Final of historic significance
Yokohama, June 26
Germany face a World Cup final of historic significance on Sunday in sporting and social terms. Astonishingly, three-times winners Germany have never played Brazil in the 72-year-old history of the World Cup despite the fact that the countries have been involved in every final since World War Two apart from the 1978 Argentina-Netherlands clash.

Key player suspended for fourth final
Yokohama (Japan), June 26
Michael Ballack’s yellow card in yesterday night’s semifinal means a key player will be suspended for the fourth straight World Cup final.

Referee feels sorry for Ballack
Basle, June 26
Swiss referee Urs Meier said in an interview today he felt sorry that German international Michael Ballack will be missing Sunday’s final due to his second yellow-card, but that he had no other choice in booking him.

Ballack trying to reconcile to fate
Seoul, June 26
Star German midfielder Michael Ballack said today the realisation he would miss the World Cup final through suspension was almost too much to bear.

The feared German myth is back
Yokohama, June 26
The myth is back.
Written off by virtually everyone, including themselves before the tournament, “Die Mannschaft” has built up a similar efficiency as those of former German World Cup-winning teams of 1954, 1974 and 1990.

The Inter Milan striker’s 49th-minute goal, his sixth in six games in Korea and Japan — was enough to secure Brazil’s place in their third successive final and seventh in all.

Defensive midfielder Gilberto Silva was the architect of Brazil’s winner with a powerful run out of defence down the left.

His pass found Ronaldo who spun away from his marker Tugay Kerimoglu as if he was not there and, with the Turkish defence backpedalling furiously, toe-poked a shot beyond the sprawling Rustu Recber and in off the far post.

Forced to push forward in search of the equaliser, Turkey began to leave holes at the back.

Just minutes after Ronaldo had opened the scoring, he broke clear on the right to set up Edilson only to see his striking partner have the ball pinched off his toe by a last gasp tackle from Fatih Akyel.

Kleberson should have killed off the Turks in the 61st minute when he was left with only Recber to beat after more good work from Ronaldo but the midfielder fired straight at the goalkeeper.

Brazil would have had the match wrapped up by half-time but for a heroic display from Recber in the Turkish goal.

After some cagey opening exchanges, the game suddenly burst into life in the 20th minute when Aston Villa defender Alpay Ozalan got on the end of Fatih Akyel’s cross and forced a fine save from Marcos.

It was to prove the only real test the Brazilian keeper faced in the opening period and Brazil hit back immediately with a slick counter-attack that finished with Ronaldo slipping the ball to the overlapping Cafu on the right of the box.

The Roma wingback unleashed a fierce drive that struck the underside of the sprawling Recber and bounced over the bar.

Recber saved Turkey again in the 23rd minute with a superb double save to keep out a shot from Rivaldo and then push away Ronaldo’s follow-up from close range.

A run by Edilson set up Rivaldo for a shot from the edge of the area in the 34th minute but Recber was there again to touch the ball round the post. Another Rivaldo effort shaved the outside of the Turkish post two minutes later.

Turkey continued to look dangerous with their trademark counterattacks and Brazilian midfielder Gilberto Silva picked up a yellow card for pulling back the lively Yildiray Basturk. AFP

Astonishingly, three-times winners Germany have never played Brazil in the 72-year-old history of the World Cup despite the fact that the countries have been involved in every final since World War Two apart from the 1978 Argentina-Netherlands clash.

Had Turkey pulled off an upset and reached the final at only their second World Cup, the final would have been of special significance in terms of politics and security in Germany, given that around 2.5 million Turks live in the country.

Most major German cities, especially in the Rhine and Ruhr region and in the capital Berlin, have large Turkish communities after hundreds of thousands of Turks went to Germany as ‘’guest workers’’ when its economy was booming in the 1960s and 1970s.

It is one of the great curiosities of the history of football that four-times champions Brazil and Germany, the two most successful World Cup nations, have never stepped on to the same stage at the game’s most prestigious theatre.

Brazil have played in all 17 tournaments and Germany in 15. Both have appeared six times in the final itself, Brazil winning in 1958, 1962, 1970 and 1994 and Germany in 1954, 1974 and 1990.

Only seven countries have won the World Cup — Argentina, England, France, Italy and Uruguay are the others — and there have been World Cup meetings between all of them except for Brazil and Germany, who beat co-hosts South Korea 1-0 yesterday to reach the final.

