WE had boarded a smart bus full of soccer stars in Japan to arrive at a conclusion, but the bus didn't arrive at all. Where was it all this time? Vishal Thapar says that he knows. His words: "First, the team you are talking about seems to be France. They must have been real nervous getting into the bus, I would not be surprised if the snag had hit Zidane's knee rather than the plane."

"Here is the STORY YOU NEVER TOLD: Actually Zidane got fits, just like Ronaldo before the '98 final, so, the French decided to go by bus, so that, he can get more time to come to the match, later, by plane after he gets better. For the first 40 minutes, the driver didn't know about the Zidane thing, so, he was anxious to get them all to the stadium for their date with destiny. At that moment, they had 1 hour to go, so, going at the same speed, we get 100 km covered in 60+40=100 minutes, which gives us a speed of 60 kmph. Distance covered in this much time = 40 km."

"Then, the team was told that Zidane had become worse, so, like the Italians, it got defensive and used delaying tactics to give Zidane more time. Now, after 5 hours, 40 minutes, they still had 1-hour journey left, so, the average speed over the entire duration would have been 100/(6+2/3) kmph = 15 kmph. The distance yet to be covered is 1*15= 15 km. Distance travelled in those 5 hours was 100-(15+40)=45

km. What was the speed? Well, tomorrow France play and the actual time they took after those 5 hours and 40 minutes is the time they will take to score their first goal of the World Cup. If they don't score, it would mean Zidane did a no show (how right; and how wrong!)."

How many kilometres had the bus covered when these 5 hours passed? 98.13, says Anil Sharma. "The bus covered 50 km when the 5 hours passed," says Deepinder Singh of Patiala.

"The no. of kilometres the bus had travelled at the end of 5 hours is 40+45 = 85 kilometres," says Suhail Singh Shergill. True, but unexplained. "Distance = 98.125 km," says Puneet Sharma of Arjuna Colony, Dasuya. 85 km, says Ravinder Mittal, who has a snag theory of his own; however, he has hit the spot kick way over the crossbar. The distance is 45 km, according to Sudhanshu Arya, Dr Lokesh Handa and Rohit Pardasani.

The Golden Boot Award goes to this solution: Let S(t) be a distance covered by the bus for a time t. If the described situation is possible, then, for any moment t>=2/3 (in hours), we have { 100-S(t)} /t=S(t)/t; S(t)=100t/(1+t)*. S(t) is, thus, a continuous monotone increasing function on (0, infinity), which means that the bus is moving towards its destination. The distance expressed by '*' means that at any moment t, the estimated remaining time will be 1 hour. Substituting t=5 2/3 into *, we get S(t)=85 km. Suhail and Ravinder win, but the rest bent it like Beckham. Write at The Tribune or adityarishi99@yahoo.co.in.

— Aditya Rishi