BORA ISN’T GOING AWAY

Now that Bora Milutinovic’s Nigeria has been knocked out of the World Cup, where will soccer’s wanderer go next?

After Sunday night’s loss to Denmark, Milutinovic was not sure, but neither was he particularly concerned. “I don’t know where I’m going to be tomorrow morning,” said the man who has coached Mexico, Costa Rica, the United States and Nigeria.

But he won’t disappear. By 2002, with any luck, he will have another country, another team, another dream. “I’m a very happy man,” he said. “I never say goodbye.”

Not a bad title for an autobiography.

SO MUCH FOR THE RANKINGS

As if further proof were needed to show just how useless a public-relations exercise FIFA’s world rankings are, the final pre-World Cup version of the poll ranked the following teams in the top 16: the Czech Republic, Colombia, the United States, Japan, Morocco, Spain and Russia.

So seven of the 16 ranked teams are not even in the final 16 at the World Cup and two--the Czechs and Russians--are not even in the tournament.

Looking at it another way, the World Cup final 16 includes teams ranked way too low by FIFA. For instance: France (17), Croatia (19), Romania (22), the Netherlands (25) and Denmark (27).