Berlin has the largest community of Turks outside of Turkey, with around 200,000 — the vast majority still holding Turkish passports.

Many Turks were invited to help bridge labour shortages in the low-skill sector in Germany’s post-World War Two boom. Even after the former West Germany closed its doors again to foreign workers in 1973 as unemployment spiralled during the global oil crisis that year, the Turkish community continued to expand as families grew and children joined their parents.

French defender Laurent Blanc sat out his nation’s 3-0 win over Brazil in 1998, and Italian defender Alessandro Costacurta missed his country’s shootout loss to Brazil in 1994.

In 1990, Argentina forward Claudio Caniggia was among four players on his team who were suspended for the 1-0 loss to West Germany in Rome. The others were defender Julio Olarticoechea and midfielders Sergio Batista and Ricardo Giusti.

“Sure, I feel a bit sorry for him,” Meier told the daily Basler Zeitung about Ballack, whom the referee booked for a sliding tackle from behind in the semifinal match yesterday in Germany’s 1-0 win.

He said Ballack had initially told him that it was merely a foul. Then the German midfielder told the referee what the booking meant - having to sit out the next match because it was his second booking.

“I couldn’t decide any other way in this situation. Without the foul, the opposing player would have made it into the penalty area. So the yellow card was appropriate,” the Swiss referee said.

“I saw the disappointment in his face when I pulled out the yellow card. But the guilt lies more with him than with me,” Meier said.

The referee said he intentionally did not inform himself ahead of the match as to which players already had been booked, “because otherwise I might have departed from my principles”.

But after receiving a deadly yellow card just prior to his match-winning goal against South Korea in yesterday’s semifinal, Ballack said he would be right behind the team as a fan.

“I’ll be there out on the pitch in my heart. I wish the team every success,” said the 25-year-old who will star in Bayern Munich’s midfield next season after helping Bayer Leverkusen through to last May’s Champions League final, where they bowed to Real Madrid.

Although coach Rudi Voller described his star playmaker as irreplaceable Ballack says all is not lost for the final on Sunday against either Brazil or Turkey.

“The team has so much self-confidence and so I think they will come through.

“Nothing can throw us off balance,” said Ballack, who stands to be replaced either by Jens Jeremies or Lars Ricken.

“We can make the best of what we have available,” he added.

Voller agreed, telling reporters that in a tournament which has not produced a real star teamwork is the most important ingredient for a World Cup-winning recipe.

“Germany survive on compact team performance,” Voller explained.

But the absence of the player who also scored the winner against the USA in the quarterfinals and got on the scoresheet in the 8-0 drubbing over Saudi Arabia in the opening phase will leave a huge gap in the German strategy.

Ballack is meanwhile trying to look on the bright side as his team-mates praise him for sacrificing his own final ambitions by picking up his yellow card yesterday with a hard-nosed foul on Lee Chun-soo to prevent him from scoring.

Ballack, Germany’s best outfield player at these finals, said he had no hesitation in downing Lee as he bore down on goal in the 71st minute with the scores level at 0-0.

“It was a silly situation. But if I’d not done it they’d have had a man free for a clear run on goal,” he said.

“My first thoughts are bitterness and personally, I think that this is a very stupid situation because my dream was to play in the final, but now it will not be.” Voller said Ballack had sacrificed that dream for the good of the whole squad.

“I take my hat off to him. He had to make the foul for tactical reasons.

Written off by virtually everyone, including themselves before the tournament, “Die Mannschaft” has built up a similar efficiency as those of former German World Cup-winning teams of 1954, 1974 and 1990.

Even the biggest rivals England were at awe after Rudi Voeller’s squad became the seventh German team to reach a World Cup final with a third successive 1-0 win - yesterday over South Korea.

“Though the words are uttered through gritted teeth, they have to be said. You’ve got to hand it to the Germans. They never buckled, they never even flinched and they never looked like losing,” said The Sun .

The English daily attributed this to Germany’s mental strength which it named “a priceless quality the Germans have had for as long as we can remember”.

England know it all too well about the German mentality from the lost 1970 quarter-final, where they blew a 2-0 lead, or from the lost penalty shootout in the 1990 semi-final.

France, the Netherlands and others have made similar experiences at past World Cups, frustrated by German teams which had superb individuals in Franz Beckenbauer or Lothar Matthaeus but never the same skill as their opponents.

Coming off the winless Euro 2000 disaster and the famous 5-1 drubbing by England last September, Germany had only modest ambitions at the Asian tournament.

