What’s a World Cup With No Maradona? Maybe Safer
World Cup journalists can rest easy. Diego Armando Maradona, so far absent from France 98, is not coming to the tournament after all.
The former star, now eclipsed by Gabriel Batistuta, was delayed in Argentina while the courts in Buenos Aires decided how to punish him for firing at journalists with an air gun four years ago.
Maradona eventually was given a two-year and 10-month suspended jail sentence on Friday, after which he said he was too depressed to fly to France, where he was scheduled to comment on games for an Argentine television station. That would make it the first time in five World Cups that Maradona has not been at the quadrennial event.
Of course, if Argentina shows signs of making a run at the title, expect the pudgy one to change his mind and try to hog some of the limelight.
BUMP, SET AND . . . KICK?
Japanese reporters covering the World Cup got into the Maradona mode while watching the Argentine team in its final practice session for Sunday’s game against Japan.
Instead of playing soccer, Coach Daniel Passarella’s squad loosened up with a game of volleyball.
Japanese onlookers joked that Passarella’s players were practicing the “hand of God,” referring to the infamous goal Maradona scored with his fist against England in the 1986 quarterfinals in Mexico.
A STITCH IN TIME MAY SAVE MATCH
When England plays Tunisia today in Marseille, there will be more than few people paying attention to Japanese referee Masayoshi Okada, who will be in charge of his first World Cup match.
Unless his pockets have been sewn shut, Okada could be reaching for his yellow and red cards quite often. As a referee, he is best remembered for sending off so many players in a Netherlands-Honduras match at the FIFA World Youth Championship in Qatar three years ago that the game had to be abandoned.
MESSIEUR, YOUR TIME IS COMING
The leader in the clubhouse for most stupid--or certainly the least sensitive--comment to come out of the World Cup so far belongs to France’s Marcel Desailly, talking about his country’s 3-0 opening-game victory.
“We did well, but don’t forget it was only South Africa,” Desailly said.
Hopefully, before July 12, someone will be saying, “We did well, but don’t forget it was only France.”
PRIORITIES ARE PRIORITIES, YOU SEE
It’s not every day you hear a coach refer to two of his players as “a pair of gangsters,” but that’s exactly what Norway’s coach, Egil Olsen, called Henning Berg and Erik Mykland after the two visited a nightclub until after 4 a.m. Saturday.
The players were given a dressing down by Olsen, but neither will be sent home. Norway plays Scotland on Tuesday, and Olsen needs both if he expects to win.
