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Who’s going to win the World Cup?
   Naturally, I hope it is Brazil but we know it is not going to be as easy as some people think.
   Who will be this year’s dark horses?
   I don’t know if
   there will be a dark horse this year. I think the traditionally strong teams like Germany, Argentina and France are the ones we have to have an eye on the most this summer.
   Who will be the outstanding player of the 2006 World Cup? You?
   I have no idea if it will be me. The most important thing to me is that Brazil win the World Cup. If we win then it’s likely one of us will have been the outstanding player. I just do not believe it is worthwhile to be named the best player at a World Cup and then see your team lose.
   Which young player should we look out for?
   My Barcelona team-mate Lionel Messi is one of the best young players in the world right now and I think he will enjoy a great tournament with Argentina.
   How do you think England will perform?
   England are a team that deserves to be respected by every country at the finals. Their squad is more experienced than in the past and I am sure they will be well prepared. In my mind they are one of the favourites.
   What is your first World Cup memory?
   I remember some things from the 1990 World Cup, especially the match when Brazil lost to Argentina. The moment that comes into my mind is the great play of Diego Maradona, the pass and goal, which was then scored by Claudio Caniggia. After that my next memory is 1994 when Romario was simply too good for everyone else. It was after the 1994 win for Brazil that I thought to myself - this is what I want to do in my life.
   What’s the best game you remember in a World Cup?
   It has to be Brazil versus England in 2002. It was a different match for me compared to normal, that is for sure! I made an assist for Rivaldo’s goal then I scored that goal past David Seaman - then I was sent off. Everything happened to me in that game. It is unforgettable!
   What’s the best goal you’ve seen at a World Cup?
   That’s a hard question because there are so many great goals in World Cup history. But I have to choose Romario’s goal against Holland in the 1994 World Cup. Bebeto crossed from the left and Romario scored from close range. It seemed a very easy goal to score but it was so difficult to direct the ball the way he did. I don’t know why, because it is not that spectacular, but this is a goal that has always stayed in my mind.
   Who will be the top goalscorer?
   I have to give you the same answer I gave you about the outstanding player of the finals. It is impossible to predict the future. Again, if your team is not champions, then being the top goalscorer doesn’t mean anything. Not to me anyway.
   Who is the greatest player never to win a World Cup?
   This is a tricky question because so many great, great players didn’t ever win a World Cup. So many important men in the history of football didn’t win this competition - that is why I feel so privileged to have won one World Cup already in my career.
   — New Age Desk

Wayne Rooney could make a sensational return to training on Friday.
   The England striker is due to undergo a crucial scan less than a month after breaking his foot.
   Boss Sven Goran Eriksson insisted: ‘He will not be fit to play football on Friday. But, hopefully, he will be ok to train. I have always been very positive that Wayne Rooney would be involved.
   ‘Maybe that was more to do with my heart than my head.
   ‘But now I am quite sure that at some stage of the World Cup he’ll be ready to play. I strongly believe that.’
   Sven’s confidence is the latest morale- boosting news on Roo’s amazing recovery.
   The Manchester United ace, 20, will undergo another scan on his damaged metatarsal on Thursday.
   Rooney hopes to get the all-clear to start running again the following day. Next week, the ex- Everton man will begin testing out a new re- inforced boot produced by Nike to give his foot extra protection.
   Eriksson added: ‘We are in regular contact with Wayne and the doctors at United.
   ‘I know how hard he works and I’m sure he is doing everything possible to be fit again.
   ‘I know he is desperate to play in the World Cup and he thinks he’ll be OK.
   ‘So I don’t think it should be a problem.’

Africa’s best hope at this year’s World Cup was drawn into the tournament’s toughest group.
   That doesn’t mean one of the five teams from the continent won’t spring a surprise like Cameroon did in 1990 and Senegal repeated four years ago, both reaching the quarterfinals.
   It does make the task much more difficult, though.
   The Ivory Coast, led by Chelsea striker Didier Drogba, was expected to have the best chance to advance through the group stage. That was until December, when the Elephants were drawn into Group C along with two-time champion Argentina, the Netherlands and Serbia-Montenegro.
   ‘Anything can happen in football, so if we’re among the 32 best teams in the world at some point we will get the opportunity to reach the quarterfinals or the semifinals or the final,’ Drogba said. ‘Or we will be eliminated in the first round because the level of the competition is really high and the teams that reach this far are the best.’
   The Ivorians, one of four African teams making their debut at the World Cup, should be a tough team to beat with European-league veterans Bonaventure Kalou, Kolo Toure, Aruna Dindane and Didier Zokora.
   The easiest division at the World Cup also contains an African team, Angola.
   But few are giving the Black Antelopes a chance to reach the knockout stage from Group D, which also includes Mexico, Portugal and Iran.
   ‘Angola is the most humble team at the World Cup, and so it’s not going to be easy for us,’ Angola coach Luis Oliveira Goncalves said. ‘Our plan is to try to draw with the bigger teams. But for us, we are already winners for qualifying.’
   The team is led by Fabrice Akwa, the striker who scored the goal against Rwanda that helped Angola qualify for the tournament ahead of perennial African power Nigeria.
   Despite the difficult road ahead, Akwa is still optimistic.
   ‘We know the favorites in our group are Portugal and Mexico, but we are going there to surprise these teams,’ Akwa said.
   The other three African teams playing in Germany are Ghana, Togo and Tunisia. None is favored to reach the knockout rounds.
   Four-time African champion Ghana boasts Chelsea midfielder Michael Essien, but plays Italy, the Czech Republic and the United States in Group E. Togo faces 1998 champion France, Switzerland and South Korea in Group G.
   The only African team in the tournament that has played at the World Cup before, Tunisia, is in Group H with Spain, Ukraine and Saudi Arabia.
   Tunisia striker Zied Jaziri believes his team’s opening match against Saudi Arabia is the most important.
   ‘They can beat us, but we can also beat them,’ Jaziri said. ‘It’s an open game and a very important one, particularly as we will meet Spain afterward in the second game, which will be a very difficult one for us. It could be decisive.’
   Tunisia has the added advantage of being coached by a man with a proven record. Roger Lemerre led France to the European Championship title in 2000, and then helped Tunisia win the African Cup of Nations in 2004.
   In between, however, he coached defending World Cup champion France in the 2002 World Cup, where the defending champion was eliminated in the first round without scoring a goal.
   Tunisia’s attack centers around Brazilian-born striker Francileudo Santos, the speedy striker who has an impressive 18 goals in 28 appearances.
   The Carthage Eagles may not be favored to advance ahead of Spain and Ukraine, but that can’t erase the memories of 1978, when Tunisia became the first African team to win a match at the World Cup by beating Mexico 3-1.
   Cameroon later became the first from the region to reach the quarterfinals, getting to the last eight in 1990 after beating defending champion Argentina in the opening match.
   In 2002, Senegal mirrored that feat by upsetting France in the opening match and reaching the quarterfinals by beating Sweden in the second round with a golden goal.
   Goncalves may not be expecting the same to happen for Angola in Germany, but he will be hoping to make the people back home proud.
   ‘We need to play as well as possible to dignify the name of Angolans and Africans,’ Goncalves said. ‘Our struggle in Africa is to have as many nations competing at the World Cup. So those who are playing need to be playing as well as possible to make this a reality.’