“We want to reach the second round, that is our minimal goal,’’ said coach Rudi Voeller, naming the quarter-finals a realistic aim.

Key players like Sebastian Deisler, Mehmet Scholl, Christian Woerns and Jens Nowotny couldn’t make the trip for injury reasons and the class of 2002 has only one world class player in goalkeeper Oliver Kahn.

Even though the games were far from impressive, Germany played only one truely bad match, against the USA, from which they rebounded very well on Tuesday in Seoul.

“In modern football you should be able to beat opponents with just one goal and by not giving up any goals,” said midfielder Dietmar Hamann. The German efficiency comes from an intact team spirit, built up by the immensely-popular Voeller, who was hired initially only as caretaker two years ago but got the job full-time after Christoph Daum’s cocaine affair.

Voller has turned around the German side in recent months since taking over midway through 2000 and now, despite coming here shorn of several injured first-choice stars, his team are on the threshold of a fourth world title after beating South Korea 1-0 in the semifinal yesterday.

“A few months ago we could never have expected to get through all the way to the final,” he said today ahead of the other semifinal between Brazil and surprise package Turkey in Saitama, Japan.

“We were under a lot of pressure with two play-off games against Ukraine to qualify and whoever has been around me the past couple of years knows things haven’t always been easy.

“But we’ve come a long way together. We’ve grasped our opportunity by the horns.”

Voller won the competition as a player under Franz Beckenbauer in 1990 and is now a game away from emulating his former mentor as a World Cup winner as both player and coach.

“Whoever we play in the final it will be tough,” added Voller.

“But it’s not necessarily the best teams which wins. If it were then Brazil would have won the World Cup 14 times.”

Germany will nevertheless go into the final showdown with something approaching a ghost team.

They come to Asia with the heart of their defence ripped out having lost stalwarts Jens Nowotny and Christian Worns to injury.

They also lost midfielder and potential world superstar Sebastian Deisler to a damaged knee while the experienced Mehmet Scholl elected to stay at home because he was not fit enough.

Now the third pillar of German creativity in midfield, Michael Ballack, is also out, suspended following his second yellow card against the Koreans - just four minutes before notching the only goal of the game and his third of the tournament.

Voller knows he is running out of aces up his sleeve.

“It’s almost impossible to replace Ballack completely. And it’s all the more surprising we are here in the final as we’ve lost virtually all our defence.

“Nowotny, Worns, also Marko Rehmer - that’s three pillars of our qualifying campaign,” noted Voller.

“We have had to field a makeshift defence.

“But what was designed as a stop-gap solution has turned into a revelation,” added Voller, who paid tribute to those who have stepped into the breach.

The heroic back four have along with world-class goal keeper Oliver Kahn conceded just one goal so far, becoming the meanest defence of any finalist since England in 1966.

The four comprise rookie Christoph Metzelder, Thomas Linke, Torsten Frings and Carsten Ramelow, who bounced back from a suspension and being dropped against the United States to star against the Koreans.

Voller says his makeshift side have gone a long way to silencing the critics.

“With what German sides have achieved in the past 30 or 40 years it was clear we have a lot to live up to and it was normal we’d get criticised.

“The level of expectancy was so high. Then there were our two failures in the qualifying campaign - the defeat at home to England and then only drawing with Finland.

Thanks largely to dominating keeper Oliver Kahn, the Germans, who reached their seventh final with yesterday’s 1-0 win over South Korea, have conceded just one goal in six games in the tournament while scoring 14.

And that means Rudi Voller’s team boasts the best defence of any finalist since Johan Cruyff’s Holland played six matches for the loss of one goal on the way to the 1974 final.

Curiously the Dutch also scored 14 goals, but then lost 1-2 to West Germany in the title match.

More striking, is that the German defence which arrived at the tournament for “Die Mannschaft” bears little resemblance to the one which was supposed to play the competition.

That’s because pre-tournament injuries to Jens Nowotny and Christian Worns ensured the heart was ripped out of the back four before the team left home.

Now, in yet another triumph of German discipline and efficiency, Voller’s side have made it to Sunday’s showdown against either Brazil or Turkey in Yokohama.

The Germans themselves call it “Durchsetzungsvermogen” - or, in a nutshell, the ability to get to grips with a problem whatever its shape and resolve it.

