future tenure as captain after a new panel of selectors was appointed.
   ‘It’s unfortunate. I think the selectors are coming up for election very soon and depending on the outcome of that, I definitely have to revisit my decision to captain the West Indies team,’ Lara told reporters on Monday.
   ‘It’s painful what has gone on in the last couple of months, not just the Test matches, but the one-day matches too,’ he added.
   ‘I have West Indies cricket at heart, but it’s a situation where my reputation as a captain is being dragged down.’
   Lara also revealed that he received a letter from the regional governing body on the eve of the final Test, notifying him that he was a member of the selection panel, effective from May 28.
   It was against this background that he complained during the series that he was not a selector and he was not getting the teams he wanted to take on to the field.
   ‘It’s unfortunate that, first of all, I have been a selector, as I understood, since the series started, since May 28 after the one-day matches,’ he said.
   ‘It’s hurtful when you know that you are in the team, you know the chemistry of the team, but you can’t do anything about it.’
   ‘I said in the press conference after (the second Test in) St Lucia that in hindsight, a spinner should have played, yet two days later he was dropped from the entire 14. How do you work these things out?’

Australian prime minister and self-confessed cricket fanatic John Howard hit out Monday at the shortened Twenty20 version of the game.
   Howard said New South Wales’ decision to include rugby league player Andrew Johns in its Twenty20 team to face South Australia in January, showed Twenty 20 was ‘entertainment, not serious cricket’.
   ‘It’s not for me to say you can’t do it,’ Howard told commercial radio.
   ‘I don’t run cricket, I only follow it and love it. It’s up to the people who run it.
   ‘It does draw an audience and I’m a cricket traditionalist, but if it brings new people into the game, that’s great, but don’t expect me to be a spectator at Twenty20, thank you.’
   NSW cricketing authorities have admitted including Johns, considered the world’s best rugby league player, is an attempt to increase crowds.
   But the move has angered purists and attracted criticism from Cricket Australia, which said it does not need such gimmicks to promote the game Howard said he would never consider participating in a Twenty20 game.
   ‘Id only be available for an Australian team but I dont think Id get chosen mate,’ he said.
   The International Cricket Council will stage the inaugral Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa in September 2007.

Frenchman Jimmy Casper clinched his first victory in the Tour de France when he outsprinted the favourites to win Sunday’s first stage.
   American George Hincapie, who earned two bonus seconds in the third intermediate sprint, took the overall leader’s yellow jersey from Norway’s Thor Hushovd.
   Hushovd, who won Saturday’s prologue ahead of Hincapie, suffered an arm injury after an incident during Sunday’s mass sprint finish.
   The Credit Agricole rider, however, should be fit to start Monday’s second stage.
   Hushovd caught his arm on advertising material in the form of a large green hand held over the barriers by a fan. The Norwegian crossed the line and immediately lay down with blood pouring from a gash to his right elbow.
   The offending advertising article has now been banned over the last two kms of similar stages.
   In another incident, world champion Tom Boonen, a favourite in any bunched sprint, finished only 13th after being struck by a spectator’s camcorder in the last kilometre.
   Sunday’s result of the first road stage of the Tour meant the yellow jersey will be worn again by a Discovery Channel rider for the first time since Lance Armstrong retired last year after winning his seventh consecutive Tour de France.

Millions of German fans were expected to fill the streets of the country today to cheer on the host nation in its most important match on home soil since the 1974 World Cup final.
   Germany will meet Italy in a World Cup semi-final in a packed Westfalenstadion in Dortmund, but up to a million people were expected to gather in Berlin on the so-called Fan Mile to watch the action on giant TV screens.
   The area leading up to the Brandenburg Gate, the capital’s best-known monument, was being expanded to allow 900,000 people to squeeze in to watch the match as Germany attempt to secure a place in Sunday’s final in Berlin.
   The Berlin Fan Mile has hosted more than six million supporters so far during the month-long World Cup, making the celebrations the biggest street party the city has seen since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.
   ‘This has become much bigger than we ever dreamed,’ Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit said.
   Twenty-five people were injured when a car ploughed through the area on Sunday, but city authorities said they were confident there would be no repetition on Tuesday.
   The driver, a 33-year-old German of Indian origin, was arrested at gunpoint after
   his car crashed into a fence in front of a stage set up for a concert.
   Berlin interior affairs minister Eberhard Koerting said: ‘Those reponsible for security will try to do everything they can to ensure everyone’s safety.’
   Other cities around the country were preparing to accommodate tens of thousands of fans for the match which kicks off at 1900 GMT.
   In Dortmund itself, authorities said up to 200,000 people were expected to come into the western city regardless of the fact that they were unlikely to find tickets for the match.
   Hotels in the industrial city were fully booked and the public viewing area was being enlarged to accommodate 70,000 people.
   In Munich, the Theresienwiese showgrounds where the annual October Beer Festival is held were being opened up for up to 25,000 fans.
   The eastern city of Leipzig was planning to show the match in its Zentralstadion, which hosted World Cup matches and can hold 40,000 people, while Frankfurt would do the same in its stadium, which has a similar capacity.
   Restaurant and bar owners have also increasingly set up screens in their establishments as the home side advanced to the last four and ecstatic German supporters’ moved en masse from the sofa to the street.
   The last time Germany hosted the World Cup, 32 years ago, the then West Germany beat the Netherlands in the final in Munich.
   Fans are hoping that coach Jurgen Klinsmann’s young team, which has been swept along on a wave of home support, can repeat that feat and win the country’s fourth World Cup.
   If they beat Italy, Germany would meet the winners of Wednesday’s semi-final between France and Portugal.

Portugal isn’t exactly George Mason, though its soccer pedigree isn’t much stronger than what the Patriots brought to college basketball’s Final Four. Then again, surprise teams in the World Cup semifinals are hardly a surprise.
   Since 1982, the last time four European teams got this far—West Germany, Italy and France made it, along with, unexpectedly, Poland—there was just one tournament when a relative outsider didn’t sneak into the semifinals.
   Only in 1990, with Italy, Argentina, England and eventual champion West Germany, did the status quo hold. Otherwise, there have been the likes of Belgium (1986), Sweden and Bulgaria (1994), Croatia (1998), South Korea and Turkey (2002).
   Now, there are the Portuguese, who might finally be realizing the promise of their ‘Golden Generation,’ even if nearly all those players have given way to youngsters of the next generation. Luis Figo is the only remaining member of the group that was expected to carry Portugal to greatness in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
   Instead, the Portuguese disappointed, with the lowlight a first-round elimination from the 2002 World Cup, including losses to the Americans and Koreans. So finding them in the final four after a rebuilding process is akin to George Mason’s Colonial Athletic Association team crashing the NCAA tournament’s big party.
   ‘It’s worth suffering for moments like this,’ said Eusebio, Portugal’s greatest player and the leader of the team that finished third in 1966 — the last time the nation had a significant impact on the World Cup.
   ‘It’s been more difficult to reach a semifinal with Portugal than the final with Brazil, because there are only 10 million inhabitants in Portugal compared to 180 million in Brazil,’ said Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, a Brazilian who led his countrymen to the 2002 crown, Brazil’s fifth overall. ‘Also, 50 percent of the players in Portugal are foreigners. Brazil’s traditions make certain games easier to win, too.’
   Not against France, of course, which is unbeaten in its last four games against Brazil, starting with the 1998 World Cup final. Yet, seeing the French in the semifinals is almost shocking considering the disarray on this team entering the tournament.
   Despite its tradition and wealth of talent—Zinedine Zidane, Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Fabien Barthez—France was within one half of another first-round exit. Remember how the French couldn’t score in the World Cup? How they followed their humiliating goal-less tournament four years ago with five lackluster halves in Germany before putting away Togo 2-0 and advancing.
   Anyone who picked France to beat Spain and dominate Brazil in the knockout rounds must have Les Bleus in the blood.
   Or maybe the French were just building up to something special, the way the Turks did in Japan and South Korea, or how the Bulgarians rode star Hristo Stoitchkov in ‘94. France climbed on the shoulders of Zidane, who has gone from average to extraordinary in the last two matches.
   ‘We’ve been saying among ourselves here all along that France would get to the semifinals, despite their bad start,’ Portugal goalkeeper Ricardo Pereira said Sunday. ‘Some said France wasn’t going to do anything, but it’s not easy to beat Brazil.’
   Generally, the surprise semifinalists wind up in the third-place match and not playing for the trophy. Indeed, not since Czechoslovakia lost to Brazil in 1962 has an interloper even made it to the championship game.
   ‘It is another team, another story we have to live,’ France coach Raymond Domenech said. ‘In the end, comparisons are tiresome.’

