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• London | 26 December . . . The legendary No Man's Land truce of December 1914 was a reality. So writes Simon Kuper ("When Football Brought Peace to the Trenches," Financial Times), referencing recent books by Stanley Weintraub (Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce [Plume, 2002]) and Michael Jürgs (Der kleine Frieden im grossen Krieg [The small peace in the big war] [Bertelsmann, 2003]). According to diaries, German and Allied soldiers did initiate a pause in hostilities, during which football matches were staged, although, Kuper writes, "shellholes and the soldiers' huge boots made close control impossible." Four years ago the diary of one Lt. Kurt Zehmisch was found. Zehmisch writes:

  A couple of Britons brought a ball from their trenches and a lively game began. How fantastically wonderful and yet strange. The British officers experienced it just the same—that thanks to football and Christmas, the feast of love, deadly enemies could briefly meet as friends.

  Kuper notes that the last soldier known to have played No Man's Land football, Bertie Felstead, who played in a match at Christmas 1915, died in 2001 at an old-age home in Gloucestershire. He was 106. | back to top

• Parma, Italy | 26 December . . . Former Parmalat Finanziaria SpA president Calisto Tanzi served as benefactor for the local Roman Catholic cathedral and for Parma Calcio AC, UEFA Cup champions in 1999 and recent celebrants of a 90th anniversary. But, of course, as Parmalat faces bankruptcy and with Tanzi already having resigned (on 15 December), supporters of the Serie A club sense a reckoning (Alessandra Galloni and Deborah Ball, "Downfall of Chief of Parmalat Hurts a Lot in Parma," Wall Street Journal, pp. A1, A8; link is for WSJ online subscribers only):

  At the soccer team's 90th-birthday celebration last Friday—the very day Parmalat admitted it had faked a more than $4 billion bank account—hundreds of fans gathered in the main piazza to root on the team—and Mr. Tanzi. "He put our team on the map," said Paolo Medioli, head of the team's national fan club, raising a plastic glass of prosecco sparkling wine. "He will always stay in our hearts."

  Tanzi is also lauded for his modest lifestyle, consisting of "casa, chiesa e fabbrica" (home, church and factory). For more background on AC Parma, see Roberto Gotta's recent review ("Trouble in Food Valley," ESPNSoccernet.com, 17 December). | back to top

• Washington | 23 December . . . Public Broadcasting's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer weighs in on the fall of the Women's United Soccer Association. Kwame Holman speaks with Joe Cummings, former general manager for the Boston Breakers, National Basketball Association commissioner David Stern, and Donna Lopiano, director of the Women's Sports Foundation ("Women's Goals," full transcript online). Perhaps most encouraging, though, are Holman's conversations at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart (Bethesda, Maryland) and Yorktown High School (Arlington, Virginia). He speaks with Yorktown athlete John Crone, a gridiron football player, who says he prefers women's sports:

  Women's sports are just a lot [of] fun to watch. It's like, I think it's a lot of fun, a lot more fun to watch because they're a lot more serious than sometimes guys. Like, especially with soccer. Because the guys' soccer, they can, like, fall down whenever, like, they barely get touched. But the women, they just get up and they're all tough about it. So, I don't know, I just love women's sports. | back to top

