Dear WSC
You may not be aware that fans from Madrid and Leverkusen attending the Champions League final at Hampden Park were handed a Scottish goody bag by the Daily Record containing, among other things, a Tunnock’s caramel wafer and a can of Coke. Class.
Glenn McCall, Dundee
Scotland's efforts at the World Cup Finals have been frustrating, but their best team never made it that far. Cris Freddi looks back on their narrow exit in 1961
Czechoslovakia were probably annoyed to be in this play-off. After beating the Scots 4-0 at home in their World Cup qualifying group, they led 2-1 at Hampden before Denis Law scored twice, including the winner with only seven minutes left. That left the two teams level on points – the only other team in the group, Ireland, lost every game. To make matters worse, Czechoslovakia’s captain and left-back Ladislav Novak picked up an injury that was still keeping him out.
The drug money has dried up, but Nacional of Medellín are back – to the despair of their popular but inept neighbours. Jake Lagnado reports
Hear the word Medellín and you might think of Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel. Indeed, in Medellín, as in the rest of Colombia, there were many financial and personal ties between the drugs trade and professional football, as symbolised by the campaign to free the city’s favourite son, Rene Higuita, from jail in 1993. Since Escobar’s death the same year, the trade has been reorganised: much less drug money is invested in the local economy, meaning football clubs now have to market themselves to avoid total ruin.
It looks like Sheffield, but the Eindhoven derby hasn't been on a level playing-field for 50 years. Ernst Bouwes goes in search of PSV's forgotten neighbours
When he saw Jan Louwers bending over to adjust the ball on the penalty spot, Lieuwe Steiger checked his position on the goalline once more by looking at one of the posts. Watched by a capacity crowd (and then some), the PSV keeper had been beaten by local rivals EVV once that afternoon. Now the score stood at 1-1. The losers of this local derby could be out of the championship play-offs for 1955, the first year of Dutch professional football. When Steiger looked up again to prepare for the penalty, he saw Louwers grinning sheepishly. There was a space on the penalty spot where the ball should have been. The Eindhoven striker had already taken the kick, hoping he could surprise the keeper. So he did, almost hitting a photographer with his miscue.
Falkirk appear to hae been saved from relegation by Airdrie's demise. But James Teideman is still bitter about the fate of clubs excluded from the SPL
It is the night that Bayer Leverkusen host Manchester United in the second leg of their semi-final. The Champions League music that welcomes the teams on to the pitch at Brockville Park floats with comic irony over the terraces – as if it isn’t surreal enough that Everton are playing here tonight for the honour of lifting the Alex Scott memorial trophy, highlight of Falkirk’s 125th anniversary celebrations. The travelling fans must have had a laugh as they surveyed the crumbling “stadium” that sums up the melancholy malaise of small Scottish clubs.