German police said Monday that the number of people injured when a car ploughed through the Fan Mile area for football World Cup supporters at the weekend had risen to 25 after more victims came forward.
   A spokeswoman for the Berlin police said that four more people had reported slight injuries after a man drove his Volkswagen Polo Sunday afternoon through security barriers near the Brandenburg Gate and into the crowd.
   Twenty other adults had minor wounds while an 11-year-old boy suffered a concussion.
   The driver, a 33-year-old German of Indian origin, was arrested at gunpoint after his car crashed into a fence in front of a stage set up for a classical music concert that evening at the central Berlin landmark.
   He is facing charges of attempted homicide.
   A 55-year-old woman in the passenger seat was also detained but later released.
   Witnesses said he was driving about 50 kilometers/hour (30 miles/hour) and appeared to have intentionally careered into the crowd.
   The Fan Mile stretching down the long boulevard behind the Brandenburg Gate has attracted hundreds of thousands of football fans for each of the World Cup matches broadcast on giant screens. But the crowd was thinner Sunday because no game was on.

Thierry Henry has paid tribute to France team-mate Patrick Vieira after the Juventus midfielder put a difficult season behind him to star at the World Cup finals.
   Vieira’s debut season in Turin started promisingly but he then became the butt of criticism, memorably losing possession for Cesc Fabregas to score on his return to Highbury in the UEFA Champions League.
   After France’s lacklustre opening two games against Switzerland and South Korea Vieira has been a monumental presence in Les Bleus’ midfield, even chipping in with two goals during his country’s run to the semi-finals.
   Henry is well aware of how injury can hinder a major tournament campaign, and the Arsenal captain has spoken in glowing terms of Vieira’s form in Germany.
   ‘You can’t be outstanding when your body won’t let you,’ Henry told L’Equipe.
   ‘I say it again, in 2002 I came to Korea with big trouble to my knee.
   ‘After Euro 2004 I had pain to the Achilles tendon.
   ‘Patrick Vieira almost played the whole season with Juventus with groin trouble.
   ‘His generous character and his ever willingness to help the team harmed himself, because he got a lot of criticism.
   ‘Now he is a little better, above all on a physical level, and we can see it.’
   ‘Of course we want to go on further, we won’t stop here,’ Henry continued.
   ‘We have already shown we are a team compared to 2002 and 2004 it was important for our fans and the press.
   ‘Everyone asks himself some questions, and above all we asked ourselves some questions.’

Barely a month ago, France was booed by its own fans, Zinedine Zidane looked like he could hardly walk, let alone run, and Les Bleus seemed headed for another early World Cup exit.
   On Wednesday, Zidane will captain a resurgent squad looking for a place in the final when it meets Portugal in Munich.
   ‘We have an idea, an objective,’ France coach Raymond Domenech said. ‘The final on July 9.’
   The speedy turnaround, highlighted by a 1-0 quarterfinal win Saturday over pretournament favorite Brazil, is astonishing.
   France had struggled to score in World Cup qualifying, showing little attacking invention in a series of drab draws against Ireland, Switzerland and Israel. Not until the 10th and final round of matches did it secure a spot in soccer’s showcase tournament.
   Zidane wasn’t much better.
   He marked his 100th cap May 27 with one of his worst games in a blue shirt, giving the ball away, falling over and looking generally listless. Although they spared the captain, fans booed and whistled other players.
   ‘A lot of people criticized us,’ defender William Gallas said. ‘We answered in the best way ... on the pitch.’
   Reserve goalkeeper Mickael Landreau believes bashing of the players helped in the long run. Cloistered in their castle residence, teammates have turned to each other for support.
   It is the opposite of 2002, when internal bickering disrupted a squad which spent much of its World Cup at the local hotel casino, in full view of the prying public. Tournament favorites, Les Bleus went home after the first round without scoring a goal.
   ‘A team spirit has been created and we are using that now,’ Landreau said. ‘The group has protected itself and stayed solid at all times.’
   France has gone from a team which could not beat Switzerland or South Korea, to one which dominated defending champion Brazil.
   In that game, Zidane gave a lesson in midfield play—his all-around performance was arguably better than in the 1998 final—and Thierry Henry’s game-winning goal finally showed he can deliver on the big stage. Gallas’ understanding with Lilian Thuram in central defense keeps improving, so much so that Ronaldo did not shoot on target until the last minute.
   ‘When you are solid at the back, you only need one chance to win the match,’ Gallas said.
   That chance came on Zidane’s curling free-kick, which Henry volleyed past helpless Brazil goalkeeper Dida. Domenech interpreted Zidane’s performance as inspired by a fierce determination to push back his retirement date—Zizou quits altogether after the World Cup.

Germany suffered a blow on the eve of their World Cup semi-final against Italy when key midfielder Torsten Frings was suspended for Tuesday’s match.
   Frings was barred after the FIFA Disciplinary Committee viewed TV pictures which show him hitting an Argentinian player in the face in an on-pitch fracas following Germany’s win in a penalty shootout in the quarter-final.
   FIFA ruled that Frings can definitely not play in the semi-final but can return for the final on Sunday should Germany beat Italy.
   However, any recurrence of bad behaviour in the next six months would see him banned for another match, a FIFA spokesman told AFP.
   ‘Frings is suspended for two matches, but one is a suspended punishment,’ the spokesman said.
   Frings is likely to be replaced for the match in Dortmund by Borussia Dortmund’s defensive midfielder Sebastian Kehl.
   Germany’s team manager Oliver Bierhoff said he was unhappy with the decision.
   ‘We are disappointed. We believed that we had presented a sufficient explanation for him to be cleared,’ he said.
   Bierhoff said the TV pictures showed that the referee Lubos Michel and the two assistant referees were standing next to Frings at the time of the incident but had not given him any punishment at the time.
   ‘It now seems that we no alternative other than to accept the decision,’ Bierhoff added.
   New TV pictures of the confrontation at the end of the tense match in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium came to light on Sunday, FIFA’s head of communications Markus Siegler told a media briefing ahead of the verdict.
   Siegler denied that the Italian football federation had played any role in bringing the pictures to FIFA’s attention, saying: ‘There was no attempt from the Italian federation to incite FIFA to do something.
   ‘This footage was shown on a public channel in Germany.’
   The 29-year-old all-action Werder Bremen midfielder had protested his innocence, saying he was only defending himself against punches from Argentinian players.
   ‘I did nothing,’ he told a German regional newspaper.
   ‘I found myself mixed up in a melee where fists were raining down everywhere.
   ‘I myself was hit twice. It was at that point I protected myself, and put my hand in front of me, but I did nothing else.’
   Argentinian player Julio Cruz, though, was quoted in the Italian media as saying he hadn’t felt a thing.
   ‘I did not see the punch from him, or else I did not feel it,’ said the Inter Milan striker.
   The fracas was apparently sparked when Argentinian player Leonardo Cufre kicked German defender Per Mertesacker following the shootout.
   Cufre was shown a red card for his part in the fracas.
   He and another Argentinian player, Maxi Rodriguez, have until Wednesday to give their version of what happened to FIFA which will decide whether to hand down any suspensions for future international matches.

Italy are aware they need to produce a typical Azzurri defensive display in the World Cup semi-final with Germany to deal with Miroslav Klose.
   Italy’s defending has been their strongest suit over the years and it has been the case this summer, with Marcello Lippi’s side conceding just one goal in five games.
   Klose, however, has consistently found the back of the net since Japan and South Korea four years ago and currently leads the scoring charts with five goals so far in the tournament.
   ‘Klose has proved how great he is as a striker not just in this World Cup but in previous tournaments,’ said Italy striker Luca Toni.
   ‘He has scored so many goals and he is very strong physically and mentally. In some games he may go unnoticed for much of the game and then suddenly he finds the target as we saw against Argentina.
   ‘I think our defenders will have to be extremely careful with him because if you give him a chance he will punish us.’
   Toni, who was the most prolific striker in Serie A last season netting 31 goals to help Fiorentina qualify for Champions League football, has also found his touch at the right time.
   Having failed to score in the three group games and against Australia in the second round, he struck twice in the 3-0 quarter-final victory over Ukraine.
   Toni is now hopeful of following in the footsteps of Italy legend Paolo Rossi - who also failed to score in the group games in the 1982 World Cup but struck six goals to claim the golden boot as Italy lifted the trophy.
   ‘It would be great to emulate Rossi’s achievement,’ added Toni. ‘But the most important thing is that Italy advance.’
   The 29-year-old knows what is like to beat Germany goalkeeper Jens Lehmann having done so in the 4-1 friendly victory in March.
   ‘This is the semi-final of the World Cup,’ he said. ‘If Germany are in the last four it is for a reason.
   ‘They are difficult side to beat, they have the advantage of playing at home.
   ‘We know what to expect, we know what we have to do, we have to play at our best in order to knock them out.’

