Frank Clark talks to WSC about his new book, Kicked Into Touch, which charts the ups and downs of more than a decade in football management

You had some uncomfortable experiences as a manager. If you were a player now, would you still want to become a manager?
Yes, for two reasons. As a player I knew I wanted to stay in the game when I stopped because I loved being involved. I’d feel the same today. The other factor, of course, is the amount of money you can earn. There’s no question that the job has got much harder, for various reasons: Bosman, the sums of money involved, Sky. The spotlight has become that much more intense. The other side of the coin is that managers are being paid wages at least on a par with some of the players.

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Even with Ronaldo in one of his funny moods, Brazil rarely needed to break sweat to retain their South American title in Paraguay as Sam Wallace reports

At either end of the Defensores Del Chacos ground in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, stood enormous models of Budweiser cans which, at set in­tervals, would start to gyrate. Occasionally, a plastic bag thrown from the crowd behind the goal would sail over the cans, jettisoning in flight its cargo of urine. The irony was hard to ignore. No amount of expensive advertising ever quite managed to sanitise a gloriously chaotic Copa America 1999.

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Cris Freddi's series on the poorest moments in football history continues with a look at the players who missed when it looked easier to score

Right, same formula as the rest of this series. Quick mention of famous televised misses, to make it look as if I’ve seen them all, then on to missed chances that mattered, because that’s all I know about.

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Will the home triumph at the 1999 women's World Cup be a real breakthrough for football in the USA, or just a one-off? Ethan Zindler weighs up the evidence

With no goals scored, the women’s World Cup final at the Pasadena Rose Bowl had delivered as ignominious a conclusion as the men’s final at the same venue in 1994. Yet none of the ecstatic 90,000 red, white, and blue supporters seemed troubled by the injustices of penalties. The tournament was over. But America’s love affair with its soccer divas was just getting started.

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Despite a successful pre-season tournament in Northern Ireland, it was all rather meaningless, as Davy Millar explains

The inaugural Belfast Carlsberg Challenge was adjudged to be a great success by nearly everyone involved. The promoter made a profit and Linfield and Glentoran each pocketed £50,000 for their efforts. Liverpool re-established contact with their Irish fans, sold a few more replica kits and got some much-needed trophy-lifting practice thrown in. And even if Feyenoord seemed occasionally confused by events, especially in defence, at least it got them out of the house for a while.

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