Brazil has approved the training facility built exclusively for its pre-World Cup preparation.
   Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira and other members of the Brazilian delegation visited the 5,000-seat arena Monday.
   ‘Everything has been arranged within our demands,’ said Americo Faria, the supervisor of Brazil’s World Cup delegation. ‘The field is very good and everything is ready to accommodate the Brazilian national team.’
   The members of the delegation also approved the media center and all other facilities built for the Brazilians at the training camp.
   Despite the team’s approval, some of the facilities still weren’t finalized by Tuesday morning, including the media center.
   Officials in charge of the construction site refused to speak with The Associated Press at the training camp.
   Brazil’s first training session is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
   Brazilian players were expected to spend Tuesday and Wednesday morning conducting physical examinations in the nearby city of Nottwil.
   Brazil arrived in the lakeside resort town of Weggis on Monday for a two-week training period before heading to Germany to defend its World Cup title.
   Brazil picked Weggis, located by Lake Lucerne near the Swiss Alps, after about 40 offers from around the world, including from locations in France and the United Arab Emirates.

Football gives men a way to express their innermost thoughts and feelings, according to a pre World Cup survey.
   Almost two-thirds of men (64 percent) believe that while watching or playing football, they are more willing to share their feelings with other men than when doing other activities.
   Three quarters said they would not be embarrassed to hug their mates while watching a match.
   ‘Football does have positive effects on people’s psychological well-being,’ said Sandy Wolfson, Head of Psychology at Northumbria University.
   ‘It gives people a ready-made topic of conversation where opinions on team selection, strategy, and players’ skills are enjoyable topics for debate,’ he added.
   The survey was carried out by the Mental Health Research Foundation, an independent organisation devoted to helping people across the UK maintain good mental health. It was conducted online, with 500 male participants ranging from ages 18-70.
   ‘It is encouraging that football makes it easier for men to talk about their feelings as traditionally, men are far less likely than women to share their innermost thoughts,’ said Andrew McCulloch, chairman of the foundation.
   Along with hugging their friends, 70 per cent of men admitted that a match can make them upset while 58 percent said that what happens over the course of a football match can make them aggressive.
   However, the ability of football to bring out a man’s emotions does have its limits — three-quarters of men polled said they had never cried over the outcome of a match.

England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson has dismissed fears voiced by Bobby Charlton that 17-year-old Theo Walcott is too young to play at the World Cup.
   Charlton, England’s 1966 World Cup winner, told reporters on Monday he thought that taking Walcott to Germany was ‘maybe a bit too much to ask of the young player.’
   But Eriksson, who surprised everyone, including Walcott, when he named the teenager in his World Cup squad two weeks ago, brushed aside Charlton’s comments, saying he had no regrets.
   ‘I have not regretted it at all,’ the Swede told reporters near their training base. ‘If only you had seen the two goals he scored in training on Friday—they were very good.
   ‘He’s a huge talent, no doubt about that, and I think he’s mentally ready for it.
   ‘I don’t think anyone expects him to come on against Brazil and score three goals. But he deserves to be here and, who knows, at the next World Cup he may start.’
   Eriksson also dismissed the notion that Walcott, who has yet to make his debut for Arsenal since joining them in January, would be worried about playing on the world’s stage.
   ‘I don’t think he has any fear—and why should he? He has nothing to lose.’
   Speaking at the Laureus Sports Awards in Barcelona, Charlton told reporters: ‘I can only compare it to my first match for Manchester United.
   ‘People warned me ‘you have no idea about the pace and tempo of it’ ... I thought I was ready, but when I played my first match I remember thinking, I’ve never been so tired in my whole life.
   ‘This young lad hasn’t even had that situation with his club. I worry not so much for England but the lad himself.’

Sweden midfielder Freddie Ljungberg would be better off resting during the group stage of the World Cup to fully recover from a foot injury, says national team doctor Anders Valentin.
   ‘He would need to rest for four weeks to completely recover,’ Valentin told Swedish public television SVT on Monday. ‘He might not be completely without symptoms (at the finals).’
   The speedy Ljungberg, one of Sweden’s most important players, is likely to play through the pain of the injury which he has battled for six weeks. The Arsenal player will be sidelined for Sweden’s friendly against Finland on Thursday.

Arsenal keeper Jens Lehmann is hoping to follow up his excellent campaign with the Gunners by achieving glory with Germany at the World Cup.
   Lehmann’s fine run in the Champions League came to an end last week when he was sent off in the club’s 2-1 defeat to Barcelona in the final in Paris.
   He said: ‘We should all enjoy the World Cup and not think of the pressure. I have learned from the Champions League that it is a lot of fun to play big games.
   ‘Quarter-final, semi-final, final, all of them have a unique atmosphere.
   ‘I am deeply convinced that we can go the same way with the German team at the World Cup.’

Only nine years ago Dado Prso was a car mechanic in a small French town playing amateur football. Next month he will be
   playing in the World Cup for Croatia.
   The story of how the 32-year-old climbed through the ranks of French football to become one of Europe’s most accomplished forwards is one of the unlikelier tales on show at the World Cup.
   And even Prso admits he can hardly believe the path his life has taken since being spotted by Monaco when playing for
   tiny St Raphael in the south of France. ‘To play in the World Cup is the dream of every football player. Only three years ago this dream seemed unrealistic to me. Now, I am eagerly awaiting the beginning of the competition,’ Prso said.
   Prso, whose real name is Miladin, is an ethnic Serb born in the coastal Croatian town of Zadar.
   In 1994, during Croatia’s 1991-95 war of independence from the former Yugoslavia, he decided to leave his homeland.
   His football career seemed stuck in Zadar, the town best known for producing basketball stars such as Kresimir Cosic and NBA star Stojko Vrankovic.
   But even NK Zadar passed up the chance to sign him, as did First Division side Hajduk Split, who informed him simply that he was ‘not promising’.
   So after a brief stint with local club Pazinka from the northwestern Istria peninsula, he left Croatia and settled in northern France.
   His hopes of a professional career were raised when Second Division Rouen took him on, but his time was spent largely on the bench and pretty soon he headed south to start a new life as a car mechanic in Saint Raphael.
   What he earned during the day was usually spent during the night in the Riviera town’s bars and casinos. Once weekly football matches for St Raphael were little more than a past-time.
   Prso’s fortunes changed however after he met the woman who would later become his wife. Carole was responsible for convincing him to resurrect his career and in early 1997, Dado Prso finally got a break.
   St Raphael played French First Division giants Monaco in a friendly, and the young Croat was acclaimed as the man-of-the-match.
   Monaco swiftly offered him a contract which he accepted. But, with David Trezeguet and Thierry Henry in the queue ahead of him for a striker’s spot, he was loaned to Ajaccio.
   Returning to Monaco in the 1999-2000 season, Prso scored in the last match of the season against Caen.
   Though he still struggled to make an impact at Monaco as he battled persistent injuries, in the 2002-2003 season his career took off as he formed a devastating partnership with Shabani Nonda that reaped 38 goals, Prso contributing 12 in 20 games.
   By this time he had been brought to the attention of Croatian coach Otto Baric, who named the pony-tailed striker
   in his squad for a March 2003 European Championship qualifier against Belgium.
   Croatia won 4-0, with two of the goals scored by Prso, launching his international career in style. With the retirement of Croatia’s main striker Davor Suker, Prso’s place in the national team was secure.
   He was a member of the Monaco side beaten in the final of the 2004 Champions League final.
   Despite the attentions of AC Milan, he opted for Scottish giants Rangers where he has been ever since, delighting the Ibrox faithful and helping them to the league title in 2005.