The basis for the strategy that has won Luiz Felipe Scolari 12 straight games as a coach at the World Cup isn’t some New Age philosophy - it’s more than 2,400 years old.
   The Art of War by Chinese general Sun Tzu is one of Scolari’s favorite books. He says it has helped him to the 2002 World Cup title with his native country and into the semifinals in Germany at the helm of Portugal. Scolari has won every game his teams have played at both tournaments - a streak that has reached a dozen.
   With its stress on preparation, discipline, unity, the treatise is a guidebook for some in modern-day business, politics and sports.
   It is a fitting choice for a manager whose language is flecked with military terms, and whose next adversary is France on Wednesday.
   ‘He’s enriched us, increased our confidence,’ Portuguese goalkeeper Ricardo Pereira said Sunday. ‘Every ship has its captain, and he’s ours.’
   Scolari was a fearless, if indelicate, central defender at clubs in his home state of Rio Grande Do Sul, whose natives are called ‘gauchos’ (South American cowboys) for their grittiness.
   His South American soccer schooling made him into a hard-nosed coach.
   After two of his players were sent off in a 1-0 win against the Netherlands in the second round that featured four red cards and 16 yellows, Scolari labeled his players heroes.
   ‘It (was) a typical game for those who don’t know the South American game, which is very rough,’ he said. ‘It’s a war, and today was very similar.’
   Scolari often speaks of how he wants his players to ‘brigar’ (brawl) on the field, though he says he uses the word figuratively.
   For him, knockout games are ‘mata-mata,’ which literally translates as ‘kill, kill’ but which is meant to convey a sense of do-or-die.
   The language of battle is an element of aggression, he says, that gets the job done. It has helped toughen the Portuguese, whose pretty play has never won them anything.
   They outlasted England in a quarterfinal match Saturday and prevailed on penalties 3-1.
   ‘I want my players to show that spirit against all their adversaries, however big a name they are,’ Scolari said afterward.
   For all his tough-guy talk, Scolari has a softer side.
   In training, he often teases his players and shares jokes with them. Twice while in Germany, he has let players fly home to be present at the birth of their children.
   The players are full of praise and admiration for their coach and have said publicly they want him to stay after his contract expires at the end of the month.
   ‘Nowadays all teams have quality players and they’re all at a similar level. But (Scolari) has brought us that little something extra,’ Ricardo said.

There is a marked difference between being a great footballer and a football great. Frank Lampard will know that better than most after a hugely disappointing tournament for the Chelsea midfielder, culminating in his missed penalty against Portugal and a tetchy display when asked yesterday why he had failed to reproduce his best form.
   ‘I’ve had chances to score and I haven’t scored,’ he acknowledged. ‘I feel a little bit upset, though, after what I’ve done in the last couple of years, that when I’ve missed a few chances a lot of people have been very quick to get on my back. I am upset about that because I have worked my socks off to try to be successful in this World Cup. I would have loved to have scored the winning goal [against Portugal] and shown a few people.
   ‘I am a harsh critic of myself but when criticism comes from outside and I feel it is a bit unjust it gets my back up. After all I’ve done in the last two years I think I deserve a little bit of respect and when people come along who want to knock me down I do feel a little bit peeved.’
   He acknowledged that he had failed to justify his status as second only to Ronaldinho in FIFA’s world footballer of the year awards. The 28-year-old had 26 shots in five games but did not score and his opening penalty miss against Portugal set the tone for the shoot-out.
   ‘It’s emotional and very depressing,’ he said. ‘Other players missed too and I suppose that means it doesn’t isolate any individual, but it doesn’t make it easier. It’s a horrible feeling. It’s a moment to stand up and be a man and when you put yourself in that position you put yourself where you can miss. There’s nothing I can do about it now. There’s no going back.’

Raymond Domenech is playing down France’s past superiority over their World Cup semi-final opponents Portugal, saying it will count for nothing when the whistle blows in Munich on Wednesday.
   Les Bleus have won all four of their clashes with Portugal, the most significant coming at Euro 2000 when they ran out 2-1 extra time winners in a fractious semi-final en route to taking the title.
   They played Italy in the final that year and the azzurri could once again be waiting for them in Berlin next Sunday if they get the better of Germany in the other last four tie on Tuesday.
   Domenech, referring to France’s record over Luis Felipe Scolari’s men, said: ‘We’ve already beaten Portugal but I’m not into statistics, that’s history, this is 2006, the reality is on Wednesday night.’
   The 54-year-old Domenech who has suddenly gone from villain to hero was speaking at a press conference near France’s World Cup base here less than 24 hours after Thierry Henry’s’ goal sent the defending champions back to Rio de Janeiro.
   The French press could have been forgiven for expecting to turn up at a post-mortem on Sunday, but an inspired performance in Frankfurt with Zinedine Zidane at its heart meant the Tricolor outside the leisure centre in Hamlin wasn’t at halfmast and Domenech was smiling.
   It also meant France had to cancel their flight back to Paris on Sunday, rejigging their schedule to take in a trip to Munich.
   Domenech denied the Portuguese, who booked their semi-final berth with a penalty shoot-out win over England, would represent easier pickings than the Brazilians.
   ‘They are a quality side who have proved capable of imposing their style of play on their rivals.
   ‘I don’t know Scolari but I think he’s world champion isn’t he?’ he grinned.
   ‘That brings with it a certainty in what he does. I have a lot of respect for what he’s achieved.’
   ‘Each match we’ve had is a test and up to now we’ve passed each one,’ he added.
   ‘The danger for us now is to think we’ve done it by beating Brazil, we’ve got to get the players back to where they were before that win.
   ‘We’ve achieved something super, it’s always a pleasure when you reap the rewards of the work you’ve put in. But our work is not finished, we can’t let up.
   ‘For me success at this World Cup only comes if we win. While we can get satisfaction afterwards from our performance here true pleasure will come from winning the title.’
   The 1998 champions position in the last four looked a distant pipedream after their flat opening games against Switzerland and South Korea, lacklustre performances Domenech in part put down to France’s woeful 2002 title defence.

Portugal goalkeeper Ricardo said he could sense from looking at the England players that they were going to miss during the penalty shootout which settled Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final.
   Ricardo saved a record three penalties as Portugal won 3-1 in the shootout following a goalless draw to reach the semi-finals for the first time since 1966.
   ‘We’ve trained a lot on penalties and I could see by looking at the eyes of the English players that they did not feel confident about scoring,’ he told reporters on Sunday.
   ‘I tried to make the goal shrink in their eyes,’ he added. ‘I wanted to prolong their suffering.’
   ‘I felt at that moment that I could save at least one or two penalties.’
   ‘(Captain Luis) Figo said he was certain I would save two and I went one better.’
   Ricardo, who was also the hero when Portugal beat England on penalties in their European championship quarter-final two years ago, said he was ready to take a penalty for his side just as he did on the previous occasion.
   In 2004, Ricardo saved Darius Vassell’s attempt for England in sudden death, then stepped up and placed the decisive kick confidently past David James.
   Ricardo said he was also inspired by the sight in the stands of a lone Portugal supporter in the middle of a large group of England fans.
   ‘I didn’t know whether to laugh, or smile or cry,’ said Ricardo. ‘It’s an image which will stay with me for ever.’
   Portugal face France in their semi-final in Munich on Wednesday.

Carlos Alberto Parreira was mainly to blame for Brazil’s failure to justify their favourites tag at the World Cup finals said Brazilian legend Pele.
   Pele told daily newspaper O Globo Monday that he hoped their exit in the quarter-finals to bogey team France would act as a lesson for future campaigns for the five-time champions.
   ‘The expectations from the whole of the world placed on the Brazilians was enormous,’ said Pele, a World Cup winner in 1958, ‘62 and ‘70.
   ‘The psychological pressure, too little time to prepare physically and the lack of strategy on the pitch did not help them.
   ‘I really hope that this unexpected defeat will be a big lesson for the next World Cups’,’ he added. While Pele refused to single out Parreira or any individual player he did say that the top players had failed to step up to the plate.
   ‘The feebleness of the best players at the most important moments did not help,’ said Pele, who added that depsite a poor campaign Barcelona ace Ronaldinho remained the best player in the world.
   However, Pele recalled that before the finals he had said that the favourite for the World Cup never takes the biggest prize of them all.
   ‘That was always my biggest fear because in 1974 The Netherlands were favourites but West Germany won.
   ‘In 1982, Brazil with coach Tele Santana and a superb squad were favourites, but it was Italy who won.
   ‘Unfortunately here in Germany, it was the same thing, but there again that may be a coincidence.’

The papal apartment lights were on late when Germany beat Argentina last week. Will they be on late again when Germany plays Italy on Tuesday for a spot in the World Cup final?
   The German-born Pope Benedict XVI told organizing committee head Franz Beckenbauer at the Vatican in October that he would watch ‘the most important games’ and asked about the German team.
   However, during the Germany-Italy semifinal in Dortmund, Germany, the pontiff’s allegiance will be split between the two countries, Benedict’s personal secretary was quoted as saying by Italian newspapers.
   Monsignor Georg Ganswein said that ‘the pope is always impartial’ and that his heart ‘will beat both for Germany and Italy,’ according to Gazzetta dello Sport and other Sunday dailies.

Former French star Michel Platini has said he is disappointed with the standard of football shown at the World Cup.
   Platini, who shone for his country in the 1982 and 1986 World Cup finals where twice they reached the semi-finals only to be beaten by West Germany, made his comments to German football magazine Kicker.
   ‘There have been some good matches and some not so good, but in general I think the standard of football has not been particularly high,’ he said.
   ‘A lot of that has to do with the enormous pressures that are being placed on the players.
   ‘When I was active for example in 1984 (the year that France won the European title) I would be talking to one single journalist while nowadays there are a pack of reporters following the players.’
   The 51-year-old Platini singled out Brazilian star Ronaldinho, the world player of the year, who he said had been way below his best in his country’s games in Germany.

