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• Portland, Oregon | 27 August . . . Consistent in the remembrance of Clive Charles, men's and women's soccer coach at the University of Portland (Oregon), is that he did not emphasize results, knowing, after all, that results are fickle. The university's press release about Charles, who died on 26 August of complications from prostate cancer, re-creates the amusing tableau of Charles and players on his men's team listening to an opposing coach berate his players, which they could hear through thin locker-room walls. Players said that Charles would not scream at them, but told them to enjoy their football. "I didn't really have a lot of confidence when I came to Portland," said Shannon MacMillan, striker for the U.S. women's team, "and he helped me become a happy, confident person." Such perspective is admirable from a man who played at a high level, with West Ham United (London) and Cardiff City (Wales), and as a highly rated defender (at least by Pelé) on the Portland Timbers of the North American Soccer League. The Timbers honored Charles at their game on 29 August, and the University of Portland held a memorial. | back to top
• Lahti, Finland, and Freetown, Sierra Leone | 27 August . . . Thirteen players for the Sierra Leone youth team have been "found," several days after they disappeared in Finland following their three games in FIFA's Under-17 World Championship. The players are believed to be seeking political asylum from their war-torn country. In a meandering commentary about the incident, Osman Benk Sankoh writes in the Concord Times of Freetown that the disappearance was to be expected. "[T]his shameful act which will continue to hunt [sic] us for years and years to come has rekindled that negative decade-old past of this country as a nation of gun-toting kids and marauding gangsters. We must, however, doff our hearts to those [players] that braved it back to the impoverished nation, a nation wherein to secure a plate of rice and a pint of coke after waking up in the morning would be like challenging the Mozambican Express Maria Mutola for a marathon dash for Mount Kilimanjaro." | back to top
• Skopje, Macedonia | 18 August . . . A summer tableau in Respekt, an independent Prague-based weekly, portrays the fragile peace negotiated among various Macedonian factions (Premysl Rosulek, "Soccer Brings Hope to a Divided Nation" [reprint, World Press Review, November 2003]). A source of hope is football, with tens of thousands celebrating the 2-2 draw with England in fall 2002. Artim Sakiri, an Albanian, scored from a corner kick, and one analyst "believes that Sakiri has achieved more for mutual coexistence of Albanians and Macedonians with this goal than all the projects and nongovernmental organizations combined." | back to top
• Swansea, Wales, and Isandlwana, South Africa | 15 August . . . Lest a perfectly good pitch go to waste, a Swansea University student is raising funds to move an astroturf field to a primary school in the KwaZulu-Natal province ("Anna's Ambitious Pitch—Swansea to South Africa," News Wales). Anna Lane has approached the Royal Navy for help in transport, along with Zulu chiefs for permission to move the pitch there. The village, on 22 January 1879, was the site of a key engagement in the Anglo-Zulu War. "Tents were being struck, oxen hitched to wagons," according to one account. "At 12 o'clock the camp was attacked by 24,000–25,000 Zulu warriors, using the tactics of the horns of the buffalo. The Zulus . . . surrounded the camp[,] annihilating 1,329 British soldiers." | back to top
• Dalian, China | 14 August . . . FIFA reports that the Chinese women's national team (the "Steel Roses," or "Iron Roses," depending on the translation) has been training with men's side Dalian Shide, losing 5-1 on 6 August to Dalian's reserves. The article offers insight into the Chinese women's stern regimen leading to the Women's World Cup: 10 400-meter sprints per day, plus another 10 kilometers of running per day. "Even the goalkeepers have to run seven or eight kilometers," says goalkeeper Xiao Zhen. China has upcoming friendlies with Nigeria, Australia and South Africa. (See issue 7 of The Global Game for more on Chinese women's football.) | back to top
• Bangkok |12 August . . . Real Madrid concluded its Asia tour with a 2-1 victory over Thailand. According to reports, Zinedine Zidane, as is his custom, masterfully created space in midfield; however, more space needed to be created outside Rajamangala Stadium, where traffic was a bear. The Nation, a Bangkok daily, reports that congestion was lighter on the klongs (canals): "Although there are no traffic lights on the Saen Saeb canal, there is a down side to travelling by boat. . . . [T]he smell of the filthy canal water is almost overwhelming." | back to top
• London | 9 August . . . With top-flight leagues in the U.K., France and Germany beginning new campaigns, the talk turns to . . . shirts. The Times (London) gives surprising information: that players' names only appeared on shirts in England with the 1993 league-cup final. At the same time, the English Premier League introduced the idea of each player having his own number, rather than numbering the players in each match according to position, 1 through 11 ("1" for goalkeeper, "10" and "11" for the front-runners, the rest in between). The Times quotes Trevor Phillips, the Premier League's commercial director when the changes were instituted: "It’s difficult to imagine a game without it now. I was watching Tottenham against Kaizer Chiefs in Cape Town the other day and as is normal at pre-season games the Spurs' guys didn't have any names on their shirts. They had several young or new players and I was thinking 'who on earth are they?' " The August FourFourTwo includes shirt tales (Dan Rookwood, "Big Girl's Blouse!" 46–47), from unconventional post-match exchanges to embarrassing gaffes (like spelling David Beckham's name "Beckam" at the 1997 Charity Shield). See also the Washington Post's nice history of shirt exchanging. | back to top