Brazil’s national soccer team began a series of physical tests Tuesday at a top European clinic in preparation for next month’s World Cup.
   Players will be examined exhaustively to make sure they are in top form for the monthlong tournament in Germany.
   The defending World Cup champions arrived in central Switzerland on Monday to begin its final preparation before heading to Germany to try to win its second consecutive world title - and sixth overall.
   The physical evaluation included a full range of cardiac, blood and urine tests. The examinations are being conducted at the renowned Swiss Paraplegic Center.
   ‘The players are undergoing all types of tests to make sure they are in good physical condition,’ said Dr. Beat Villiger, the CEO at the Swiss clinic. ‘We will be able to tell the coach whether the players are healthy and fit to play.’
   The 23 players were divided in three groups and were going to be tested separately until Wednesday morning, Brazil’s team doctor Jose Luis Runco said, adding that the final results of the evaluation wouldn’t be known until Wednesday.
   Runco said Monday that he expected the Brazilian players to be in excellent physical condition, including Ronaldo, who was marred by a series of injuries at the beginning of the year.
   The first group of players tested at the Swiss clinic included Roberto Carlos, Cicinho, Robinho, Ze Roberto, Gilberto and Emerson.
   ‘Everything went well,’ defender Gilberto said.
   The testing equipment used by the Brazilian players is worth about $800,000 and each player had four doctors and nurses assigned to him at all times, doctors said.
   The Brazilian Soccer Confederation said on its Web site that it was ‘impressed by the quality of the service received at the clinic.’
   Brazil’s first practice session was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in the lakeside resort town of Weggis, where Brazil is based until moving to Germany in early June.

Serbia-Montenegro will take part in their first World Cup as a united country despite the proclamation of independence by the tiny republic of Montenegro, officials said Monday.
   ‘The players of the national team gathered for preparatory training yesterday under one flag, and woke up this morning without a state,’ said chairman of Serbia-Montenegro’s football federation Tomislav Karadzic.
   Montenegro voted for independence from the Serbia-Montenegro Federation in a referendum held last week, with results confirming the split on Monday.
   Karadzic, who spoke to reporters from the national squad training camp in Palic, in the north, said the team ‘has found itself in a strange situation by a stroke of fate.
   ‘But such an outcome will not disturb our preparations for Germany,’ he insisted.
   Serbia-Montenegro’s squad will face former champions Argentina, their previous nemesis Netherlands, and Ivory Coast, finalists in this year’s African Nations Cup in Group C.
   Karadzic said Serbia and Montenegro will ‘take their own paths from now on.’ He added: ‘I hope the links will not break and that we will have good relations and cooperation.’
   Zvezdan Terzic, chairman of Serbia’s football federation told reporters that Serbia would be a ‘formal successor’ of the federal union.
   ‘Serbia’s squad will play for the first time under this name in September, during the qualifications for the European championship,’ Terzic said.
   He said that the national championship—which would now become a Serbian Super league—would have 12 teams playing.
   Earlier, Montenegro’s football union chairman Dejan Savicevic—one of the most prominent players from the Yugoslavia team of the 1990s—said the coastal republic would apply for membership in the international soccer organizations UEFA and FIFA.

The Globo media group has reached an exclusive agreement with FIFA to broadcast all 64 games of the 2006 World Cup live over the Internet, a Globo executive said Monday.
   Frederico Monteiro, marketing director for the Globo.com Web site, said Globo was the only group in Brazil - and perhaps the world - that will transmit every game live from Germany over the Internet using video
   streaming.
   ‘It’s the biggest event in the history of the Internet in Brazil,’ said Monteiro, adding that initial studies suggest as many as 100,000 people could tune in for the games.
   Monteiro declined to disclose the cost of the deal except to say it was a ‘very large sum.’
   The entire tournament will be available to subscribers for a one-time fee ranging from $3.43 to $6.40, depending on the user’s Internet connection speed.
   Brazil has won the World Cup a record five times.
   Ninety-five percent of Brazil’s 185 million people have access to television, while only about 35 to 40 million Brazilians have access to the Internet.
   Monteiro said that because of the time difference between Brazil and Germany, most of the games would take place during working hours in South America, when many people could tune in via computer.
   Companies in Brazil traditionally give workers time off to watch the national team in the World Cup, and Monteiro said businesses probably wouldn’t object if workers watched soccer during business hours.
   ‘This is Brazil. The boss will probably be watching, too,’ he said.

Spanish striker Raul was torn off a strip by coach Luis Aragones when the country’s World Cup squad gathered to begin preparations for next month’s finals after arriving in a yellow surfer-style t-shirt, a colour his manager deems unlucky.
   ‘Raul, with the forbidden colour,’ noted El Pais newspaper on Tuesday, showing Real Madrid striker Raul arriving at Las Rozas in the Madrid suburbs for the squad get-together on Tuesday.
   ‘Apparently Raul does not know, or else is not worried, about the fact that the colour yellow is an object of vexation to his coach.
   ‘Luis Aragones, who practises kabbalah, considers it a colour which brings bad luck,’ according to El Pais.
   The paper claimed such is Aragones’ aversion to the colour that he even once asked for dribbling exercise cones to be replaced as they were the offending colour. Instead, he asked for red ones.

France coach Raymond Domenech explained his controversial World Cup squad selection as the ‘right balance’ at a training camp here on Monday.
   Domenech has been under fire in the French press for his selection after overlooking players such as Barcelona’s Champions League winner Ludovic Giuly and World Cup winner Robert Pires of Arsenal while calling up untried novices Pascal Chimbonda of Wigan and Marseille’s Frank Ribery.
   ‘Finding the right balance in the squad is what is important,’ said Domenech

As World Cup fever mounts around the world, Cannes critics Monday got to see French player Zinedine Zidane as he’s never been seen before: in a ‘documentary’ portrait of the Real Madrid star which trained 17 cameras on him during a match.
   The French production, titled ‘Zidane: A Portrait of the 21st Century’, capitalises on the immense popularity of the player in France, across much of Europe and in north Africa, by showing him during a game between his side and Villarreal in the Spanish championship at the end of last season.
   ‘From the beginning, we thought of him and nobody else. If he’d told us ‘no’, the project would have fallen apart then and there,’ one of the two filmmakers, Philippe Parreno, told the Inrockuptibles magazine recently.
   His partner, Douglas Gordon, said they decided to make the film because there was something in Zidane ‘that is intriguing, that nobody else has... he makes you think of a Sergio Leone hero, a sort of Man Without a Name.’
   Visually, the parallel between an impassive Spaghetti Western lead and the player is marked: Zidane’s face barely changes expression even when goals are scored or after he is sent off the field at the end.
   The musical score, instead, fills out the subtext of the moments, giving a rhythm to the movie that is punctuated by the harsh, agressive cacophony from the crowd in the stadium that was added in post-production.
   Sub-titles showing what Zidane - who came out of the Cannes football team youth system - was thinking at certain moments provide a narration.
   The homage to the man, a tall, square-jawed figure with a bald patch giving him a vulnerable aspect matched by his calm eyes, provides moments in which the viewer feels alone with him, studying him in a sort of hagiographic intimacy.
   Close-ups are also cross-cut with the televised images of the match to show the contrast of the brutality on the pitch with the remote pictures seen by viewers.
   But those hoping the documentary might give some insights into the player will be disappointed; the filmmakers said that was not their aim.
   An approach which risks vexing fans of Zidane’s talent, his elegance and technique on the grass and want a glimpse of what makes him tick.
   The style of the documentary, zeroing in on Zidane’s eyes, his face, or his legs, also rob the picture of a sense of space, revealing little of what is happening around him to react to and even in which direction the game’s action is taking place.
   Cannes then would seem to be the ideal venue for the film’s screening, putting it in the same company as other movies that concentrate on the art of cinema at the expense of accessibility.
   With the result that it is in fact less of a documentary than an aesthetic vision of an athlete in motion - a monument to kinetics more than a real portrait.

