The Stade de France won over fans of the national team, but so far no suitable club side has been found to play there. Philippe Broussard runs down the possible contenders

The Stade de France, venue of the most recent World Cup final, is now an institution, almost an historic monument. Les Bleus winning the World Cup means that, like Wembley, thousands of tourists visit the Stade. But it hasn’t always had such a positive image. A year ago, at the time of the official opening (January 28th, 1998), there was more criticism than praise. The press wondered what kind of future such a structure could have: was an 80,000-capacity stadium way too large for a country in which football draws many less people than in Italy or England? Was it not a risk to build it in a depressed suburb (Saint-Denis) where spectators would think twice about going? And, most importantly, who would use the ground once the World Cup was over?

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Jeff Hill pays tribute to a famous building that is about to disappear

The Wembley that we all love to hate – the dog track with a football ground in the middle – will soon be no more. Next year it will be pulled down, and by 2002 or thereabouts only the famous twin towers are likely to remain of the present structure. Barring last minute hitches, the rest is to be transformed into a multi-sports National Stad­ium. So England will have a site to equal the Stade de France and all those other sporting venues which are supposed to symbolise “the nation”.

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Kevin Keegan is not alone in trying to run a national team while holding down a club job. Adriaan Grijns recounts a similar experiment in Brazil

Wanderley Luxemburgo is an arrogant man. He once walked off the pitch with his team winning 1-0 and five minutes left. Wanderley, as he is referred to here, is the acclaimed new manager of the Brazilian national team, the Seleção.

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If England managers have a hard time, they still get off lightly compared to their counterparts in Colombia, as Richard Sanders reports 

As the new manager of Colombia, 40-year-old Javier Alvarez, steps gingerly into the post, he could be for­given a little trepidation, and perhaps the odd glance over his shoulder. His two predecessors received repeated death threats and one saw his centre-half mur­dered by disgruntled gamblers.

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Some people were just born to manage England, albeit with the right name and at the right time, says Harry Pearson

Walter, Alf, Don, Joe, Ron, Bobby, Graham, Terry, Glenn, Howard, Kev­in.When studying this list of of the forenames of England’s managers it quickly becomes apparent that since the mid-Seventies the FA have got things hopelessly wrong. The departure of Don Revie and the brief interregnum of Joe Mercer should clearly have been followed by a more modern sounding manager, one whose name reeked not of linament and toad-in-the-hole, but of frothy coffee and formica, a Tony, perhaps, an Alan or even a Brian. Instead the FA went backwards and opted for Ron Greenwood.

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