• Turin, Italy | 19 December . . . Authorities excused former Juventus playmaker and current FIFA player of the year Zinedine Zidane from a court appearance in the ongoing case against club officials and a pharmacist accused of giving players illegal substances in the mid-1990s (Ben Lyttleton, "Brazil, Where Poor Fans Are Snubbed by the Beautiful Game," Scotland on Sunday, 28 December; see second item). Filippo Inzaghi, Roberto Baggio and Angelo Peruzzi, however, were called to testify. Zidane already had said at a preliminary hearing that he had taken creatine, a dietary supplement, and "perfusions of a product whose name I don't know—I think it was vitamins and sugars." He also said that he took an antidepressant intravenously "to eliminate fatigue." Turin prosecutor Raffaele Guariniello, himself a Juventus supporter, told Le Monde that he expects the case to be concluded by next summer ("Zinédine Zidane est convoqué à Turin au procès de la Juventus," 8 December). . . . Regarding Zidane and his player-of-the-year award, we like FIFA's treatment ("A Day with Zinédine Zidane," 17 December). When Ronaldo asks for chewing gum, Zidane has a pack on hand—another assist! [For an update on the Juve drugs situation, with Zidane acknowledging past use of Esafosfina, Neoton, Samyr, creatine and Voltaren, see Ralph Rogers, "Juve Case Must Prompt Review," Financial Times, 27 January 2004]. | back to top
• Cuzco, Peru | 19 December . . . Pundits are hailing Cienciano de Cuzco's Copa Sudamericana trophy and Peru's positive start in qualifying for World Cup 2006 (5 points in four matches) as a renaissance in Peruvian football. With a roster of unknowns and allegedly fueled by the mysterious maca root (see Mark Zeigler, "South American Stunner," San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 December), Cienciano defeated River Plate on aggregate in the final pairing—the final had to be played in Arequipa, as Cienciano's stadium is too small. Zeigler calls the result "the South American version of 'Hoosiers.' " Founded in 1901 by teachers and students of the Colegio Nacional de Ciencias (Frank Dell'Apa, "Brazil Victories for the Ages," Boston Globe, 23 December [second item]), Cienciano did not become a professional side until 1973 and has consistently finished in the lower reaches of the Peruvian league, which, incidentally, was suspended in November when players were not being paid (Tim Vickery, "Peru's Inca Trial," BBC Sport, 1 December). No question that Peruvians as a whole are celebrating—the nation next year hosts the Copa America for the sixth time and, in 2005, FIFA's under-17 world championships. Cienciano's website now offers photos and a message board commemorating the club's unexpected triumph. One supporter writes, "Cienciano no es un sentimiento es una pasion." | back to top
• Zurich | 17 December . . . Let's get straight to the most volatile paragraph from FIFA president Joseph (Sepp) Blatter's op-ed article in today's Financial Times ("Soccer's Greedy Neo-colonialists," available by subscription only):

  Europe's leading clubs conduct themselves increasingly as neo-colonialists who do not give a damn about heritage and culture but engage in social and economic rape by robbing the developing world of its best players. If we are not careful, football may degenerate into a game of greed—a trend I shall vigorously oppose.

  Blatter makes explicit early on that he refers to the so-called G14, which actually groups 17 top European clubs as an advocacy and lobbying force. Blatter's essay has been prompted by the request that FIFA reimburse G14 clubs for national teams' use of G14-member players in major international events. The FIFA leader rebuts that such reimbursement is the responsibility of domestic football associations. Blatter, however, appears a bit disingenous about FIFA's authority, saying the organization exists to distribute funds and lets FAs make decisions. Yet he threatens lifetime bans against players on steroids—singling out Manchester United's Rio Ferdinand for special mention for failing to take a September drug test—and immediate relegation for the players' clubs. Blatter may be right about rich clubs prospecting for talent around the globe, but he must acknowledge that, in sport, there is no organization like FIFA: setting rules, schedules and protocol for clubs big and small, men or women, handicapped or fully abled, futsal or 11-a-side. | back to top

• Vancouver, British Columbia | 16 December . . . Former San Jose Earthquakes coach Frank Yallop is introduced today as coach of Canada's national team. Yallop has an interesting background, as chronicled by the Toronto Star (" 'A Breath of Fresh Air' "). While playing for the reserve team of the North American Soccer League's Vancouver Whitecaps, Yallop—born in Watford, England—was spotted by the Whitecaps' brain trust of the time, notables Les Wilson and Nobby Stiles. This was 1980, when Yallop was 15. Yallop turned professional with Ipswich Town, for whom Yallop played 376 games as a defender; he has 52 caps for Canada. He made a lasting impression in the U.K., where a band formed in tribute: the Frank Yallop Experience. | back to top
• London | 16 December . . . Stunning essay by Australian-born feminist Germaine Greer, author of The Whole Woman and The Female Eunuch, on the destructive and criminal sexual behavior of male athletes, such as that alleged against Kobe Bryant and assorted U.K. footballers ("Nothing New about Ugly Sex," The Guardian). Among her insights is that men behave badly in groups, invoking the powerful bond of "shared transgression and mutual guilt." Also, "Athletes don't get involved in sordid behaviour because they need sex but because they need sordidness." She does try to take a balanced view of these men's actions, seeing the athletes as repositories of others' desires:

  All athletes (and managers) live on a knife edge. All are only as good as their last performance. All are incessantly reminded that there is only one way to go after reaching the top, and that's down. The situation of footballers is the most precarious of all. As the last in the pecking order, after club owners, directors and managers, players are denied adult status. They are "lads" or "boys" to be bought and sold, transferred or dropped or left on the bench; as they are denied autonomy, we can't be surprised if they lack responsibility. Their survival depends on luck and is as fragile as a hamstring. Much of the concerted misbehaviour that ends in catastrophe begins as an attempt to discharge accumulated tension, which is no excuse. | back to top

• New York | 14 December . . . Andrés Martinez, writing on the New York Times editorial pages ("Nowadays, Owning a Ball Club Means Always Having to Say You're Sorry," p. 10), highlights the trend for sports-club owners to apologize for their teams' poor performances. He contrasts this notion to a childhood spent rooting for Atlético Español in Mexico, "a soccer team whose ineptitude caused me endless grief."