Along the streets of Germany’s financial center, and one of the 12 venues for this year’s World Cup, images of Ronaldhino, Zinedine Zidane and Freddie Ljungberg entice shoppers to buy shoes, T-shirts and more soccer products.
   The players, who wear equipment made by Nike, Adidas and Puma, respectively, are the public faces in a fierce fight for the money and loyalty of soccer fans worldwide.
   Ahead of the World Cup, with its estimated 3 million visitors and
   millions more watching the 64-game tournament live on television worldwide, the companies are working to ensure that when consumers think soccer, it’s their company that comes to mind.
   Adidas AG has the edge, given that it is an official FIFA sponsor, a role it has had since 1970, and looks to continue this year.
   Matthew Lalin, executive vice president of the New York-based Steiner Sports Marketing, said that despite Adidas’ role as a World Cup sponsor will guarantee it wide exposure, Nike and Puma are not about to be relegated to the bench.
   ‘Call it guerrilla marketing or ambush marketing, they’re going to ambush the hell out of this thing,’ he said by phone from his office in New Rochelle, New York.
   Given the reach of the World Cup, companies who are official sponsors, and those that are not, are eager to reach billions of possible consumers.
   Lalin said that even though Adidas has the official sponsorship from FIFA, neither Puma AG nor Beaverton, Oregon-based Nike Inc., will let the chance to pitch their products slip through the net.
   ‘You get the content in the arenas and in the stadiums as an official sponsor, but we all know this is a star game. The World Cup is team oriented, but at the end of the day, who ever scores the winning that goal that’s what’s going to be on Sports Center,’ he said.
   Which is why Puma, Nike and Adidas are focusing, almost in a precision way, on the teams they sponsor.
   Nike counts defending champion Brazil among its roster, along with the United States, Portugal, the Netherlands, Mexico, Croatia, South Korea and Australia. For Nike, it’s a big change, given that it only began making uniforms for teams for the 1998 World Cup in France.
   And much like its marquee athletes, Nike is bringing the focus on to its World Cup stars, including Brazil’s Ronaldhino and Ronaldo; England’s Wayne Rooney and France’s Thierry Henry.
   Nike is also using the Web to tout its teams and players, along the more traditional methods of advertising. It has a Web site, www.joga.com, that it formed with Google that lets soccer fans form global networks in a virtual village inhabited by its trademark Swoosh and its players. There are even downloadable video podcasts featuring its star players.
   Nike’s soccer related revenue has increased from about $40 million annually to now nearly $1.5 billion, according to the company.
   ‘When Michael Jordan received his gold medal for basketball, he covered up the Reebok sign on the uniform with an American flag,’ he said of the Nike star and basketball legend. ‘That was an ultimate in your face.’
   It’s also a way to shift focus on Nike, which has 30 per cent of the world’s athletic apparel market, at the expense of Adidas, which has 35 per cent.
   ‘I think the sneaker war and the apparel war has gotten ugly, but competition has gotten good for the industry,’ Lalin said.
   Puma, which has only 9 per cent of the global market, is the tailor of choice for Italy, Poland, Paraguay, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, as well as Angola, Ghana, Iran, Togo, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia. England and Sweden use Umbro, while Ukraine and Serbia-Montenegro wear uniforms made by Lotto. Ecuador and Costa Rica use Marathon and Joma, respectively.
   Herbert Hainer, chief executive of the Herzergonerauch-based Adidas AG, whose three-stripe logo is familiar to soccer fans, said this year’s tournament is a chance for the company, which sealed a $3.5 billion deal to acquire Massachusetts-based shoemaker Reebok, to expand its presence not just globally, but in its home market.
   ‘The World Cup is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Adidas, because it’s in Germany. Germany is, by far, our biggest market,’ he told The Associated Press. ‘This is a market where we have a market share which is more than double the size of our main competitor’s.’
   The company is providing kits for numerous teams, blitzing its stores with World Cup-related advertising touting its long affiliation with the sport of soccer and its German heritage.
   Besides providing the kits for six teams, including host Germany and neighboring France, Adidas’ name will be found inside the 12 stadiums that are hosting the event, unlike Puma or Nike.
   The company has also outfitted Argentina, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, as well as Japan.
   ‘We will sell more than 1.5 million jerseys for the teams which we will outfit, and this altogether will bring us over the1 billion euro revenue mark,’ he said, adding that sales of its soccer balls designed for the tournament will likely surpass 10 million euros.

England will be a force at the World Cup even if Wayne Rooney does not recover from a broken foot, said Brazil legend Carlos Alberto.
   ‘England can be one of the favourites to win the World Cup,’ said Alberto, captain of Brazil’s 1970 winning side.
   ‘They have very good players and a good team. I don’t know how the coach will face the problem of Rooney but England have good experience.’
   But he said ‘it would be a very big problem’ if Michael Owen was also out.
   Like Rooney, Owen is recovering from a broken foot, but is making good progress and is expected to be fit for the tournament, which starts on June 9.
   Alberto was coach of Azerbaijan when England played the Asian nation in the qualifying stages.
   In an exclusive interview with BBC Sport, he said as many as seven teams could win the tournament, naming ‘Portugal, Italy, Holland, the Czech Republic, and Germany of course because they play at home’.
   But he said Brazil were strong favourites to retain their title in what he expected to be ‘the best World Cup ever’ in terms of the quality of the teams.
   His views on England and the competitiveness of Germany 2006 are echoed by Brazil’s coach, Carlos Alberto Parreira, who said England this year have their best chance to win the World Cup since 1966.
   In another exclusive interview, Carlos Alberto Parreira said: ‘This is the best English national team I have seen since 1966.’
   Parreira said as many as eight teams could win in Germany this summer.
   ‘Brazil is not the only favourite. You have to consider Germany, England, France, Holland, Italy, Czech Republic and Portugal,’ said the 63-year-old.
   ‘I believe this World Cup is going to be different. There are going to be at least eight national teams, that if they became champions, it would not be a surprise for anybody.’
   Parreira and Alberto did not mention Brazil’s arch-rivals Argentina, who are also considered by many to be among the strongest sides.
   Brazil are the hot favourites to win their second consecutive World Cup - and their sixth in all.
   But there have been claims the team is not as strong as it appears on paper.
   Brazil have the world’s greatest player in Ronaldinho, as well as Milan’s highly-rated playmaker Kaka, to supply two of the world’s most feared strikers - Ronaldo and Adriano.
   But there are worries about Ronaldo’s fitness, Adriano’s temperament, and the form of much of the team’s defence.
   Left-back Roberto Carlos has come in for heavy criticism after some poor displays for Real Madrid, while fellow defender Roque Junior is absent through injury.
   And goalkeeper Dida, who plays for Milan, has been accused of developing a tendency to flap.
   But Parreira said he was not worried about the form of his players, and was confident any problems would be sorted out in their pre-World Cup training camp.
   ‘We have to consider the World Cup itself,’ said Parreira, who travelled to Europe to watch the Champions League semi-finals, in which several of his squad were playing.
   ‘People were saying Dida was very bad, he could not play. But I came back from Barcelona and Dida was the best player in the ground.
   ‘With the three weeks preparation we are going to have, they are going to be OK. They have the experience and the willingness to be in the World Cup.’
   But Dutch great Johan Cruyff however believes that England’s reliance on the injured Rooney and Michael Owen will badly affect their World Cup campaign.
   Cruyff also told BBC Radio Five Live’s Sport on Five that too much was being expected of teenager Theo Walcott.
   He said: ‘The squad in general is quite good. But two strikers have been injured, and one (Walcott) has never played in the Premiership.
   ‘People say pick some more forward players, but who is there to pick.’
   Cruyff added: ‘Walcott is not the one who should make the difference.
   ‘As for Rooney - you can’t depend on one player.
   ‘Can England win? It will be difficult, because of teams like Brazil and Argentina.
   ‘It’s sad that you don’t have enough players to pick from. You have to protect the national team and that means saying that you should limit the number of foreign players in each Premiership team.
   ‘Spain has the same problem - Barcelona are great, but where are the Spanish players.’

