Matthew Hall salutes Peter Wilson, the only World Cup captain to frequent a bar in Wollongong
The barman at Kembla Heights Bowling Club, a breezy two-hour drive south from Sydney, probably would not be able to enlighten you too much about the local football scene. But the chances are he’s pulled a few beers for Peter Wilson, Australia’s most enigmatic and mysterious sporting legend. And that makes this place a classy joint.
Gennady Fyodorov explains how Russia's Euro 2000 campaign stalled at the starting gate
The 1998 season can hardly be called a memorable one for Russian football. It was a season of dashed hopes, broken promises, failures on and off the pitch and the worst financial crisis in recent memory.
Oliver Butler explains how South Korea pulled off a coup in co-hosting the 2002 World Cup finals
The decision in June 1996 to share the hosting of the 2002 World Cup between Japan and South Korea showed what could be achieved by a bidding committee’s political know-how and expertise in manipulating the process, regardless of the merits of the bid itself. Despite starting four years later, South Korea succeeded in matching the claims of a bid that was palpably superior to its own and had received support from the highest levels of FIFA.
Richard Maguire assesses whether the South Africa bid has what it takes to win
Should South Africa win the right to host the 2006 World Cup, the success of their bid can be traced back to ten nerve-wracking minutes at a Paris airport in May. That was when Sepp Blatter turned to Emmanuel Maradas, the editor of African Soccer, and said: “That’s it, if the telephone doesn’t ring, it’s over, I’m pulling out.”
Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger assesses whether Germany could stage the 2006 World Cup
Egidius Braun, head of the German FA, was beaming. Egidius is the undisputed world champion of jovial grinners, and so it wasn’t his smile as such that was irritating, but the occasion which brought it out.