  On plenty of Monday mornings back when I was in junior high (say after Atlético had only managed to score on its own goal over the weekend), I wanted to stay home, so as to avoid the inevitable ribbing from my classmates, most of whom rooted for the Club América. América was the Dallas Cowboys, or the New York Yankees, of Mexican soccer. When it imported a Brazilian player, he was likely to be someone who had played in the World Cup. When a Brazilian happened to join my team, it was because he'd rather play somewhere, anywhere, than drive a bus back in Rio. | back to top

• Antibes, Cote d'Azur, France | 14 December . . . Mickael Madar, the erstwhile forward for Everton, Deportivo de La Coruña and the French national side, has opened a school designed for Jewish players. "I reckon there are too few Jews playing football," Madar tells Ben Lyttleton, writing for the Scotsman, "and yet we are just as good as anyone else. That's why I set up my soccer school—with kosher food available. But the school is open to everyone, by the way." Madar also has salty, and unquotable, views on his playing career (link is for adults only). . . . In the same piece, Lyttleton mentions the sad fate of deposed Real Madrid manager Vicente del Bosque, who was fired after his side won La Liga to conclude the 2002–03 campaign. "When they told me I was past it and not modern enough, it hurt. I'm not ashamed to say that when I thought of my 35 years spent at the club, I cried. . . . I'm looking for a job. I want to coach again, be it in Spain or abroad. Four months without working is too much rest. I'd very much like to get an offer, but honestly I've had nothing." | back to top
• Lyon, France | 12 December . . . French champions Olympique Lyonnais have been frustrated in their attempts to go public and to raise funds to compete with other publicly traded European sides, according to the Financial Times. The initial public offering planned by club chairman Jean-Michel Aulas would raise about €30 million and would represent the next stage in the club's growing popularity. The club, according to the FT's Paul Betts, has sold its brand to restaurants, hair salons, taxi companies and local Beaujolais wine. Regulators in France, however, object to introducing competitive disparities among domestic franchises. | back to top
• Medellín, Colombia | 7 December . . . We are not sure of the report's credibility, but in its weekend dispatch the Observer (U.K.) quotes Colombian journalist Jaime Herrera, who claims that Andrés Escobar, the Colombian defender who scored an own goal against the United States in the 1994 World Cup, was murdered for "getting friendly with a woman" rather than for his play on the pitch (John Carlin, "Pelé's Tips for Top Hit Rock Bottom"). The man who killed Escobar, Herrera says, was caliente, or "hot," "meaning up to his neck in the drug trafficking business," Carlin writes. "Escobar's fate was sealed. Whether he had scored that own goal or the winner in the World Cup final, he was a dead man." More relevant than this ghoulish speculation—which, in the end, likely matters little to Escobar's family—is the broader account of Colombian football, seen to be at a nadir following a recent home loss to Venezuela in qualifying for 2006. The Colombian players, Herrera says, "seem to be suffering from that amnesia that sometimes descends on teams, forgetting that the point of the game is to score. The Argentines mockingly say these days that if football were played horizontally Colombia would be world champions." | back to top
• Sydney, Rome and New York | 6 December . . . Frank Farina, coach of Australia's "Socceroos," seems resigned to the Aussies' fate after FIFA confirmed that an Oceania team could only earn a 2006 World Cup finals slot in a playoff with a South American side—the same setup as in 2002, when Australia lost the slot in a playoff against Uruguay (Michael Cockerill, "Draw Completes the Shafting of Oceania," Sydney Morning Herald). Farina says he will push Oceania officials to lobby FIFA for the home advantage in the eventual playoff's second leg. "We're talking crumbs," Farina said, "but that's what we've got left." . . . We had no idea that AS Roma's Francesco Totti has earned a clown's reputation for his malapropisms; so writes the Washington Post in an article that focuses on Totti's latest project, his best-selling book, Tutte le barzellette su Totti raccolte da me (All the jokes about Totti collected by me). Rome-based correspondent Daniel Williams writes:

  Legend has it that Totti began kicking a ball in his crib at nine months. He began playing organized soccer at age 5. He moved through four youth teams before hooking up with Roma at 17. Lazio, Roma's arch rival, wanted to sign him, but that would be like Caesar playing for the Gauls. Totti once scored a goal against Lazio and unveiled a T-shirt inscribed with the words, "Lazio, I've given you a laxative again." . . .