Nowotny was supposed to be the centrepiece of the German defensive challenge — Kahn aside — but instead a 21-year-old rookie such as Christoph Metzelder, as well as a rejuvenated Carsten Ramelow, Thomas Linke and Torsten Frings have come to the rescue.

The only breach they have allowed so far came in injury time in the group game against Ireland when Robbie Keane succeeded in breaking through the middle to squeeze a shot past Kahn for an unlikely equaliser.

That one mistake was nearly costly for the Germans as they struggled into the last 16 with a 10-man win over Cameroon in the ugliest match of the World Cup finals to date.

But since then, the German rearguard has been imperious keeping a clean sheet through Paraguay, the USA and South Korea, while a stuttering attack has managed to eke out a winning goal per game.

The German midfield and strike force are more than aware that they owe their place in the final in Yokohama on Sunday to their doughty defence.

“I think it is difficult to score against Germany,” said Oliver Neuville, whose break down the right in the 75th minute paved the way for Michael Ballack’s winning goal.

“If you don’t allow any goals then there is a 70 per cent chance to win the game. If we stand strong in defence, our strikers can score any time,” he added.

Midfielder Dietmer Hamann was even more succinct.

“We have given up one goal in six games and that says everything,” he said.

A clean sheet in the final on Sunday would confirm this German defence, at least on the number of goals conceded, as the World Cup’s best ever.

“Korea, we are proud of you,” said a font-page banner headline in the Dong-A daily.

“You fought well. You’ve left a deep impression on the whole world with an unreserved, spirited battle,” it said of the match last night, which saw South Korea lose 0-1 to Germany.

“We already have won more than the World Cup. Through World Cup football, we have experienced a feeling of national unity that has never been brought to us by any political leaders,” it said.

The Korea Times said it was already a “tremendous honour” for Korea to become the first Asian country to compete in the semifinals of the 72-year-old tournament.

South Korea wrote a new chapter in football history with their first-ever World Cup win, a 2-0 defeat of Poland and then went on to qualify for the round of 16 for the first time, it said.

“Koreans have showed the world their potential and capability by staging the tournament successfully and being a role model for cheering,” it said.

But the paper asked the question that was on many lips — “Where to Now?”

“The end of the road, or the dawn of a new era,” it said raising the question again of what will happen when revered Dutch coach Guus Hiddink leaves as planned after the third-place play-off on Saturday.

Seven million people, including three million in Seoul, packed the streets and public places across the country to support their side, but there was little or no trouble despite the frenzied atmosphere, it noted.

Thanks to hosting the tournament, South Korea has 10 new football pitches nationwide, which will be helpful in upgrading football standards, the daily added.

The Hankook daily declared the defeat as honourable. “In the face of strong Korean strong pressure, the German tanks appeared at a loss,” it said.

“We again highly appreciate coach Guus Hiddink’s leadership and his achievement. He has not only brought Korea to the last four but raised the standard of Korean football by several notches,” it said.

London, June 26
Seven-times champion Pete Sampras slumped to his worst defeat for 11 years here today when he was knocked out of Wimbledon in the second round by Switzerland's George Bastl.

The 30-year-old American, the holder of a record 13 Grand Slam titles, went down to a humiliating 6-3 6-2 4-6 3-6 6-4 defeat in 3hr 15min against a player of such limited ability that he failed originally to even make it through the qualifying stages and had never won a grass court match before this week.

Bastl, ranked 145 in the world, got into the main draw as a lucky loser replacing injured Felix Mantilla of Spain in the first round and today he seized his chance against a great champion who now appears to have reached the end of the line.

It was Sampras's earliest defeat at the All-England Club since 1991 when he was knocked out at the same second round stage by fellow American Derrick Rostagno.

Cruelly for Sampras, the defeat came on court 2, known as the graveyard of champions, but the loss should not have come as entirely unexpected after he had gone into the tournament suffering from a back injury he picked up in an exhibition tournament in England last week.

Against a Sampras record of 63 career titles and over 42 million dollars in prize money, Bastl went into the match with not a single championship to boast of and just $500,000 to show for his career efforts.

French Open champion Serena Williams played below her best but still earned a 6-3 6-3 second-round victory over Italy’s Francesca Schiavone. Williams, who looked distracted and peppered the court with errors, dropped her serve in the third game of the first set despite producing two aces.

The number two seed chided herself back into the match using her big serve and power off the ground to break twice and take the set.

Schiavone, ranked 45 in the world, took command of several rallies but could not match the speed and strength of her American opponent, who wrapped up the match on the Italian’s serve with some blistering returns.

