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Sweden and Trinidad and Tobago kick off their World Cup campaigns on Saturday with both teams pinning their hopes on two 34-year-olds looking to shine once more in the twilight of their careers. The Swedes, tipped to qualify alongside England from Group B, will be buoyed by the evergreen Henrik Larsson.
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Germany captain Michael Ballack believes he has recovered from injury and disagrees with coach Jurgen Klinsmann’s decision to rest him for the opening game of the World Cup against Costa Rica on Friday, a report said. ”I have had intensive treatment. I feel fit and I’m not feeling pain any more. I want to play,” Ballack told Friday’s Bild newspaper.
Changes to the mandate of the Donen Commission of Inquiry into possible illicit business deals between South African companies and individuals in former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s government were on hold for now, President Thabo Mbeki indicated in reply to a parliamentary question on Friday.
Jake White will tell you the best thing about the team he has picked for the first Test against Scotland this weekend is that they share 525 caps among them. Ad, while Os du Randt is back with John Smit to anchor the loosehead, the same confidence cannot be felt about Eddie Andrews on the tighthead.
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United States midfielder DaMarcus Beasley has heard the ugly words, vicious taunts screamed by fans in The Netherlands simply because he is black. Cameroon’s brilliant Samuel Eto’o was so sickened by insults hurled his way that he threatened to walk off the field.
The most remarkable thing about David Beckham is that he is not all that great a football player. He is good, sure. Some days he is excellent. But he is not great. What sets him apart, what makes him unique, is that never in sport has the gap been wider between a player’s talent and his fame.
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Playing in the stadium of his club side Marseille in 1998, South Africa’s lanky centre-half Pierre Issa put the ball in his own net twice against France and then muffed his team’s only clear-cut opening at the other end. World Cups have their zeros as well as heroes. Harry Pearson picks his XI to get nowhere.
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Should Germany be anything like as bad in this World Cup as they were in Euro 2004, fans who currently protest about his base in California will rant that Jürgen Klinsmann should never be allowed to leave it again. Though his citizenship is not yet being revoked, solidarity with him is tenuous.
Get used to it. It is early June and tennis is in thrall to Rafael ”Rafa” Nadal, the Majorcan who, once he steps on to a clay court, transmutes from softly smiling youngster to, in the estimation of one leading British coach, ”the toughest bastard the game has ever seen”.
Gwede Mantashe, the former general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, is tipped to join the Development Bank of South Africa as the bank’s second-most senior executive. Union and government sources confirmed that Mantashe, who served as a unionist for more than 30 years was heading to the state-owned bank as executive manager for special projects.