Ronaldo wants
   to continue
   Brazil striker Ronaldo is hoping to continue his international career after bowing out of this year’s World Cup in a quarter-final defeat to France.
   Thierry Henry’s second-half strike, his third goal of the tournament, was enough to kill off Carlos Alberto Parreira’s side as Brazil failed to produce the kind of football that has enabled them to capture the title five times.
   ‘My intention is to always go back and play in the national team,’ said Ronaldo, who has now been a member of four Brazil World Cup squads.
   Unimpressive in the group stage, the 29-year-old did score three times in Germany.
   He became the tournament’s all-time leading scorer with his strike in the last-16 victory over Ghana. That gave him 15 in his career, surpassing Gerd Muller’s World Cup finals record.
   However, Brazil were second best in the quarter-final against France, who advanced to a semi-final against Portugal.
   ‘We didn’t play badly, but obviously it hurts to go out of the World Cup,’ Ronaldo said.
   ‘I think we gave our maximum but it wasn’t enough.
   ‘We knew the big expectation in Brazil and we also wanted to go far but we are proud of the sacrifices that people have done in order to be here. We are sad, but we will be happy because our tournament overall hasn’t been a bad one.’ —New Age Desk
   
   Totti ready for Germany
   Francesco Totti believes it is Italy’s destiny to taste World Cup glory in Germany.
   The Roma playmaker has not perhaps been at his mercurial best thus far but did play his part in the Azzurri’s destruction of a tepid Ukraine side on Friday.
   A facile 3-0 victory saw Italy claim a semi-final place against the hosts on Tuesday and now Totti is predicting the current side will write a new chapter in their country’s rich football history.
   ‘We are in a condition to exploit,’ said Totti.
   ‘Italy versus Germany is not a match like the others. They are matches which have left a sign in history and in supporters’ minds.
   ‘In Dortmund we want to write a new page of this duel.’
   While Totti concedes home advantage will play to the strengths of Germany, he is confident the experience in Italy’s ranks will help see them through.
   ‘Beating them at home would be the best,’ he added.
   ‘But it’s a difficult challenge. For us it’s a complicated job and it is a stimulating situation.
   ‘I’ve already heard about the final and possible revenge but I don’t think of other games.
   ‘Our opponents are Germany and our aim is to beat them.’—New Age Desk
   
   Lehmann planning for Italy
   Germany goalkeeper Jens Lehmann is refusing to get carried away with his exploits against Argentina but is instead focusing on a semi-final clash with Italy.
   The Arsenal man was the hero for his country on Friday when, after a quarter final clash with Argentina went to penalties, he pulled off two fine saves.
   Lehmann has quite a reputation as a penalty stopper having saved against Juan Roman Riquelme in last season’s UEFA Champions League win over Villarreal and now, in World Cup action.
   However, whilst pleased with his exertions against the talented Argentines, he is refusing to rest on his laurels as he prepares for Tuesday’s crucial clash.
   ‘Of course I was happy that we were through but we have not finished the job yet,’ he told The People.
   ‘That’s why I need to sit quietly on my own and think about what the next game means to me and Germany.
   ‘I wanted to celebrate - but I also wanted to make sure I was entirely focused on what was round the corner.
   ‘Argentina was an incredible moment in my career, the kind that every player wants to experience and I wanted to savour it in the right way.
   ‘Now, when I think back to this season, what I will remember is saving two Argentina penalties, not walking away from the Champions League final with a red card next to my name.’
   
   Figo: we owe a big debt to Phil
   Luis Figo paid tribute to Luiz Felipe Scolari after the Portugal boss kept his amazing record against Sven Goran Eriksson.
   Big Phil Scolari ended Eriksson’s reign after beating England for the third consecutive major tournament - he led Brazil to glory four years ago and Saturday’s quarter-final heartbreak was a repeat of Euro 2004.
   Scolari turned down the England job and skipper Figo hailed him as the best manager in the world after their penalty shoot-out win over England. Figo said: ‘He is the best manager and we are very lucky to have him. If we lost him it would put us back 10 years.
   ‘We were not thinking of England’s record in penalty shoot-outs. You never think about
   past statistics in a moment like that. It was a difficult game for both teams.
   ‘It was a very, very tactical game. The systems of both teams were similar so there were not so many chances on goal. The difference was in the penalty kicks because we had more luck than England.
   ‘The players normally play to score from open play, so the penalty kicks are just a lottery. We now have a difficult route left, but we believe it is possible to win, of course.’
   But ex-Newcastle midfielder Hugo Viana, said: ‘We deserved this. We were the better team and now we can reach the final. England have lost a few shoot-outs and deserved to lose again because we were better.’ — New Age Desk
   
   Eriksson
   short-changed fans
   Former England striker Ian Wright believes Sven-Goran Eriksson has let down the country’s fans during the last six years.
   Eriksson’s reign as England boss came to an end with a disappointing penalty shoot-out defeat to Portugal in the World Cup, meaning he did not take the country past the quarter-finals of a major tournament in three attempts.
   Wright believes England fans deserved more, particularly as the Swede’s salary from the Football Association was a reported 4 to 5 million pounds (5.8 to 7.2 million euros) per year. — AFP
   
   Lippi opens doors to fans
   Italy coach Marcello Lippi, preparing for Tuesday’s World Cup semi-final against Germany, was forced to open his training session to the public after hundreds of noisy Italian fans turned up to watch.
   Lippi has kept his evening training sessions closed to the public and press but after the team were greeted by around 300 cheering fans on Sunday the Italian Football Federation changed plans and opened the gates, half an hour after the session began.
   Italy, who rarely bring many fans with them to major tournaments, have enjoyed plenty of support from German-based Italian supporters throughout the competition.
   On the opening day of the finals, an Azzurri friendly match against the youth team of German second division club MSV Duisburg was watched by a crowd of 25,000. —Reuters
   
   Beckham out for six weeks
   Outgoing England captain David Beckham will be sidelined for six weeks after sustaining knee and ankle injuries in the World Cup defeat by Portugal, the BBC reported on Sunday.
   Beckham was substituted early in the second half of the quarter-final in Gelsenkirchen on Saturday, which England lost 3-1 in a penalty shootout.
   The BBC said scans showed a tear in his right Achilles tendon and a small ‘lesion’ in the ligaments of his left knee.
   Beckham stepped down as captain on Sunday after almost six years in the job in the wake of the Portugal defeat. — Reuters

Italy and Germany played one of the most memorable games in World Cup history. It might be too optimistic to expect another when they meet in today’s semifinal in Dortmund.
   Still, with some exciting strikers on both sides, fans could get a treat from two teams with three titles each.
   World Cup history speaks for Italy, but Germany is playing at home, at its favorite stadium in the country.
   Germany has never lost at Dortmund’s noisy stadium and has only one draw in 14 games.
   ‘We like going back to our favorite stadium,’ coach Juergen Klinsmann said.
   ‘It’s not just my stadium but it has become our stadium,’ Borussia Dortmund defender Christoph Metzelder said. ‘It’s really motivating to come to Dortmund and play the semifinals.
   ‘It will be a match Germany hasn’t seen to date. I hope we can exploit the atmosphere of the stadium.’
   Klinsmann’s young team may need all the support it can get. Italy won’t be without friends, drawing support from its considerable community in Germany.
   Germany has never beaten Italy in four World Cup matches, including two draws. At the 1970 semifinal in Mexico, Italy won 4-3 in extra time in one of the World Cup’s most dramatic games. They also met in a final, in 1982, when Italy won 3-1, their most recent World Cup match.
   Italy also leads the all-time series 13-7, with eight draws.
   Germany began the tournament with relatively low expectations. But Klinsmann’s team, like many of the previous German sides, has grown during the tournament and his men go into the semifinal full of confidence.
   ‘We are hungry for more,’ Klinsmann said.
   His team had a tougher road into the semifinals, only getting past Argentina on penalties after a 1-1 draw in extra time.
   Italy cruised past Ukraine 3-0 and has conceded only an own-goal.
   Italy’s toughest obstacles in reaching the World Cup semifinals have come from home.
   The Azzurri have persevered amid a Serie A corruption scandal and the grave condition of former teammate Gianluca Pessotto, who was hospitalized in Turin after falling out of a window.
   ‘I think, if anything, that scandal has welded the team together,’ Germany assistant coach Joachim Loew said. ‘I think the scandal will work to their favor as ironic as that may sound. That scandal has generated team spirit.’
   Germany’s leaders, captain Michael Ballack and striker Miroslav Klose, both injured their calves against Argentina.
   Klose didn’t finish the match and was replaced after scoring the equalizer in the 80th minute, while Ballack played on throughout the extra time. Klose has scored five of Germany’s 11 goals and leads the tournament.
   ‘They are getting physiotherapy and both will be fit and able to play Tuesday,’ Loew said Sunday.
   Germany called off Sunday’s practice, saying the team would have a fitness session instead. The team has not trained since Friday’s game, except for a recovery session on Saturday.
   Italy defender Alessandro Nesta is almost sure to miss the game because of a right thigh injury.
   Tests on Nesta’s leg showed improvement but his chances of playing against Germany are ‘very remote,’ team spokesman Antonello Valentini said Sunday. Nesta missed Italy’s last two games.
   In their last meeting, a friendly in Florence in March, Italy won 4-1, a defeat that nearly cost Klinsmann his job.
   ‘We are not thinking of that now at all,’ Loew said. ‘We are a different team now.’

