The Archive

Wednesday 1 The start of Real Madrid's Champions League semi with Borussia Dortmund is held up for seventy-five minutes after one of the goalposts is damaged by Real fans jumping on the adjacent perimeter fencing. Dortmund lose the match 2-0 but may lodge an official complaint with UEFA that could lead to the tie being replayed. In the other game, Juventus beat Monaco 4-1.

Thursday 2 Chelsea are lucky to escape with a 1-0 defeat at Vicenza in the first leg of their Cup-Winners Cup semi final. "We can blame a bit of tiredness. You are never at your best five days after a cup final," says Gianluca loftily. Wembley Stadium has been bought by the English National Stadium Trust backed by the FA. Rebuilding work will start after the 1999 FA Cup Final and might even include proper toilets.

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With huge numbers of fans travelling to France without any hope of getting a ticket, the process is clearly favouring the rich and famous. Without a system change, the streets of Paris could be full of angry fans from all nations. A recipe for disaster?

You'll remember the advert broadcast before the England v Chile friendly in March. After running down a list of the qualities to be found in the England squad, the narration ended in a sneering challenge: “Come on Chile, the boys are waiting.” It could just as easily have been an invitation to a fight as a football match. As a symbol of arrogance headed for a fall (you’ll recall the result too), it was a neat example of how the build-up to this World Cup has gone.

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Jeffrey Prest reflects on his day out at the football roadshow

“Anyone who’s coming will be here by now,” said a voice behind me. “It’s all over bar the shouting.” It was late on the final day of the BBC Match of the Day Live exhibition and the owner of the voice was either flogging classic football shirts or clichés of a similar ilk. Rest assured, he was selling something.

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Richard Mason reports on the scandal of the season in Serie A

There is a crisis in Italian football. An unprecedented series of refereeing errors (or “favours”, as many would prefer to believe) nearly all of which have benefited Juventus, has led to a degree of soul searching rare even in a country so frantically passionate about football as Italy.

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A controversial game in New York provided a taste of what we can expect from referees at the World Cup, as Nick Patience explains

Watching the New York/New Jersey Metrostars play the San Jose Clash on April 25th, it quickly became apparent the referee – literally, for once – was watching a different game to the rest of us. There were seven goals, three red cards, eight yellows and 17,380 fans in Giants stadium wondering what would happen next, and why what had happened previously had happened at all. In a game that swung one way then the other, the much-maligned Alexi Lalas, in his first season with New York, scored the winner with just 11 seconds to go, which in most fans’ opinion was the only thing he did right in the entire game.

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