Brazilian football superstar Ronaldinho wants to write football history by following the footsteps of living World Cup icons—Brazil’s Pele, Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer and Argentina’s Diego Armando Maradona.
   Asked by the Berlin-based daily BZ on Monday whether he could envision himself one day joining the ranks of World Cup legends like Pele, Beckenbauer or Maradona, Ronaldinho responded: ‘It’s my dream to follow the example of the great ones.’
   ‘I want to conquer as many titles as possible so that everyone remembers me as a player who achieved something important,’ he added.
   Meanwhile, Ronaldinho stressed he won’t be satisfied with anything less than a sixth World Cup title for Brazil.
   ‘Second place (at the World Cup) for us is tantamount to a last place,’ the FC Barcelona player said.
   Brazil will defend their World Cup crown by meeting Croatia, Australia and Japan in the first-round encounters of Group F.

Footie-mad Prince William has been barred from England’s World Cup dressing room.
   Wills, 23, was due to meet the team after their June 10 opener against Paraguay in Frankfurt.
   But the FA don’t want to expose him to players, possibly naked, ‘swearing and arguing’ if they’ve lost, said a source.
   Instead, he will get to meet fans outside the stadium before the game.

Ronaldo is expected to be in good physical condition when Brazil begin their pre-World Cup training this week, the team’s doctor said Monday.
   ‘Ronaldo is not injured anymore,’ Dr. Jose Luis Runco said. ‘He has been practicing normally for the past two weeks. He is in good condition, just as the other players.’
   Ronaldo had several injuries in the beginning of the year, and he scored only five goals in Real Madrid’s first 19 matches.
   His latest injury, a muscle
   ailment picked up during Spanish league play, kept him sidelined for most of April.
   ‘Ronaldo is fine now,’ Runco said after Brazil arrived in the lakeside resort town for its two-week training camp. ‘He will be able to practice normally.’
   All Brazilian players will undergo routine physical examinations on Tuesday and Wednesday. The team’s first practice session is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
   Runco said he expects Brazil’s players to be in better shape this year than before the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, when Brazil won its fifth title.
   ‘Before that World Cup we had problems with some players, including Ronaldo and Rivaldo.
   They needed more attention than other players at the time,’ Runco said. ‘This time, everyone is set to begin training on time.’
   About 50 fans and nearly 200 journalists were on hand to watch the defending World Cup champions arrive in Weggis on Monday.

French team doctor Jean-Pierre Paclet said on Monday he will not provide any details about the medical condition of the players during the World Cup.
   ‘I will not provide any information about injured players during the whole World Cup for the simple reason that it’s illegal,’ Paclet told reporters during a press conference on Monday.
   ‘In France, a physicist is not allowed to give details about the condition of his patients.
   ‘Sometimes an injury can have some damaging consequences for the player’s career. It can bar him from being signed by a club, for example. I’m not the one who is going to assume such a responsibility.’
   — Reuters
   
   Iranian police getting in the party spirit
   Iranian police are gearing up for what may be one of their biggest ever public security operations - a sudden eruption of street parties should Iran enjoy a successful World Cup campaign.
   Residents of the football-mad Islamic republic are likely to be glued to their screens for the duration of the tournament, which opens for Iran with a crucial match against Mexico on June 11.
   And if previous events are anything to go by, any Iranian victory or even draw is likely to prompt dancing on the streets - a nightmare scenario for police who usually prefer for large public gatherings to be pre-organised affairs.
   But the head of Tehran’s police spokesman, Mohammad Torang, told AFP that he was optimistic that any partying will pass off well.
   ‘The police has always considered themselves a part of the great Iranian nation, and we’ll be participating,’ said Torang, indicating that his forces won’t even bother trying to engage in their usual crowd control tactics.
   In previous years, Iranian football victories have brought gridlock to cities and prompted men and women to start dancing amid a cacophony of klaxons and firecrackers.
   ‘Having fun is the right of the people,’ Torang asserted, adding that police also shared public ambitions for the national team. ‘Of course there will be some traffic restrictions in some of Tehran’s main streets or squares, but all in all it will be to facilitate fun.’ — AFP
   
   Schumi visits Klinsmann’s charges
   Seven-time Formula One champion Michael Schumacher visited the German national team Monday.
   Schumacher, who is a keen soccer player, lives near the hotel on the shore of Lake Geneva where the squad is staying for a training camp in preparation for the World Cup.
   Schumacher talked to coach Jurgen Klinsmann, captain Michael Ballack and several other players, the German soccer federation said.
   — AP
   
   Smolarek to complete rare
   family double
   Euzebiusz Smolarek heads for the World Cup finals seeking to emerge from the shadow of his father Wlodzimierz, a hero of the Polish side which took third place in Spain in 1982.
   Euzebiusz, 24, grew up in the Netherlands and still struggles in Polish, but is now seen as a key attacking weapon for the Poles after netting regularly for Borussia Dortmund and the national team this season.
   ‘Ebi’ is chasing his father’s record of 13 goals in 60 games between 1980 and 1992, including strikes in both the 1982 and 1986 World Cup finals. By the end of April he had the first three in the bag. ‘Once you’ve played twice in the finals, we can start talking,’ the older Smolarek told his son during a recent interview with national daily Gazeta Wyborcza.
   Ebi began his football education under his father, but as players the pair are chalk and cheese, a fact underlined by a run of injury problems which kept him out of the last World Cup in 2002.
   — Reuters
   
   Former Poland coach Gorski dies
   Former Poland football coach Kazimierz Gorski, who led the country to a third-place finish at the 1974 World Cup and Olympic gold, has died at the age of 85, PAP news agency reported on Tuesday.
   Born in Lviv, now in Ukraine, Gorski coached the national team from 1970 to 1976, overseeing the golden era of Polish football that produced players like Kazimierz Dejna, Grzegorz Lato, Robert Gadocha and Wlodzimierz Lubanski.
   ‘I don’t think I am offending anyone by saying that he was the Pope of Polish football,’ said former goalkeeper Jan Tomaszewski, whose heroic saves against England at Wembley took Gorski’s team to the 1974 World Cup.
   — Reuters
   
   Pirated films put Portugal pair
   in hot water
   Officials in Portugal are investigating Benfica duo Armando Petit and Nuno Gomes after they were seen in a television report taking what appeared to be counterfeit films to a World Cup training camp, a daily newspaper reported Tuesday.
   A senior inspector with the culture ministry’s Inspectorate-General for Cultural Activities (IGAC), which oversees the fight against music and movie piracy, told 24Horas the body would take action if justified despite the approaching football finals.
   ‘We are investigating the situation in juridical terms. Only after this is completed can we act. But if we have to act, we will act,’ said Julio Araujo Melo.
   Striker Gomes told private television SIC in a report broadcast Friday that he had brought several movies to the training camp held in Evora, some 150 kilometres (90 miles) southeast of Lisbon, including ‘Basic Instinct II’ and ‘Mission: Impossible III’. Both movies have yet to be released on DVD.
   Midfielder Petit meanwhile opened the trunk of his car to show the movies he was taking to the camp and a copy of ‘The Producers’, which also has not been released on DVD, could be seen among other unidentifiable films.
   — AFP
   
