With player power becoming a bigger issue in football, Rutger Slagter explains how the Dutch FA's ruling kept a lid on a potentially huge can of worms, for now
At the end of July, a Dutch FA tribunal presided over the most important case since the Bosman ruling. If the De Boer brothers Frank and Ronald won the right to tear up their contract with Ajax, players around Europe would be able to follow suit. Football in general would be in danger.
Dear WSC
Reading your letters page over recent months has led me to the conclusion that many of your correspondents are obsessive on subjects that are essentially trivial. I feel strongly that this valuable space should be reserved for people with something to say. Incidentally, I feel I should point out that in your article on World Cup nicknames (WSC No 137) you refer to Bam Bam as Fred Flintstone’s son, when he was in fact Barney Rubble’s son.
Alastair Walker, Farnsfield
Karsten Blaas & Phil Ball recount how Germany's veterans ran out of steam and argue that Spain's failure was a consequence of their reverting to type
Germany July 4th is a very special day for German football. On that day in 1954 they turned the world upside down by beating the seemingly invincible Hungarians and winning their first World Cup. That victory ushered in a long period of continuous success, including 11 major international finals, two more world titles and three European Championship victories. On the very same day 44 years later this era seems to have come to an end.
Cris Freddi looks back at France 98 and experiences a definite touch of déjà vu
I thought it was just me at first, but it’s all right: everyone else is still waiting for the tournament to take off too. Actually it looked as if it had, and at the stage it was supposed to, the last round of group matches. Morocco-Scotland and Norway-Brazil, Paraguay-Nigeria and Spain-Bulgaria, Mexico-Holland and Belgium-South Korea. But even then we got Yugoslavia v USA, Germany v Iran and Jamaica v Japan – and although we had some memorable matches at the knockout stage (Brazil v Denmark, Argentina v England and Holland) there were still too many dull teams left: Germany, Romania, Norway, France up to a point, Yugoslavia, Croatia.
England's World Cup form over the years has been patchy, as Cris Freddi analyses
Statistics probably aren’t lies or damned lies in this case. England’s first four appearances in the finals ended with a record of three wins and six defeats in 14 matches. They never really looked the equal of the tournament’s best teams – and it began to look as if the only way they were going to win the pesky thing was to stage it.