Saturday, July 11, 1998                     http://www.HWCI.com/wc98
Issue # 37.5.1 "What a run..."

		1998 HWCI WORLD CUP TOURNAMENT POOL
		===================================

   SUKOR LIFTS CROATIA AND HIS CHANCE FOR THE GOLDEN BOOT WITH GOAL
      The pool awaits the Final while only one picked right group

        LA MIRADA, CA (smt)-  It may have been a meaningless
Consolation Match but Croatia (5-2) completed its most amazing
World Cup run with a 2-1 victory over Holland (3-1-3).  The tiny
state, formerly part of Yugoslavia, surpassed expectations by 
finishing third of 32 teams in the tourney.  Its upset wins over
Group G winner Romania, soccer power Germany in the quarterfinals,
and now talented and shoulda-been-in-the-finals Holland made its
debut one of the most amazing in recent years.  As a bonus, 
Croatia forward Davor Suker scored his sixth goal of the tourney,
the game-winner in the 36th minute, to take the goal-scoring lead
for the race for the "Golden Boot".  Only Brazil's Ronaldo, who has
four goals, has a realistic chance to catch him.  Doesn't Suker 
look like a young Branko Segota, the great indoor soccer star?

	The only problem with this match is that Croatia went into a
defensive 6-3-1 shell, allowing the Dutch with all the offensive 
chances, but stifling any good chances deep in the box.  Very 
disappointing.  This is what I fear for France, if Brazil goes up
1-0, is that France will keep pounding and pounding but not score,
just like Holland.  Holland outshot Croatia 20-5 with Patrick 
Kluivert, just like against Brazil, missed a good handful of those 
chances.  One cool aspect was that the French crowd booed (er, 
whistled) Croat Slaven Bilic, whose dramatic theatrics caused 
French defender Laurent Blanc to be red-carded in the semifinals.
And is FIFA even watching the tapes?  Is the tape doctored before 
FIFA sees it?  Two match suspension?  I can understand one match 
because a red card is a red card, no matter if the ref was mistaken
or not, but to give a two match suspension for Bilic's acting job?
Why didn't Bilic get suspended this match for acting?  What a shame.

	Only JAYBIAN IV managed to correctly pick the correct 3rd
Place winner (Croatia from Group H) by picking Group H as his first
choice.  In fact, just nine of 21 entries had H in any of their
four choices.  Only seven had Group E (Holland).  The most picked 
groups were B (due to Italy being in that group) with 15, 
F (USA and Germany) with 14, C (France) with 13, and A (Brazil)
with 12.  The least picked group was the Group of Death (D with 4)
as most didn't figure any to advance far.  Group G with England was
picked 10 times.

Suker good, Bilic bad...
Scott HW
                                            
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Scott M Tamashiro, HWCI Engineering       \\||//\\||//  /o-o\\ \ \ `
WC98 Pool Administrator                    \  /  \  /  (o-o-o)) ) > > >
Email:    scott@hwci.com                    ||    ||    \`o'// / / ,  
Updates:  http://www.HWCI.com/wc98          ||    ||  WORLD CUP   
----------------------------------------------------  POOL 1998