What Can You Say? It’s Soccer

Carlos Alberto, captain of Brazil’s 1970 World Cup-winning team and later captain of the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League, said Brazil needs to replace Coach Mario Zagalo.

“Zagalo is a second-rate coach,” Alberto was quoted as saying in the newspaper Estado de Sao Paulo. “He sends the wings up to attack, something that I was doing 40 years ago.”

Fair enough. Except that when Alberto was winning that World Cup 28 years ago, guess who his coach was?

That’s right, Zagalo.

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Trivia time: Which former Laker once scored an NCAA Division I-record 100 points in a game?

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Czechmate on Canadians: Mighty Duck Coach Pierre Page is a huge fan of Dominik Hasek, the Czech Republic goalie who was the star of his team’s victory over Canada in the semifinals of the Olympic tournament.

“The Czechs have the best goalie in the world,” said Page. “He’s like having three Randy Johnsons on one baseball team.”

Recently, Page was watching Hasek, the Sabre goalie, getting ready to face the Ducks in Buffalo by warming up against his own teammates.

Page turned to an assistant coach in amazement and said, “Did you see what I saw? No one made a goal, not one in the whole warm-up.”

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But can he dunk? At the Seattle Mariners’ training camp in Peoria, Ariz., Alex Rodriguez felt fortunate to have gotten a chopper up the middle against Ryan Anderson, the team’s No. 1 pick in last June’s draft.

Anderson, an 18-year-old left-hander, stands 6 feet 11 and has a fastball that was clocked at 99 mph last fall in the instructional league.

Said Rodriguez of his at-bat: “That was like playing Wilt Chamberlain one-on-one.”

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Add Anderson: Teammate Ken Griffey Jr. refers to the towering rookie as “The Space Needle.”

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Hardly bleacher bums: In the 1970s when he was broadcasting Chicago White Sox games, Harry Caray would repeat almost any note that was given to him during a game, most of them involving birthdays, anniversaries and the names of his favorite bartenders.

One night he told his listeners that “Stephen Stills, Jethro Tull and Carlos Santana are watching tonight’s game in the left-field bleachers, drinking Falstaff.”

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Trivia answer: Frank Selvy, who played for the Lakers in the early 1960s. He accomplished the feat for Furman against Newbury in 1954.

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And finally: Writes Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post from Nagano: “Figure skating isn’t a sport. It’s a spectacle. It’s competitive as heck. The men and women who devote their lives to it are more creative and athletic than many, many world-class athletes.

“And so is your prima ballerina, but that doesn’t make ballet a sport, does it?”