Santos at a Disadvantage in Home-Game Ruling
Home-field advantage doesn’t mean much in Brazil, where it can sometimes be taken away altogether.
That’s what happened to Santos on Friday. The club made famous by Pele more than three decades ago was told that it cannot play its home game in the two-game Brazilian championship final in its own Vila Belmira stadium.
The Brazilian soccer federation’s often confusing rules state that title matches can only be in stadiums that hold more than 25,000. Vila Belmira does not meet that criterion.
Worse yet for Santos, both halves of the final must be played at the Morumbi stadium in Sao Paulo, which is where its championship opponent, Corinthians, plays most of its significant matches.
“It’s our right to play at the Vila,” Santos Coach Emerson Leao angrily told Reuters. “Until now, everything has been difficult, we have always been underdogs and we have overturned the disadvantage by winning our match at home.”
Toluca Tale
In a strange move, Toluca, one of Mexico’s most powerful teams, asked the Mexican soccer federation on Friday if it could “borrow” Mexico national team Coach Ricardo Lavolpe for today’s playoff quarterfinal game against Chivas of Guadalajara.
Lavolpe had coached Toluca until being hired as Mexico’s coach in October, when he was replaced by Wilson Graneolatti.
Toluca lost the first game of the two-game series, 2-1, at Guadalajara and must win today or be eliminated. Rather than being angered, Graneolatti said “there won’t be a problem” if Lavolpe returns for the one game.
Henry Backer
Arsenal striker Thierry Henry said last month that he does not believe Real Madrid’s Ronaldo should be chosen as Europe’s 2002 player of the year simply because he won the World Cup.
On Friday, Henry got support for that stance from an unlikely source: Alfredo Di Stefano, the former Real Madrid star who is honorary president of the club. He told the Spanish sports daily As that Henry deserves the award.
“In my opinion, Arsenal’s Henry is playing the best football in Europe at the moment,” Di Stefano said. “I also believe he has been the best player in Europe for some time now.”
Key to the City
Former Southampton and England national team midfielder Matthew Le Tissier will be honored by the port city today when he is named “Honorary Freeman of the City of Southampton” for his services to the local club.
Le Tissier, 34, retired in May after spending his entire 16-year professional career with Southampton, playing 462 games and scoring 209 goals.
Euro 2004
Gilberto Madail, chairman of the organizing committee for the 2004 European Championship in Portugal, said Friday that all 10 stadiums to be used in the tournament are on course to have the $550 million in construction or redevelopment work complete by the September 2003 deadline.
“Naturally, one or two are behind, and one or two ahead of schedule,” Madail said. “But no stadium risks not being ready by the deadline.”
Quick Passes
Mexico and El Salvador will play each other today at Estadio Cuscatlan in San Salvador in the championship game of the XIX Central American and Caribbean Games.... Nacional of Uruguay needs a tie against Danubio on Sunday to win the Uruguayan league title for the third year in a row. Nacional defeated Danubio, 2-1, in the first of the two-game championship series.