If Germany make it past Italy on Tuesday to reach the World Cup final, Juergen Klinsmann will be happy to share the credit with a pioneering American who was unknown outside Germany until two years ago.
   Fitness instructor Mark Verstegen, who runs the Athletes’ Performance group with centers in Arizona and California, was one of the first people hired by Klinsmann when he took over as Germany coach in August 2004.
   He was charged with revolutionizing training sessions, charting the fitness of each player and devising individual programs for them to follow when they were back at their clubs.
   ‘I was proud to get to know Mark,’ Klinsmann, whose home base remains in California, told reporters on Monday. ‘I could see how good he was to work with.
   ‘We are convinced that football will become more and more focused on the individual. To make the team better, you make the individual better.’
   The recruitment of Verstegen roused suspicion in Germany, with many wondering why the three-times world champions needed help from an American, but the German record at this World Cup speaks volumes for his effectiveness.
   Germany have had no serious injuries and their players have clearly had more sharpness and stamina than their opponents in all five matches to date.
   Only captain Michael Ballack showed signs of fatigue in the punishing quarter-final against Argentina on Friday, needing treatment for muscle cramps during extra time.
   Even he was able to recover sufficiently to blast in his penalty in the shootout Germany won 4-2.
   In the gym and on the training pitch, you will hear more English spoken than German as Verstegen leads the players through their work-outs.
   Psychology plays a part, too. After the very first session of the pre-World training camp in Sardinia, when the then uncapped David Odonkor trained with his new team mates for the first time, Verstegen had the players gather in a circle.
   ‘We are a...’ Odonkor was asked to shout out three times and the rest of the players responded with a rousing chant of ‘Team!’

Lilian Thuram has warned France of the danger of approaching Wednesday’s semi-final with Portugal believing they’ve already reached the World Cup summit with their heroics in Frankfurt against Brazil.
   ‘No one expected us to win against Brazil and now everyone imagines seeing us in Berlin (for Sunday’s final). Unfortunately that can have an effect on the group.
   ‘If we lose our momentum it’ll make things tricky, but I don’t think that will be the case,’ les Bleus’ most capped player with 119 appearances insisted here Monday.
   ‘We haven’t come this far to lose in the semi-finals.’
   Thuram, 34, spearheads France’s iron defence which has only leaked two goals while Portugal have conceded just one.
   And given the prize at stake the Juventus player predicted a tightly contested affair in Munich.
   ‘I think it’ll be a very closely fought match with the final waiting behind it,’ said Thuram, whose previous experience of a major semi-final with Portugal at Euro 2000 ended with several Portuguese players being severely punished for violent behaviour after a controversial penalty award against them in extra-time.
   ‘Portugal like us are very strong defensively, it could be harder than Brazil.
   ‘We’ll be out to do the same as in the quarter-final, we’ve got to try and reduce the opposition’s space.’
   Thuram is one of six in Raymond Domenech’s side sitting on yellow cards including himself and captain Zinedine Zidane meaning a booking will rule them out of Sunday’s final in the event of victory in Munich.
   But Thuram urged the group walking the yellow card tightrope to put it at the back of their minds when they step out onto the pitch.
   ‘The important thing is not who plays in the final but that France makes it so if we start to worry about getting booked then we wont play to our proper level.’
   Thuram, who is retiring from international football for the second time after the World Cup having already quit the national team after Euro 2004 only to answer coach Raymond Domenech’s SOS to return last year, was asked if he’d been surprised at Zidane’s stunning return to form against Spain and Brazil.
   ‘Surprised? No, Zizou played like the great Zidane.’
   While for veterans like Thuram, Zidane, Fabien Barthez and Claude Makelele this signals their last shot at being crowned world champions for the baby of the team, Frank Ribery, it’s only the beginning.
   And the 23-year-old midfielder, appearing at the same press conference, spoke of his good fortune at being given the opportunity to play alongside Zidane in the master midfielder’s final hours wearing the number ten shirt.
   ‘I was a kid on the streets when Zidane and France won the World Cup eight years ago.
   ‘It’s enormous, extraordinary - everyone would like to play alongside Zidane. It’s like a dream.
   ‘I tried my hardest to get to the World Cup by playing well for Marseille and I’ll always remember being here with Zidane.
   ‘Players like Zizou, Thierry (Henry), Claude and Fabien have taught me a lot - it’s not been easy for me, I’m young in my first World Cup, and I have to thank them,’ reflected Ribery who is another on a yellow card.
   ‘I won’t be thinking about picking up another booking,’ he said.
   ‘I’ll play like I did against Spain or Brazil, without asking questions.’

Argentine legend Diego Maradona says he is not going to throw his hat into the ring to replace coach Jose Pekerman, who resigned after the World Cup quarter-final loss to Germany.
   But he also vowed not to stay in the background either.
   ‘I will neither step aside nor put forward my candidature,’ 1986 world champion Maradona told cable broadcaster TyC Sports.
   ‘Maybe I will never become coach of the national team as I don’t know if that would go down well with the powers that be. I am not under any illusions,’ said Maradona.
   ‘What I want is for Argentina to have the best,’ said Maradona, who in opinion polls last week was rated as a possibility to take the reins - though way behind veteran Carlos Bianchi, former coach with Boca Juniors and who recently ended an unsuccessful stint with Atletico Madrid.
   The polls published by major newspapers showed a majority of fans wanted Pekerman to
   stay in his post, despite the penalty shootout loss to the Germans.
   Pekerman led the albiceleste to under-20 world titles in 1995, 1997 and 2001, and the 56-year-old is credited with the blooding of a raft of young stars, including Barcelona forward Lionel Messi, left on the bench for the quarter- final.
   But he is stepping down just two years after replacing Marcelo Bielsa, who was in charge of Argentina at the last World Cup, when they crashed out in the group phase.
   ‘I will neither step aside nor put forward my candidature, and nor will I go to the
   hotel where (federation head Julio) Grondona is to say ‘here I am.’
   ‘You have to stay cool and think things through carefully,’ Maradona said.
   ‘Everyone thought that Bielsa was going after the last finals in 2002 but they renewed his contract,’ said Maradona of Pekerman’s predecessor - though he did finally go in 2004.
   According to Maradona, Argentina should have beaten the hosts.
   ‘That Argentina played well doesn’t mean they are the best. But we should have been beaten Germany as we did Ivory Coast and Serbia and Montenegro as Germany is
   not much better than Ivory Coast.’
   Pekerma meanwhile told a news conference in Buenos Aires that he was indeed going as his chapter ‘is closed.’
   Some 5,000 fans had welcomed the squad as they
   landed at Ezeiza, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of the capital.
   ‘I stand by my decision - we were ten minutes away’ from the semi-final, Pekerman said.
   ‘As we didn’t manage it I maintain that the page is turned.
   ‘I said we had to play
   seven games and we didn’t manage it.’
   Pekerman spoke up for his side’s creative hub, Juan Roman Riquelme, saying that ‘he had an excellent World Cup. Riquelme did not score goals but set them up.’
   He added that he took the playmaker off against
   the Germans as he was tiring badly.

German sports goods firm Adidas is ahead of rivals as sponsor of successful nations at the semi-final stage of the soccer World Cup, giving a boost to sales prospects of replica shirts and other goods.
   Adidas sponsors two semi-finalists, Germany and France, whereas rival Puma has one, Italy, under contract.
   US firm Nike has the other team still in the tournament, fourth semi-finalist Portugal, but lost its top partner Brazil when the five-time champions were beaten by France in the quarter-finals.
   British firm Umbro has dropped out of the race after its top team, England, again failed to advance, losing to Portugal in the quarter-finals. Umbro’s second team, Sweden, was beaten in the second round by Germany.
   The stakes are high in the competition, with sports goods firms spending millions of euros in sponsoring teams to bolster their brand and lift sales of products such as replica jerseys and footwear.
   The longer a team stays in the tournament, the more fans see company logos and may be tempted to buy merchandise.
   Nike saw sales of Brazil shirts surge after the team beat Germany in the 2002 World Cup final, while Adidas’s Greece jerseys were sold out for days after the country won the European Championships in 2004.
   Puma was top supplier at the start of the World Cup, but except for Italy, its 12 teams—mostly Asian and African—have dropped out.
   Adidas, which claims to be global market leader for soccer gear, has been the top World Cup supplier for decades. The tournament started badly for the firm after several of its teams, including European champions Greece, failed to qualify for the finals.
   But with Germany and France reaching the last four, it now has two hot candidates for the Cup. Its third top team, Argentina, is out of the tournament after losing against Germany in the quarter-final.
   France’s Metro newspaper quoted an Adidas spokeswoman as saying sales of the French jersey have been surging since they beat Spain in the second round.
   The firm also provides the match balls and kits out referees and other match officials.
   Analysts say deals with key teams such as Germany, England and Brazil help boost sales.
   Industry sources say a deal with a top nation costs a double-digit million euro amount annually, while small teams such as Trinidad & Tobago are almost free.