France's Sandrine Testud, the eighth seed, lost to compatriot Mary Pierce. Four seeds fell early in the day with Pierce leading the plunder by eliminating Testud in straight sets 6-3 6-4 in their second round tie.

It was the sixth win for 27-year-old Pierce in seven meetings with 30-year-old veteran Testud and she needed just 69 minutes to complete her task. Former French and Australian Open champion Pierce, making her comeback from injury which resulted in her missing last year's tournament at the All England Club, next meets Laura Granville after the American defeated Marlene Weingartner of Germany 6-3 6-4. Meghann Shaughnessy became another seed to exit when the 13th-seeded American was beaten by 29-year-old Miriam Oremans of the Netherlands 7-5 6-3.

Oremans next meets Eleni Daniilidou of Greece, the 6-2 6-2 slayer of Japanese hope Saori Obata.

Chanda Rubin, the recent winner in Eastbourne, continued her great form eliminating Uzbek Iroda Tulyaganova, the 14th seed, 6-3 6-1, on court two, fittingly dubbed the 'graveyard of the seeds'.

The American never let her opponent settle and raced into a 3-0 lead in the first set, before eventually taking it 6-3. The second set was even more one-sided with the 26-year- old from Louisiana taking that 6-1.

French ninth seed Amelie Mauresmo however stayed on course with a comfortable 6-4 6-2 win over Italy’s Rita Grande.

But American veteran Todd Martin, the 26th seed, fell to Frenchman Arnaud Clement 6-3 6-4 7-6 (7/2) in 2hrs 21min.

With Andrew Caddick already having been ruled out of the series following a side strain in the second Test against Sri Lanka, England are in danger of losing another frontline bowler as Darren Gough is suffering from a knee injury.

All-rounder Andrew Flintoff is also struggling with a groin niggle and England might have to depend on a highly inexperienced bowling attack in the tri-series which has India as the third team.

Though Sri Lanka too are without their star off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan, who returned home earlier this month after aggravating his shoulder injury, they are buoyed up by their victories over Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire in practice games.

Sri Lanka have made major changes in the side that lost the Test series to England 0-2 earlier this month bringing in six replacements.

Veteran Aravinda de Silva, Hashan Tillekeratne, Prasanna Jayawardena, Ruchira Perera, Thilan Samarweera and Eric Upashanatha have made way for one-day specialists Avishka Gunawardena, Chamara Silva, Naveed Nawaz, Pramodya Wickremsinghe and Romesh Kaluwitharana. However, all the juggling notwithstanding, Sri Lankans will have to depend on Chaminda Vaas in absence of Muralitharan and hope that swashbuckling skipper Sanath Jayasuriya comes good with the bat.

But England’s worries certainly outweigh those of their opponents Sri Lanka.

Despite an impressive performance in the Test series against Sri Lanka, Hussian’s side struggled to keep pace in the shorter version of the game going down to a lowly Wales at Sophia Gardens in a practice match on Monday.

The English side managed a measly 189 and in the absence of Caddick and Gough, could only scalp two Welsh wickets as they were thrashed by eight-wickets. Hussain made it clear that his side will definitely miss Gough’s service if he pulls out of the triseries.

The 25-year-old Ludhiana girl, who took to this event in 1997 and currently holds the national and National Games record, threw the iron bak to a new Federation Cup record of 61.31 metres in her second attempt out of the six. She lowered the existing record of Bengal’s Jobeshwari Devi, set in 2000 at Lucknow.

However, Hardeep said she was not satisfied, having failed to achieve 63 or 64 metres.

In the 200 m race, Anand set a new meet record of 20.79 seconds, leading the pack of seven competitors from the beginning. He set a hot pace to push Punjab Police’s Ajayraj Singh (21.18) and Andhra’s S. Srinivas, who finished second and third, respectively.

Tamil Nadu’s international V. Jayalakshmi (23.88 sec) also ran a fine race to emerge an easy winner in the women’s 200 m. With the defending champion Saraswathi Saha pulling out of the race after 100 m, Vijayalakshmi had no challenger with silver winner Sagardeep Kaur (24.22 sec) and third placed Mukti Saha of Bengal (24.39 sec) proving no match. The Chennai girl led from the start.

Army’s Gurdev Singh (1:33.08) won the 20km walk for men ahead of Sitaram Singh (1:34.55) and Punjab’s Gurmit Singh (1:37.48).