   Pfaff confesses
   The former head of the German company producing the official World Cup mascot confessed to defrauding banks and other financial firms of at least $51.7 million, a week after the company filed for bankruptcy.
   Ottmar Pfaff was detained Saturday and was being held pending an investigation, Gerhard Schmitt, a prosecutor in the town of Hof, said Monday.
   Pfaff’s lawyer, Wolfgang Dingfelder, said his client had confessed to fraud dating back to 2000. He said Pfaff had taken the money in an attempt to keep Nici - which holds the exclusive European rights to produce the stuffed lion for the June 9-July 9 tournament - from collapsing. ‘His main motive was to save the company,’ Dingfelder said.
   — AP
   
   Beware hooligans
   Foreign fans who misbehave during the World Cup can expect quick and costly punishment.
   Judicial officials have drawn up a list of fines to be used as guidelines - ranging from $192 for breaching the peace to $1,530for bodily harm, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
   The fines will be used only for relatively minor offenses, and the fines could be set higher in some cases, Duesseldorf prosecutor Klaus Bronny said. The intention is to deal with any foreign troublemakers without long-drawn-out legal proceedings.
   Among other recommended fines on the list are a $383 payment for resisting police officers and $1,022 for incitement. Using the symbols of banned organizations - an offense that covers displays of swastikas and other Nazi insignia - would bring a fine of $766.
   For more serious offenses that involve a possible prison sentence of up to a year, authorities plan to speed up court proceedings, said Roswitha Mueller-Piepenkoetter, the justice minister of the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
   ‘Hooligans should know that they cannot use the World Cup for violent disturbances without punishment,’ she said.—AP

There’s plenty more than soccer to offer for the more than 1 million visitors to Germany who will marvel at play during the World Cup. They also can admire great art, stroll medieval town squares and savor some of the world’s best beer.
   The World Cup offers great tourism as well as sport, with the 12 host cities including perennial travel favorites Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Nuremberg and Hamburg. With as little as two or three spare hours before a game, visitors can take in Albrecht Duerer’s ‘Self-Portrait’ in Munich’s Alte Pinakothek art museum - or try a crisp-roasted schweinshaxe, or ham hock, with sauerkraut and a cold pilsner from a centuries-old brewery.
   Visitors during the June 9-July 9 tournament won’t need tickets to plug into the soccer excitement. Games will be shown live on big screens in public places such as Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz and Munich’s Olympic Park, and thousands of people are expected to take part in fan festivals throughout the country.
   Berlin is expecting 300,000 overnight guests, but tourism authorities say there will be room. ‘Whoever comes will always find a hotel bed,’ said Hanns Peter Nerger, head of Berlin’s tourism marketing operation.
   One can even forgo the soccer. As with Athens and the 2004 Olympics, the week after the event ends might be a good time to visit, because some hotels are raising prices on game days.
   Some leading attractions for quick visits in the top cities:
   Berlin: The museums clustered on Museum Island in the Mitte district are superb, led by the Pergamon Museum with its second century BC altar from the Greek city of Pergamon, and the blue-tiled Ishtar Gate built during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II around 575 B.C. in ancient Babylon, now Iraq. In the nearby Altes Museum you can see the exquisite 3,300-year-old bust of Egypt’s Queen Nefertiti.
   For more recent history, the Museum at Checkpoint Charlie recalls Berlin’s four decades as a divided city. A replica of the guard shack from Checkpoint Charlie, the East-West crossing point, stands on Friedrichstrasse; the real shack, hauled away after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, can be found in the Allied Museum in the Zehlendorf district, which focuses on the Berlin Airlift and the US occupation after World War II, and is free of charge.
   In the city center, one can climb the glass dome of the historic Reichstag, home of the Bundestag lower house of parliament - also free, but go early or late to beat the lines.
   Between museums, stop for Berlin’s trademark fast food: currywurst, or succulent chunks of pork sausage with curry-spiced ketchup, available all over at snack stands, but especially well done at Bier’s Curry and Spiesse, on Friedrichstrasse underneath the train station overpass of the same name.
   You can ask for yours without sausage casing if you like: ‘Ohne Darm, bitte’ - literally, ‘without intestine, please.’
   Berlin will host the World Cup final on July 9.
   Munich: The World Cup begins here June 9 with Germany’s match against Costa Rica.
   For non-soccer sightseeing, duck into the Alte Pinakothek museum, stuffed with works by Duerer, Van Dyck, Rubens and Rembrandt. Or stroll the English Garden (warning: nude sunbathers); visit the Deutsches Museum technology exhibits, or watch the Glockenspiel statues - animated figures on the Rathaus, or city hall, ring the hour at 11:00 am, noon and 5:00 pm
   The Hofbraeuhaus, dating to 1589, is the epitome of a Munich beer hall, with long benches and big mugs of suds. Locals like hefeweizen, or wheat beer, naturally cloudy with yeast, just slightly sweet and perfect on a hot day.
   Touring the Dachau concentration camp, about 20 minutes from the central station by S-Bahn, or local train, offers a reality check and a reminder of one of Germany’s darkest periods.
   Nuremberg: Stroll the old town, restored after World War II to near its medieval splendor, and head up to the Kaiserburg fortress atop the hill, residence of German rulers from 1050 to 1571.
   The city has sobering reminders of the Nazi past; the Nazi parade grounds remain, with a documentation center. At the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, in the northern part of town, you can tour Room 600, where the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal tried Nazi leaders.
   The US team plays Ghana here on June 22 in a first-round match.
   Cologne: The awe-inspiring Cologne Cathedral, its twin gothic spires soaring 518 feet, stands next to the train station. Leave at least an hour to roam the inside, home to a gilded sarcophagus holding what tradition says are remains of the Magi - the wise men who paid tribute to the newborn Jesus. The Roman-German Museum a few yards away from the cathedral has spectacular floor mosaics and other archaeological finds from the city’s days as a Roman outpost.
   The taverns clustering the cathedral area offer Cologne’s trademark Koelsch, the frothy, faintly bitter beer served in what look like large shot glasses.
   Portugal plays its former colony, Angola, in Cologne on June 11.
   Hamburg: Walk two hours around the Aussen Alster lake for pedestrian-only views of the city and its parks. A boat tour of the harbor (about $13) connects you with the great northern port’s maritime role and history.
   You can go to the famed Reeperbahn red-light street in the St Pauli district if you must, but it’s jammed with tourists and has lost much of whatever charm it once had.
   Labskaus - a stew of potatoes, corned beef and beets with a fried egg on top - is said to have been served aboard ship because the ingredients would keep.
   The Czech Republic and Italy face off in Hamburg on June 22 in a game with import for the American team.
   Frankfurt: The Roemerberg, the medieval town square rebuilt after its destruction in World War II, makes a lovely break from the city’s skyscrapers, and is ringed by restaurants with local fare such as Frankfurt’s green sauce, a creamy herb sauce served with potatoes or hard-boiled eggs. If you order a frankfurter, you’ll get two long, thin sausages with mustard and a hard roll instead of an American-style hot dog.
   The traditional brew here is Apfelwein, a tangy apple wine that goes straight to your head.
   Walk it off by hiking across one of the two pedestrian bridges spanning the Main River, to a row of museums on the south riverbank just a few blocks from the main train station.
   Frankfurt will host a quarterfinal match July 1.
   Kaiserslautern: Not a major tourist stop, K-town, as the thousands of American soldiers stationed nearby call it, will host the US team’s game against Italy on June 17. The city center and Renaissance castle make a pleasant stroll, but the best move might be to drive to Trier, home to the Porta Nigra, or Black Gate, built by the Romans - some of the best Roman ruins north of the Alps.