Jurgen Klinsmann says hosts Germany have built up enough momentum to overcome Italy in today’s World Cup semi-final and delight the home fans by winning the title for the fourth time.
   After triumphing over Argentina in a dramatic penalty shootout in their quarter-final Germany are now pitted against Italy but typically manager Klinsmann is full of optimism.
   ‘I believe the confidence that we have built over the last six weeks is enough to win the next two games and become world champions,’ Klinsmann said at Monday’s press conference.
   ‘We know we have the two biggest hurdles in front of us. But we want to go for it and hopefully make it to Sunday’s final.’
   Italy, like Germany, have won three World Cups and Klinsmann expects a tough match in Dortmund.
   ‘A classic World Cup semi-final against Italy is something special,’ said the 41-year-old.
   ‘Italy are one of the best teams in the world and that is why they are in the final four. They have a great footballing tradition and deserve respect.
   ‘But we think if we play our own game we can beat them. We will go into the game on Tuesday with the feeling that we will beat them.’
   In March, Italy crushed Germany 4-1 in a Florence friendly and there were some calls for Klinsmann’s head but the coach said he had faith his team would come good at the right time.
   ‘You are always going to get hammered when you lose 4-1,’ Klinsmann admitted. ‘But friendlies are not that important and I always believed we could make it happen and go far in this tournament.’
   Klinsmann acknowleges the game against Italy will be emotional for him due to his fondness for the country where he spent two seasons with Inter Milan.
   ‘My time in Italy gave me a lot. I learnt a lot from the people and their mentality,’ said the 1990 World Cup winner with West Germany.
   ‘I still have a lot of friends in Milan and a real bond to the country.
   ‘They do not just have fantastic food and expressos.’
   Italy, renowned for being ultra defensive, are likely to hit Germany on the counter attack but Klinsmann is sticking by his policy of going for the throat.
   ‘Success is always the most important thing but we stand by our philosophy,’ Klinsmann declared.
   ‘The fact that Argentina changed their team to combat us shows we have got a lot of respect from opponents.
   ‘We believe in the way we play and try to put opposition under pressure and push them back.’
   Klinsmann says his charges are also prepared for going a goal down like they did against Argentina.
   ‘We always deal with the psychological impact. We prepared our team for coming further and we are at the stage where we have to prepare for things not going our way,’ Klinsmann explained.
   ‘If we go a goal down - as we did against Argentina - we say to the players ‘it is not a problem just keep going and believe in yourselves.’

John Terry is the red-hot favourite to take over the England captaincy, bookmakers said Monday, after David Beckham quit the role in the wake of his side’s disappointing World Cup campaign.
   Terry, 25, who skippered Chelsea to a second straight English Premiership title last season, is so far ahead in the betting that some bookmakers have stopped taking bets on the England captaincy.
   Beckham, 31, resigned as captain Sunday following England’s World Cup ousting by Portugal in a quarter-final penalty shoot-out, and he struggled to control his emotions in making the announcement.
   Bookmaker William Hill have closed the book on the position after 95 percent of the bets they took were placed on battling centre-half Terry, whose never-say-die attitude has made him a fan’s favourite at Chelsea.
   ‘We were finding it difficult to make a market because people only wanted to back Terry,’ William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe told AFP.
   ‘My information is that it’s probably his to turn down and you’d be surprised if he did.’
   Terry was their ½ favourite, followed by Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard at 11/4, Frank Lampard and Gary Neville at 8/1 and Rio Ferdinand at 16/1.
   Beckham was appointed England captain by caretaker manager Peter Taylor in 2000 and Sven-Goran Eriksson kept him on when he became the England boss.
   Terry wore the captain’s armband during England’s World Cup second round 1-0 win over Ecuador after goalscorer Beckham was substituted.
   ‘We were unable to take any serious money for any other candidate, so have decided to close the book, at least temporarily—although we are still happy to take bets for Wayne Rooney, who is a 33/1 shot,’ Sharpe added.
   ‘It is interesting that when he was appointed, Beckham was at 33/1 — not many people expected him to get the nod when he did,’ Sharpe said.
   ‘But you’d think it’s unlikely that at this stage in his career, Rooney would be asked to take the captain’s armband,’ mostly due to his fiery temperament.
   ‘Plus he plays in attack whereas Beckham is at least a midfielder and so can get a view of what is going on all over the pitch.’
   Bookmakers Ladbrokes and Coral both had had Terry at ¼ for the captaincy, Gerrard 7/2, Neville 12/1 and Lampard 16/1.
   Ferdinand came next, and Ladbrokes quoted Rooney at 100/1.

Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari is staying with the team until Euro 2008, a newspaper report said Monday.
   Portuguese sports daily O Jogo said Scolari will remain coach regardless of Portugal’s results in the rest of the World Cup. Portugal plays France in the semifinal on Wednesday.
   Scolari made the decision after the Portuguese Football Federation, or FPF, found a sponsor to replace departing Banco Portugues de Negocios, the paper said. O Jogo did not name the new sponsor.
   According to the report, FPF’s president Gilberto Madail had already negotiated a new contract with Scolari worth an annual $1.9 million.
   The FPF could not confirm the report.
   ‘So far I have not been informed of anything,’ press aide Bruno Henrique told The Associated Press. ‘If there is confirmation it will be announced on our Web site.
   Scolari coached Brazil to World Cup victory in 2002 and led Portugal to the Euro 2004 final, where it lost to Greece.

After delighting Italy by leading a Ferrari one-two finish at Indianapolis on Sunday, Michael Schumacher is backing Germany to break Italian hearts in the World Cup.
   The hosts play Italy in a semi-final in Dortmund on Tuesday.
   ‘I mean, it’s natural what my heart is going for,’ the seven times Formula One champion said after his US Grand Prix success for the Italian team.
   ‘Although it’s mixed up a little bit, the majority sticks to the German side.’
   Schumacher, a keen amateur player who visited the Germany squad at a training camp in Switzerland in May, revealed on his website that he was thrilled to get a text message from striker Lukas Podolski after Sunday’s victory.
   ‘I have got tickets for the final and of course I’m hoping that I’ll be able to root for the German team when the day comes,’ said the Ferrari driver.

The man who first introduced the penalty shootout to soccer had harsh words on Monday for two recently ousted World Cup teams, saying Switzerland and England had failed to do his invention justice.
   ‘They are complete losers, even a school team would have had better shots than the Swiss,’ said 90-year-old Karl Wald in an interview with Reuters television. ‘It was a disappointment that something like that happened, even for me.’
   Wald, a former referee who conceived the penalty shootout in 1970, was referring to Switzerland’s total breakdown against Ukraine in last week’s second-round match.
   Having played 120 scoreless minutes, the Swiss missed three straight penalty shots to hand Ukraine a 3-0 victory.
   ‘They were not able to take one proper shot,’ the German said. ‘That was a true disappointment.’
   He was slightly easier on the English, who failed to make the semi-finals after missing three out of four penalties against Portugal.
   ‘I don’t understand that—were they nervous?’ he asked.
   The shootout, a tense face-off in which five players from each side shoot penalties to determine the winner of tied matches—has played an integral role in this World Cup. On Friday, Wald’s countrymen, thanks to goalkeeper Jens Lehmann’s two stops, played the penalties to perfection in defeating Argentina 5-3. They have not missed a penalty in a shootout since 1982.
   Wald introduced the idea in Germany in 1970, and it was first used during the now-defunct Watney Cup that same year. Prior to the adoption of the shootout format draws were usually broken by a coin toss or some other form of lucky draw.

