Dear WSC
Watching the Seinfeld rerun “The Doll” recently, in which Frank Costanza rebuilt his son George’s old bedroom into a poolroom, I happened to see something peculiar behind the back of the ginger Korea vet when he is arguing with his wife Estelle. On the wall is a plaquette with the words “Pool is not a matter of life and death. It is …” well, take a guess.Does this mean that for the first time in history the Americans have picked up a lesson from a foreigner or might it be that Shanks’s quote was not so Shanks at all?
Ernst Bouwes, Nijmegen, Holland
The organisers are getting ready but who will qualify? Ian Plenderleith shows the best places to find out
If you’ve been lying awake at nights wondering what the mascot for the next World Cup is going to look like, you might imagine that nothing could be worse than the feckless man-cum-chicken that adorned memorabilia at France 98. Yet if you happen to be passing through the website of the Thailand national team you will discover that the collective marketing genius of FIFA and the Japanese and Korean organising committees has come up with not one but three half-witted creations that will be acting as symbols for the 2002 tournament.
Across eastern Europe, black players are making their mark. Filippo Ricci reports
After nearly two decades in the international wilderness, Poland appear to have found a top class goalscorer. And he’s Nigerian. Emmanuel Olisadebe has scored three goals in four games for the national team including two in a surprise 3-1 win World Cup win in Ukraine. He arrived in Poland three years ago, having been top scorer in the Nigerian league, and helped his new club Polonia Warsaw to a league and cup double. A year ago his former coach at Polonia, Jerzy Engel, took over the national team and asked Olisadebe to take out Polish citizenship and start playing for the national team. There are even rumours that the player could change his name to Olisadebowski.
Life has been tough for the independent countries that grew out of the olf Soviet Union. Kevin O'Flynn tracks the progress of the smaller republics in the latest qualifiers
In 1988, the soviet union’s football team was more or less at its peak, reaching the final of the European Championships. Unfortunately for them, it was more or less the only part of the country that still functioned as well. When the Union broke up ten years ago no one realised how badly afffected the new republics would be. The lack of decent competition – think what would happen if the Premiership were split into 15 regional leagues – was bad enough, but the economic collapse of most of the republics meant that most decent footballers could not earn a proper wage.
Leyton Orient and West Ham have grown even further apart since the Eighties, as Tom Davies reports
Football fans in London have always been more promiscuous than elsewhere, as one would expect with 13 clubs to choose from. If you couldn’t make your team’s away game you could always go elsewhere. A Chelsea fan could pop down to Fulham, a Leyton Orient fan might be tempted by a trip to Upton Park or Highbury (usually, to silently support the opposition), or a Spurs fan could pop up to Barnet.