Predicting England’s footballing fortunes is never easy, but a lot of money will ride on those predictions.
   British bookmakers are preparing for up to a billion pounds in bets on the June 9 to July 9 World Cup in Germany, with wagers ranging from whose ‘Golden Boot’ will score most goals in the tournament, to how many corner kicks in a game, and even what haircut England captain David Beckham will sport.
   Betting in Britain has always been popular, but the 2001 abolition of tax on the gambler and the growth of online betting has seen an increase in annual turnover from 7 billion pounds in 2000 to about 50 billion pounds, analysts say.
   And the football World Cup is the highlight.
   ‘Britain is the world centre for bookmaking, and the world’s biggest betting exchanges are based in Britain; that’s where most of the money on the World Cup will be spent,’ Professor Leighton Vaughan Williams, a senior gambling adviser to the government, told Reuters in an interview.
   Although most of the betting in still takes place in gambling shops along the high street, more and more people are opting to bet via the Internet, over the telephone or through interactive television.
   Access to satellite and cable television carrying live sport also allows people to bet, throughout a game, from their own home.
   ‘People now bet, sat at home, during the match, watching it on TV,’ said Vaughan Williams from Nottingham Trent University. They used to bet just once before the match, but now they can bet during it, and there are so many things to bet on.’
   Graham Sharpe, media spokesman for the William Hill bookmakers, said betting had also become more popular in recent years due to the variety of events people could bet on.
   Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney’s broken foot is a major doubt hanging over England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson’s team, and the uncertainty has been reflected in the number of bets placed in recent weeks.
   The 20-year-old is odds-on to miss the tournament, according to William Hill, but the surprise selection of Arsenal’s teenage striker, Theo Walcott, who has yet to make his Premier League debut, has already made up for Rooney’s injury, as far as the bookies are concerned.
   ‘We’ve been taking bets from everything from Theo Walcott taking his driving test to winning the Golden Boot,’ Sharpe said. ‘He is attracting just as much interest as we would have expected Rooney to do.’

Czech Republic midfielder Tomas Rosicky joined Arsenal from Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday.
   The 25-year-old has signed a long-term contract for an undisclosed fee, the Arsenal website reported without giving further details.
   ‘I’m really happy to be here at Arsenal, it is a great day for me,’ said Rosicky.
   ‘The team showed its strength recently in the Champions League and it has big potential with a lot of young players, I think we can be even better next season. This is the best club in Europe and I will give everything for Arsenal.’

Swiss tennis superstar Roger Federer was named Laureus World Sportsman of the year for the second straight year here on Monday with the women’s honour going to Croatian skier Janica Kostelic.
   The 24-year-old Federer won the vote of Laureus Academy members ahead of other nominees such as another two-time winner US golfer Tiger Woods, Spanish F1 World Champion Fernando Alonso, Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho and seven-times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong.
   The 23-year-old Kostelic edged out Britain’s world marathon champion Paula Radcliffe, Russian pole-vault queen Yelena Isinbayeva, Swedish heptathlete Carolina Kluft and Belgian tennis player Kim Clijsters.
   There were awards also for Martina Hingis who took the Laureus Comeback of the Year recompense, Spanish tyro Rafael Nadal who was named Newcomer of the Year and the French Formula One Constructors Champions Renault who won Team of the Year.
   Federer was present in Barcelona to accept his reward flying in from Paris where he is preparing for next week’s French Open.
   The world No.1 has won the last three Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon, the US Open last year and this year’s Australian Open.
   A win in the final at Roland Garros on June 11 will make him the first man since Australian legend Rod Laver in the 1960’s to hold all four Grand Slam titles at the same time.
   He also won nine other tournaments in 2005 and continued im similar fashion this year by winning back-to-back Masters titles at Indian Wells and Miami before losing a five-set marathon to Nadal in Rome earlier this month.
   Paying tribute to Federer, John McEnroe said that he was the outstanding tennis player of this generation.
   ‘In fact he is probably the outstanding individual sportsman of this generation across all sports. Maybe only Tiger Woods of the sportsmen who are competing today week-in, week-out is on a par with him.
   ‘He has already won seven Grand Slams at the age of 24. Other tennis players will come along to challenge him, but I think if he keeps healthy and keeps his appetite for the game he could break Pete Sampras’s record of 14 Grand Slams.’
   Kostelic became the first woman to win four Alpine skiing gold medals after her victory in the women’s combined event at February’s Winter Olympics in Turin.
   Once again she had to overcome injury and illness to triumph having been forced to pull out of the Olympic downhill because she was unwell. Four years ago she won three gold medals at the Salt Lake City Olympics after fighting back from three knee operations in 12 months.
   Renault won the team award ahead of such as Champions League titleholders and Spanish football champions Barcelona, the winning Croatian Davis Cup team and last year’s European football Champions Liverpool.
   Top driver Fernando Alonso at 24 became the youngest-ever world champion as the French-based team ended the long winning run of Ferrari and Michael Schumacher.
   Hingis ended a three-year ‘retirement’ in January and promptly showed that she still had what it takes to compete at the highest level culminating with victory in Rome on Sunday, while Nadal won the French Open at the age of 19 and emerged as the greatest threat to Federer’s crown.

Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar has been ruled out of the upcoming Test series in the West Indies after failing to recover from shoulder surgery.
   Tendulkar informed the Indian cricket board Tuesday that he should not be considered for next month’s four-Test series in the Caribbean as he was not fit.
   ‘We have been trying hard. Andrew Leipus (former Indian team physio) has been with me all the time. There is still weakness in my arm and I am not ready to compete at international level,’ said Tendulkar, 33.
   The master batsman, who underwent shoulder surgery in March, missed seven one-dayers at home against England last month and opted out of the ongoing five-match one-day series in the West Indies.
   Tendulkar did not undergo a fitness test scheduled for Tuesday, a day before the Test team is named.
   When asked when he would be back in action, he said: ‘I don’t know. I leave it to doctors to guide me in right direction.’
   Tendulkar was due to leave for England Tuesday night to meet his surgeon Andrew Wallace.
   ‘I am sure the doctor is in touch with the Indian cricket board,’ said Tendulkar, the most prolific batsman in contemporary cricket with a world record 35 Test and 39 one-day centuries.

St Kitts & Nevis’ new Warner Park Stadium has become the first venue to be completed ahead of the World Cup in the Caribbean next March. Other venues are behind schedule, including Sabina Park in Jamaica where two one-dayers were played last week. Warner Park will host Australia, Scotland, South Africa and the Netherlands in the World Cup.
   West Indies World Cup chief Chris Dehring said: ‘It is a source of immense pride and joy to us all in the Caribbean and should act as an inspiration for those working on other stadia.’