Football purists, neutrals and Italians will be hoping that this week’s World Cup semi-finals are settled
   within 90 or 120 minutes.
   Followers of Germany and Portugal, however, would probably not mind their path to the final being decided via penalties, while French supporters might offer a Gallic shrug and take their chances.
   To paraphrase former England striker Gary
   Lineker, penalties is a game for 10 players, then the Germans win.
   Shootouts certainly seem to hold no fear for German players, who have missed only two of their 28 attempts in six major shootouts. Their victory over Argentina in the quarter-finals was their fourth from four attempts.
   Italy, in contrast, have lost all three of their World Cup shootouts while France have won two and lost one — the World Cup’s first against Germany in the 1982 semis.
   The teams had played out one of the most entertaining matches in World Cup history, ending level at 3-3 after an extra time that contributed four goals.
   Toni Schumacher, widely condemned for his wild body check that hospitalised Patrick Battiston, ended as the hero, in Germany at least, as he saved two penalties to take his team to the final.
   Four years later France were on the right side of the shootout as three of the four quarter-finals went to penalties.
   France, by then European champions, could have lost it in normal time but Zico, arguably the greatest player of his era, missed a penalty two minutes after coming on as a 71st minute substitute.
   In the shoot-out he was joined by two more greats of the game as Socrates had his effort saved and Michel Platini fired over the bar, France eventually winning it 3-2. Zico and Socrates never played for Brazil again.
   Germany, who had lost the first-ever major shoot-out when Czechoslovakia beat them in the final of the 1976 European championship, proved quick learners and Uli Stielike’s miss in 1982 remains their most recent failure.
   They beat Mexico in the 1986 quarter-finals, England in the 1990 semis and, after beating England again in the Euro 96 semis, ousted Argentina last Friday.
   Their record is remarkable and a tribute to the attitude, concentration and professionalism they bring to every aspect of the game.
   Portugal, while new to the format, are proving quick learners. Their two shoot-outs have both been against England, both in a quarter-final and both times goalkeeper Ricardo has been the hero.
   He saved one then scored the winner in Euro 2004 and saved three of England’s four in last Saturday’s quarter-final in Gelsenkirchen to cause the English to overhaul Italy as officially the world’s worst penalty-takers.
   The very mention of penalties is enough to bring on the shakes for Italian fans, who missed out on the ultimate prize when Brazil won the only World Cup final to be decided that way in 1994.
   That shootout was decided when Roberto Baggio blazed over the bar in Pasadena, instantly erasing all the incredible work he had done to get his side to the final.
   Italy also lost to Argentina on home soil in the 1990 semis and to Netherlands in the last eight in 1998.
   With their exit four years ago coming via a South Korean ‘Golden Goal’ it is 20 years
   since they were knocked
   out of the World Cup by a conventional defeat, a 2-0 loss to France in the 1986 second round.

Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo said on Monday there was no animosity between him and Wayne Rooney despite the furore over the winger’s actions when the England forward was red carded in their World Cup quarter-final.
   ‘There is no problem at all between me and Rooney,’ Ronaldo told the website of the Gestifute agency, which represents him. ‘At the end of the game, we exchanged a series of text messages just as we had on the day before.
   ‘This reinforces that I have a fine relationship with Rooney. Between the two of us, everything is clear,’ added Ronaldo who plays with Rooney at Manchester United.
   In the second half of Saturday’s match with England, Ronaldo rushed 40 metres to the referee, apparently to demand a card for Rooney who had battled his way through two players and trod on Ricardo Carvalho’s groin as he tried to disentangle himself.
   Rooney was sent off by Argentine referee Horacio Elizondo and Ronaldo was captured by TV cameras winking at his bench as the England forward walked off the pitch.
   ‘I complained to the referee about the foul but I didn’t ask for a red card,’ the
   Portugal winger said after the match.
   ‘How is it possible that I would help to get him sent off? I am not the referee with the power to send off anyone I want, nor do I have the ability to convince him to show cards,’ he added on Monday.
   ‘The referee produced the red card because he thought that he had to, and my participation in that was absolutely zero.’
   Ronaldo had also feigned a head-butt towards Rooney seconds before the match kicked off as he was walking past his club mate to take up his position on the left wing.
   British media reported on Monday that the England forward was furious with Ronaldo and attempted to charge into Portugal’s dressing room to confront the winger after the match.
   But Ronaldo said Rooney had told him to ignore the English press saying ‘they only want to stir things up’.
   ‘Statements have appeared as if they were from him, saying that he didn’t want to play with me in Manchester,’ said Ronaldo. ‘That’s not what he wants. Of course he wants to (play with me).
   ‘This is absolutely false, he said so himself...’
   ‘In fact, he didn’t just send me congratulations for going forward in the World Cup, he also told me we have a
   great team, and if we carry on as we have, we will get a long
   way. He wasn’t angry with me, or about anything that happened.’
   Ronaldo, who faced England after recovering from a thigh injury inflicted by a high tackle in the second-round match with Netherlands, is still having ice treatment on the leg but says he will be ready for Wednesday’s semi-final in Munich.

Just as national economies move in cycles so does football - and the current World Cup downturn is proving a long slog for Argentina, who with their quarter-final loss to Germany must now be classed among the latter day underachievers.
   The ‘albiceleste’ bagged titles in 1978 and 1986, but since their final appearance in 1990, when they lost to the Germans, they have fallen on hard times.
   Argentina have not won anything of note since the 1993 Copa America championship, since when they have toiled for scant reward - though at under20 level they have scooped four world titles since 1995.
   That has not translated into senior success and coach Jose Pekerman, the architect of the first three of those youthful triumphs, has taken responsibility - perhaps prematurely, as most of the fans still back him - by resigning.
   ‘We are really a bit down in the mouth. We know we gave all we could and we are very sorry to be going home in such circumstances,’ said goalkeeper Roberto Abbondanzieri Saturday as the squad prepared to fly home.
   Argentina’s only consolation is that their English and Spanish counterparts have given them a good run for their money for the underachievers’ sobriquet - England still chasing the lost spirit of 1966, while Spain’s sole semi-final showing came 50 years ago.
   None of the trio covered themselves with glory this time - the difference for the Argentines being that they were expected to numbering bright young stars like Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez among their numbers.
   Instead, the sorcerer’s apprentices found German’s penalty-taking machine too hot to handle.
   Pekerman’s mea culpa may seem harsh after a penalty shootout against the hosts but his country’s barren run of not even making it to the last four has seen the likes of Bulgaria, Croatia, Sweden and South Korea all go that far.
   ‘It is over, the chapter is closed,’ said Pekerman, who opted to leave out of the squad several experienced campaigners such as Inter Milan’s Javier Zanetti, preferring to give the youngsters their head - though not, strangely, Messi in the Germany tussle.
   ‘I am not going to carry on. I can leave with my head held up high. I have always believed in the players and they have not let me down.’
   In fact, the much-maligned FIFA team rankings were almost spot on for Argentina, who were ranked ninth in the world ahead of the event - though they are certainly stronger than Mexico, as they showed in the second round, and the United States, likewise ranked higher.
   Pekerman replaced Marcelo Bielsa two years ago.
   Bielsa initially survived the opening phase exit in 2002, Argentina’s worst showing since 1962, but then gave way to a man of whom Maradona says: ‘He’s not yet a coach for adults.’
   If Pekerman throws in the towel and ignores fan pleas to give it another World Cup cycle then he never will be on the global stage.
   At least the Peker-boys are now men and the Argentine Federation are hoping to find someone who can make best use of their talents in a country which has floundered since Maradona’s day.
   England and Spain know the feeling.
   In Spain, Luis Aragones is generally recognised as still being the best man for the job despite the exit to France - Liverpool’s Rafa Benitez shows no sign of being ready to drop club football for the international scene, and in the culture of La Liga club tends to count for more than country.
   Aragones now says he is ready to stay on after first indicating that his time was up.
   England, of course. have made their leap of faith in choosing Steve Maclaren to succeed Sven-Goran Eriksson, but, like the Spanish they have found their level as they pick over the wreckage of another failed campaign.
   Somewhere between the last 16 and the last eight.

After 60 games and a total of 138 goals, the 2006 FIFA World Cup is still waiting for its first hat-trick.
   If the tournament runs to its conclusion without a three-goal haul it will be the first time that this has happened in a FIFA World Cup. There were no less than seven hat-tricks at Switzerland 1954 and five at France 1938. Four came at Mexico 1986 and also at Spain 1982.
   Portugal’s Pauleta is the last hat-trick marksman with his trio in the 4-0 defeat of Poland in Jeonju on 10 June 2002. The full list of hat-trick scorers at FIFA World Cups is:
   2002: Pauleta (Portugal v Poland); Miroslav Klose (Germany v Saudi Arabia)
   1998: Gabriel Batistuta (Argentina v Jamaica)
   1994: Oleg Salenko (Russia v Cameroon); Batistuta (Argentina v Greece)
   1990: Tomas Skuhravy (Czechoslovakia v Costa Rica); Michel (Spain v Korea Republic)
   1986: Emilio Butragueno (Spain v Denmark); Igor Belanov (Russia v Belgium); Preben Elkjar-Arsen (Denmark v Uruguay); Gary Lineker (England v Poland)
   1982: Paolo Rossi (Italy v Brazil); Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (Germany v Chile); Laszlo Kiss (Hungary v El Salvador); Zbigniew Boniek (Poland v Belgium)
   1978: Rob Rensenbrink (Netherlands v Iran); Teofilo Cubillas (Peru v Iran) 1974: Andrzej Szarmach (Poland
   v Haiti); Dusan Bajevic (Yugoslavia v Zaire) 1970: Gerd Muller (Germany v Bulgaria, v Peru)
   1966: Geoff Hurst (England v Germany); Eusebio (Portugal v Korea DPR) 1962: Florian Albert (Hungary v Bulgaria)
   1958: Pele (Brazil v France); Just Fontaine (France v Paraguay, v Germany)
   1954: Sandor Kocsis (Hungary v Korea Republic, v Germany); Carlos Borges (Uruguay v Scotland); Sargun Burham (Turkey v Korea Republic); Sepp Huegi (Switzerland v Austria); Erich Probst (Austria v Czechosolovakia); Theodor Wagner (Austria v Switzerland); Max Morlock (Germany v Turkey)
   1950: Ademir (Brazil v Sweden); Oscar Miguez (Uruguay v Bolivia)
   1938: Ernest Wilimowski (Poland v Brazil); Gyula Zsengeller (Hungary v Sweden); Tore Keller (Sweden v Cuba); Gustav Wetterstrom (Sweden v Cuba); Leonidas (Brazil v Poland)
   1934: Angelo Schiavio (Italy v USA); Edmund Conen (Germany v Belgium)
   1930: Pedro Cea (Uruguay v Yugoslavia); Guillermo Stabile (Argentina v Mexico)

