Saturday, Jun 15, 2002
Saturday, Jun 15, 2002 |
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Football
RONALDO HAS IT HIS WAY: Brazilian forward Ronaldo (9) scoring his team's first goal in a 5-2 win against Costa Rica in their Group C match in Suwon, on Thursday. The goal which was officially listed as own goal by Costa Rican defender Luis Marin has now been credited to Ronaldo by FIFA. — AFP
A FIFA spokesman said www.fifa.com had already registered 800 million ``page impressions'' since the opening game on May 31 in Seoul, South Korea. Stefan Schuster, director of new media at FIFA marketing, said Friday the site would eventually register ``three times the traffic'' of the two sites from the last Olympics in Salt Lake City. The World Cup lasts for a month and the Olympics are two weeks. FIFA, citing figures from the International Olympic Committee, said the previous record for page views on sports websites was held by the Salt Lake City Olympic Games. NBCOlympics.com and Olympics.com combined for 350 million views. About 50 percent of FIFA's hits are in English, with Japanese second (13 percent), followed by Chinese, Spanish, German, French and Korean. As a comparison, Schuster said the 2000 Sydney Olympics had 230 million page impressions. The 2000 European championship had 128 million page impressions for the entire tournament.
Ronaldo's goal
FIFA has ruled that Brazilian striker Ronaldo scored what was listed in official match reports as an own-goal by Costa Rican defender Luis Marin in the 10th minute in Thursday's 5-2 Brazil victory. The Internazionale star, who also scored in the 13th minute, insisted in the dressing room after the match that he should be credited with the first goal. ``Our technical study group has taken another look at the tapes this morning and come to the conclusion in the way of positive thinking and along the guidelines that we have established for the definition of an own-goal that it was not an own-goal and that it was accredited to Ronaldo,'' Cooper said. ``There's great jubilation in the Brazilian camp for more reasons than one,'' he said. With four goals, Ronaldo was tied for second place on the list of goalscorers with Denmark's Jon Dahl Tomasson. The leading scorer is Germany's Miroslav Klose, with five.
Golden goal
The golden-goal rule begins when round of 16 matches open Saturday. The tournament is now a winner-take-all affair with the eight victors moving to the quarterfinals. If the match is tied after 90 minutes, there is a five-minute break. Two 15-minute periods follow with the match ending if any goal is scored. If not, it goes to penalties. Through Thursday, 118 goals had been scored, an average of 2.68 per match. In France four years ago, it was 2.67 per match. There have been 189 yellow cards, 4.3 per match. In France, it was 4.0. There have also been 11 red cards, 0.25 per match. In France it was slightly higher at 0.29.
Maldini's feat
Italy captain Paolo Maldini has broken the record for the most full 90 minute appearances in World Cup finals games. Maldini played his 22nd consecutive World Cup match in Italy's 1-1 draw with Mexico on Thursday, breaking Uwe Seeler's record of 21 games set in the 1960's and 70's for West Germany. Should Italy reach the last four and Maldini feature in all games, including either the final or the third-place play off, he would also break the record for World Cup finals appearances set by Germany's Lothar Matthaeus who played in 25 games. Maldini is already Italy's most capped player with 125 appearances for his country. The Italy captain is playing in his fourth World Cup finals.
Earth moves
A strong earthquake jolted Japan's capital area Friday. The only injury reported was a 58-year-old man hit in the head by a falling chandelier in a Tokyo suburb. — AP, Reuters
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