The second round of the banglalink tiger trophy National School Football Championship comprising 16 teams starts on Friday at Pabna and Comilla. The top two from each group seals a place in the semifinals scheduled to take place in Dhaka from June 2.
   Mominpur High School (Meherpur), Yunus Ali High School (Pabna), Madraganj MB High School (Thakurgaon), Gaberpara High School(sirajganj), Kanailkhata High School (Nilphamari), Bhurungmari Pilot High School (Kurigram), Salampur Dakhil Madrasha (Natore), Poura High School (Narail) are in Group A and will play in Pabna.
   Hajiganj High School (Chadpur), Chagalnaia High School (Feni), Islamia Government High School (Mymensingh), Laxminarayan Cotton Mill High School (Naryanganj), Ramu Khijari Ideal High School (Cox’s Bazar), Kakardia Teradal High School (Sylhet), Faridpur High School (Faridpur) and Jhalkathi Government High School play in the Group B at Comilla. Each second round qualifier will get Taka six thousand each as participation money.

Rajshahi completed the final round line-up of the Dhaka Bank Under-19 National Youth Cricket Championship when they defeated Thakurgaon by 118 runs in a rain-interrupted last preliminary round match at the Bogra Stadium on Tuesday.
   Rajshahi on Monday had scored 225-8 in 50 overs before rain halted proceedings. Thakurgaon resumed play on Tuesday and were all out for 107 in 35.1 overs. Abdul Momin took four wickets for Rajshahi giving away 23 runs.
   After the match, the tournament organisers completed the draw of the final round with Rajshahi placed in the Group D along with Bagerhat and Gibandha.
   Defending champions Comilla will play in Group A with Tangail and Khulna. The other teams in the final round are BKSP, Chittagong and Narayanganj (Group B), Sylhet, Chandpur and Barisal (Group C).
   The final round will begin on Thursday with Comilla facing Khulna in the opening match at the Dhanmondi Cricket Stadium. There will be three more matches on the day as well at the Fatullah, Mirpur and Jagannath Hall ground.

The Bangladesh women’s team bounced back from their first round setback to beat New Zealand, but men lost their way as they succumbed to Netherlands in the second round of the 37th Chess Olympiad, now being held in the Italian city Turin, on Monday.
   Eighth seeded Netherlands enjoyed a 3-1 victory against their Bangladeshi counterparts after Grand Master Ziaur Rahman and International Master Abdullah Al Rakib lost their respective matches.
   International Masters Reefat Bin Sattar and Enamul Hossain Rajib salvaged some pride for Bangladesh earning draws. After the second round play, the men have five points to their credit.
   Meanwhile, Bangladesh women’s team won 2.5against New Zealand thanks to two wins by Nazrana Khan and Tanima Parveen. The only Bangladeshi female player, who failed to win in this round was Zakia Sultana.
   In the third round, Bangladesh men’s team was play-0.5 ing against Andorra while the women were taking on the International Committee of Silent Chess (ICSC) team.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board on Tuesday named 20 pace bowlers for a short-term camp to be held at the Mirpur Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium from May 27 to June 5.
   The selected pace bowlers include national stalwarts Tareq Aziz Khan, Nazmul Hossain and Under-19 prospects Kamrul Islam, Dollar Mahmud among others.
   The selected players are Tarek Aziz Khan, Gazi Alamgir, Nazmul Hossain, Nazmul Hossain Milon, Mahbubul Alam Robin, Sk Robiul Islam, Md Mamun, Md Azim, Kamrul Islam, Shuvashish Roy, Sajid Islam, Dollar Mahmud, Shahzada, Emon Ahmed, Golam Kibria Ashik, Mukter Ali, Rumman Islam, Safaq Al Zabir and Ziaur Rahman.

Double Olympic champion Hicham El Guerrouj has announced his retirement.
   The Moroccan, the 1500m world record holder, claimed a brilliant 1500m and 5,000m double at the Athens Games to add to his four 1500m world titles.
   But the man thought to be the greatest 1500m runner of all time has not raced since Athens because of injury.
   At a news conference, a tearful El Guerrouj described his decision as ‘historic and difficult’, saying he was crying out of ‘joy and not sadness’.
   El Guerrouj said he had not slept well since winning his double gold in Athens.
   ‘I took the decision to retire because I suddenly began to sleep well three weeks ago,’ he said.

Like so many players in World Cup history, Geoff Hurst was a surprise initial selection who emerged from the shadows to become a hero.
   The only man to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final, Hurst’s goals throughout the 1966 tournament carried England all the way to a famous victory on home soil.
   Regarded as little more than an average footballer for years, Hurst had been a borderline inclusion in Alf Ramsey’s England squad, having only made his international debut five months before the finals.
   Born in Lancashire in 1941, he had turned professional with West Ham in 1959, where his career was carefully nurtured by Ron Greenwood.
   Making full use of Hurst’s natural attributes - a strong build, height, a powerful shot and an excellent heading ability - Greenwood converted Hurst from wing-half into a centre-
   forward.
   Yet by the time 1966 rolled around, Hurst was well down the pecking order of England’s strikers, with goal-machine Jimmy Greaves very much first-choice.
   Fortune was to smile on Hurst once the World Cup began however. Left out of England’s three first round matches, he was thrust into a starting role in the quarter-finals against Argentina after an injury to Greaves.
   Hurst was to seize his chance. A fine headed winner against the Argentines took England into the semi-finals, where Hurst again proved a handful in the win over Portugal.
   Playing too well for Ramsey to drop him in favour of the fit-again Greaves, Hurst led the England line against West Germany in the final at Wembley.
   His first goal, another fine headed effort, levelled the scores at 1-1.
   Hurst’s second effort, however, which put England 3-2 up in extra-time, is among the most controversial goals ever scored at the World Cup.
   Controlling the ball just outside the six-yard area, Hurst spun round and thumped a powerful right-foot shot towards the German goal where the ball crashed down off the underside of the crossbar and onto the line.
   Hurst’s striking partner Roger Hunt threw up his arms in celebration, but there was a nervous wait until the Russian linesman confirmed to the referee that the goal should stand.
   Most neutrals agree it was a harsh decision on Germany; television replays show that most of the ball had not crossed the line. Hurst, however, maintains to this day that the goal was legitimate.
   ‘Roger was closest to the ball and he put his hands up immediately. There’s never been any doubt in my mind that it was a goal,’ Hurst said in a 2001 interview.
   All that was left for Hurst to do was smash home a spectacular fourth goal for England to claim his hat-trick in the dying moments.
   ‘My father-in-law told my wife that I was going to score a hat-trick in the final but I just thought it was highly amusing,’ Hurst revealed later. ‘It was quite quirky really that I managed to do it. It changed my life.’
   Hurst won 49 caps and scored 24 goals for England. He played in the 1970 finals, where England were knocked out in the last eight, before returning to finish his career with West Bromwich Albion.
   A talented cricketer, he also made a solitary county appearance for Essex against Lancashire.
   — Agence France-Presse
   
   Name : Geoff Hurst
   Date of Birth : December 8, 1941
   Birthplace : Lancashire, England

1994: Said Owairan, Saudi Arabia v Belgium
   Said Owairan ensured the footballing minnows of Saudi Arabia left with their heads held high and one of the greatest goals of World Cup history in the bag. Only five minutes had elapsed of the Saudi's second group match against Belgium when midfielder Owairan picked up the ball deep inside his own half. Quite why he elected to keep running and running is not clear, but his confidence was not misplaced. He beat four Belgian players before blasting the ball past Michel Preud'homme.
   
   1998: Michael Owen, England v Argentina
   Teenage sensation Michael Owen came of age with a World Cup wonder goal. Owen had been unsettling the Argentinians early on in the second-round match, so when he received the ball on the halfway line from David Beckham a buzz of expectation ran through the crowd. The Liverpool youngster surged towards goal, catching the opposition defence flat-footed, and bearing down on his target. Drawn slightly out towards the right, Owen finished his run by smashing home the goal of the 1998 tournament into the far top corner.
   — New Age Desk