He arrived confident and secure, consistent in his coaching and his comments. It seemed there were no doubts on Carlos Alberto Parreira’s mind.
   It looked like the coach knew exactly what to do to lead Brazil to its record sixth World Cup title.
   Then it fell apart—quickly.
   The usually coherent Parreira turned into an unpredictable commander on Saturday, steering Brazil in all directions in a quarterfinal match against nemesis France.
   Brazil played poorly from the start, losing 1-0 and heading home without the trophy many thought it would easily capture in Germany.
   It didn’t help that Ronaldinho, Kaka, Ronaldo and Co had a dismal performance, but Parreira’s unexpected changes before the match—and the late ones during it—seemed to heavily affect Brazil’s performance against France.
   Parreira surprisingly put an end to Brazil’s ‘magic quartet’ scheme, using a starting lineup with midfielder Juninho replacing striker Adriano. Ronaldinho moved to attack, considerably changing the style in which Brazil began the competition.
   Even worse, Parreira changed the formation Brazil had been playing for the past year and a half—and the staring lineup he had announced eight months ago.
   In the 40 days Brazil spent in Europe, the coach rarely practiced using the lineup he fielded against France.
   Parreira said loud and clear after Brazil’s 4-1 first-round win over Japan, when he fielded five reserves and the team had its only brilliant performance of the competition: ‘Our goal is to win the World Cup, and you don’t win a World Cup with two teams ... you can’t keep changing the way you play.’
   Apparently he didn’t say it loud enough to hear it himself.
   ‘We all agreed we needed to crowd the midfield a little bit better,’ Parreira said, defending his decision.
   After watching his team constantly challenged by France, the coach changed his mind again, putting Adriano on the field and going back to the ‘magic quartet’ scheme. He did it only in the 63rd minute, however, after France had already scored its goal.
   Brazilian media and fans also complained that Parreira took too long to make other changes.
   Cicinho replaced a visibly tired Cafu only in the 76th, and standout striker Robinho substituted Kaka in the 79th. Robinho added spark to Brazil’s attack, but 11 minutes weren’t enough.
   Parreira said he is leaving Germany with no regrets over his decisions.
   ‘We made the all the right choices,’ Parreira said. ‘We are frustrated with the result, but our effort was good. We lost one match and have to go home, that’s how things work in the World Cup.’
   He won’t even regret the decision to have Brazil play weaker opponents in its pre-tournament preparation, including Fluminense’s under-20 squad, New Zealand and Swiss club FC Lucerne.
   He forgets, however, that he blamed the team’s shaky 1-0 win over Croatia on Brazil’s lack of rhythm in game situations.
   ‘Croatia was at an advantage because it faced several tough opponents in friendlies before the competition,’ he said at the time.
   That was the same Parreira who said his team would improve at the right moment, when it needed the most. He obviously ran out of time.
   Parreira and the rest of the players were insulted by a group of 50 people as the team left Frankfurt on Sunday evening on its way to Brazil. The fans cursed and yelled ‘National Shame’ as the bus carrying the Brazilian delegation left the hotel.
   The group of fans was among about 300 people watching Brazil depart.
   Although they should expect more of the same upon arriving in Brazil, Parreira said he knows that’s part of the job.
   ‘It’s always like this,’ he said. ‘When the team wins, it’s because of the talent of the players. When it loses, it’s because of the coach.’

Home is where the heart is and while Germany are hoping to pitch camp in the capital on Sunday for the World Cup final it is to their favoured venue of Dortmund that they return for Tuesday’s semi-final against Italy.
   Germany has not lost a competitive international in the city’s Westfalen Stadium, deep in the country’s western industrial heartland, since 1935, since when 14 matches have brought 13 wins and a draw - against Wales in 1977.
   The stadium has been rechristened World Cup Stadium for the event and it was here that the Germans saw off Poland 1-0 in the group phase with Oliver Neuville’s late winner.
   It was also here that a March warm-up friendly saw Jurgen Klinsmann’s ‘Mannschaft’ despatch the United States 4-1.
   The portents seem good for the Germans, with Italy having lost to the host countries of the last two editions - France in 1998 and South Korea in 2002.
   Before the tournament, German supporters were pessimistic about their nation’s chances, but since optimism has flourished.
   In addition, statistics and scientists say home advantage is a powerful weapon.
   Of the 17 World Cup finals so far, six have been won by the host nation - Uruguay in 1930, Italy in 1934, England in 1966, Germany in 1974, Argentina in 1978 and France in 1998.
   Two hosts (Brazil in 1950 and Sweden in 1958) finished runner-up, and three made it to the semi-final stage: Chile in 1962, Italy in 1990 and South Korea, co-organiser with Japan, in 2002.
   According to a FIFA study of more than 6,500 top-level international matches, almost exactly half were won by the home side, and only a quarter were won by the away side. The rest were draws.
   Psychologists and sociologists agree crowd support boosts the host team, inspiring tired home players, intimidating opposition goalkeepers and even cowing match officials.
   Sports psychologist Alan Nevill at Britain’s University of Wolverhampton showed video footage of 47 tackles to a group of qualified referees and asked them to judge whether each one was a foul or not.
   The refs were split into two groups. One group could hear the crowd’s reaction, while the other watched the same footage but without any crowd noise.
   None of the volunteers saw the decision by the original referee.
   Refs who saw the tackle with the sound turned up were much more reluctant to punish the home team. They judged 15 percent fewer of the tackles as illegal - a decision that, intriguingly, also mirrored that made by the original match official.
   Nevill believes that crowd pressure can con even experienced refs.
   ‘To get the crowd off their back, they wave ‘play on’,’ he suggests.
   One theory is that a rousing crowd boosts levels of the male hormone testosterone among home players.

Advice for England
   Bild newspaper gave England some charitable advice on how to take spotkicks after Germany’s rivals lost, as usual, on penalties.
   With Germany having made it four out of four shootout wins against Argentina and England having made it four out of five losses after missing three of four kicks Bild explained patiently: ‘The ball has to go in the goal.’
   
   Only a yellow this time for speaker
   The stadium announcer in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium is to be allowed to carry on after World Cup organisers initially said he would be replaced after encouraging Germany in the quarter-final win over Argentina.
   The German announcer had told the predominantly German crowd in the stadium in Berlin, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, our team needs our support’ during the match.
   Stadium announcers at World Cup matches must remain neutral according to FIFA rules.
   But after initially facing losing his place the announcer has been told that he may continue.
   ‘We have given him a yellow card and he has got the message,’ organisers said.
   
   Prodi to cheer on Azzurri from stands
   Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi intends to cheer on Italy against Germany in their their semi-final on Tuesday.
   ‘I will follow the match between Italy and Germany. It will be a tough match and therefore I must back the Italian team,’ Prodi said, adding he had been invited to attend by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
   ‘Sporting events are a part of bilateral relations,’ Prodi said.
   
   German defence on
   tropical trip
   German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung says and his delegation will prolong their stay in Libreville, where he is visiting German peacekeeping troops, for a few hours so he can share with the forces the atmosphere of the semi-final between Germany and Italy, which the soldiers will follow on screen.
   ‘We will fly off after the team has won,’ said Jung.
    Hat-tricks’ dearth
   The World Cup is still waiting for its first hattrick after 138 goals scored in the opening 60 games.
   With just four games left nobody has notched a treble and this could be the first tournament without one.
   Portugal star Pauleta hit the last one in Korea against Poland four years ago.
   He now has the chance of a repeat against France in the semis.
   Miroslav Klose of Germany is also looking for a repeat having hit three goals against Saudi Arabia in 2002.
   There have been 46 hattricks in total to date.
   Podolski, the new generation
   German striker Lukas Podolski’s good form at the World Cup, where he has scored three goals, has seen him earn a new contract with clothing firm Adidas.
   ‘Lukas Podolski represents a new generation of players who will make their mark on international football in years to come,’ said Adidas’ Herbert Hainer.
   Podolski, who has just joined Bayern Munich from Cologne, has already been involved with the firm for two years.
   — AFP