  The Financial Times's Simon Kuper lounges with National Basketball Association commissioner David Stern, who jokes about football's lack of profitability as compared to basketball. Seemingly lacking in Stern's analysis, however, is that he contrasts a single professional organization with a social movement, as football encompasses multifarious forms that will always find cultural expression outside any business model. No doubt that basketball has grassroots appeal—in our view, the game takes its highest form at the amateur and university levels (men's and women's)—but Stern, at least in Kuper's article, views basketball solely within a corporate context. | back to top

• Amman, Jordan | 5 December . . . David Enders files for online magazine Slate from the decisive Iraq–North Korea men's Olympic qualifier ("Soccer in the Axis of Evil"). Iraq won 4-1 for the aggregate victory and advances to the next qualifying round (the North Korea match actually occurred on 8 November). Enders flashes back to an earlier moment in the U.S. military occupation of Iraq:

  Near the end of June, the occupation-appointed adviser to the Ministry of Youth and Sport, Don Eberle, presided over a farcical "turning-over" of the Olympic Stadium. The occasion included a scrimmage between a hastily assembled team of Iraqi professionals and an even more hastily assembled team of Marines. There were snipers posted around the stadium, and behind the standard ambulance a medical unit sat on a tank. Artillery holes pockmarked the bleachers, which were sparsely filled with bored-looking troops who rooted for the Iraqis. The home team trounced the Marines, 11-0, in a physical but friendly match. The quintessential American problem: great at war, not so good at playing the world game. | back to top

• São Paulo | 4 December . . . Not Katia, Marta or Milene Domingues—the soon to be ex–Mrs. Ronaldo—but referee Silvia Regina de Oliveira is the best-known woman in Brazilian football, according to the Guardian's Alex Bellos ("Whistle While You Work"). She has earned the recognition by becoming the first woman to referee in the Brazilian top flight and, most notoriously, by sending off Luis Fabiano last month in the Corinthians–São Paulo derby. "It was a normal sending-off," says de Oliveira, "it's just that he is famous." The real stink came when Fabiano stuck his cleats in his mouth afterward, saying, "Just what you would expect from a woman." Fabiano was banned for four matches. Also, Bellos reports, Peter Hetherston of Scottish Third Division side Albion Rovers has resigned following his post-match tirade against lineswoman Morag Pirie, of whom Hetherston said, "She should be at home making the tea or the dinner for her man after he has been to the football." Looks like Hetherston will be home making tea for a bit. | back to top
• Rangoon, Burma | 3 December . . . Reporters sans frontières (Reporters without borders) protests the death sentence leveled on 28 November against Zaw Thet Htwe, the editor of Rangoon football magazine First Eleven. Eight others were sentenced to death during the court martial, all for allegedly conspiring to murder members of the Burmese military regime. "We challenge you to provide the evidence of this journalist's implication in a coup attempt," Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association wrote in a letter to Burmese prime minister Khin Nyunt. Burma watchers speculate that Zaw Thet Htwe's arrest in July was linked to the magazine's probe of alleged irregularities in the Burma Football Association's use of international funds. Zaw Thet Htwe had been imprisoned previously for his involvement in Burma's Democratic Party for a New Society. (For more background on Burma, Julie Chao of Cox News Service writes recently from Rangoon. Also, see the Global Game's reprint of Shawn Nance's article on Burmese football and our resource page.) | back to top
• Oakland, California | 1 December . . . Gaps between the European and American systems of preparing professional athletes are becoming exposed by American teenagers foregoing university for the pro ranks (Mark Sappenfield, "Young, Gifted, and Rich—Behind the Sudden Rise of Teen Sports Superstars," Christian Science Monitor). In football, of course, we have Freddy Adu, who, at 14, is to finish high school on an accelerated schedule and to join D.C. United. The article notes that Major League Soccer felt compelled to sign Adu before he jumped to Europe, where early professionalism in football is the norm.

  The overseas competition has forced MLS to become a model for how to integrate very young talent into a professional atmosphere. Top-level prospects receive a $37,500 scholarship in case they want to go back to college. They receive one of four developmental roster spots on the team, which are saved only for young players. And living arrangements are made. | back to top