SOCCER / GRAHAME L. JONES : Another Good Excuse to Go to Paris: 1998 World Cup Draw
The “Mona Lisa” and Alexi Lalas will have something in common this week.
Both will be hanging around the Louvre.
Lalas, the flame-haired, goatee-sprouting, guitar-strumming U.S. national team defender, is one of 11 international sports figures invited to Paris to take part in Tuesday’s draw for the 1998 World Cup in France.
Among those joining Lalas in the ceremony at the Carrousel du Louvre will be former Formula One champion Alain Prost, French tennis star Yannick Noah, retired Brazilian World Cup striker Zico and Liberia and AC Milan star George Weah, who earlier this month was voted Africa’s player of the year.
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$410 million. That’s what FIFA estimates it will cost to stage World Cup ‘98, to be played in nine French cities from June 10 to July 12 that year.
The figure is $144 million higher than the budget for the 1994 World Cup in the United States. Part of the increase, of course, is because the field has been expanded from 24 teams to 32.
Math wizards will note that’s a 33% increase in participants but a 54% increase in budget.
Meanwhile, Joseph “Sepp” Blatter, FIFA’s genial general secretary, said Sunday that the sale of France ’98 television rights in the United States will bring in $22.7 million, or $10 million more than USA ’94.
“This shows that soccer is increasingly being taken seriously by American TV,” he said.
Maybe.
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Among the 162 countries in Tuesday’s draw to determine who plays who in qualifying rounds for France ’98 is Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was added Sunday.
Pains will no doubt be taken to ensure that it does not end up in the same qualifying group as Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia or Yugoslavia.
The United States, like Mexico and Canada, has only limited interest in what happens in Paris. The three countries have a bye until the second round and will not begin play until the fall of 1996.
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Notre Dame has seen the light. A tradition among the Irish is that whenever the university wins an NCAA championship, the large numeral 1 atop Grace Hall dormitory is lighted.
In the past, this has only been done when the football team won the national title.
But Notre Dame’s victory in the NCAA women’s soccer championship has changed all that.
The green lights are shining in South Bend and the No. 1 will remain lighted until next season.
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“I hope I go to bed Monday a very tired and happy person,” Portland’s Clive Charles said a week or so ago.
Well, Monday is here and Charles may be tired but he’s not very happy.
The Pilots lost the NCAA women’s title to Notre Dame, 1-0, in overtime in the final and were ousted, 1-0, Friday by eventual champion Wisconsin in the men’s semifinal.
Charles, 43, who came from England to play for the Portland Timber in North American Soccer League days, coaches both teams and was seeking to become the first coach to reach both the men’s and women’s final in the same season.
He says the double duty is no strain.
“It’s become a way of life,” he said. “I just don’t play golf in the afternoon anymore.”
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Pele, who turned 55 this year, remains in great physical shape and still weighs what he did when he led Brazil to its third World Cup triumph a quarter-century ago.
The reason, he says, is simple.
“It’s because I never wanted to be a coach or manager,” he said. “All you’ve got to do is look at my good friend Mario Zagalo [a teammate on the victorious 1970 team and now Brazil’s coach] to see what coaching does to you. He’s only slightly older than me, but he looks like my grandfather.”
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If Peter O’Malley really wants to leave a sporting imprint on this city, the Dodger owner can put aside his NFL dreams and build a 25,000- or 30,000-seat soccer stadium instead.
The Chavez Ravine land he has proposed for a stadium would be the perfect location for such a venture and would probably draw more support from the neighborhood than his current plan.
Soccer Notes
U.S. national team players Marcelo Balboa, John Harkes and Alexi Lalas are the finalists in Futbol de Primera’s Honda Player of the Year balloting as voted on by 170 soccer writers and broadcasters nationwide. The winner will be announced in Los Angeles next month.
