But the most fervent Welshman would have to sympathise with Robson’s concerns. Sometimes you take risks for players for three points, but if they are not fit they shouldn’t play in friendlies,” he said.There were similar stories about Sir Bobby Robson’s reluctance to free Craig Bellamy from Newcastle United to play for Wales in their Euro 2004 qualifier in Finland last night. “He wasn’t fit but suddenly they were lacking players and they needed to win that game. A call from Ferguson saying, “Sven, my old mate, I’ve got a bit of a problem and I’m going to have to play Scholes after all”, would have saved a lot of bother Eriksson says he would have done the same thing. United felt it was a good idea to reduce Keane’s ability to cause trouble by getting the hospital to anaesthetise him as soon as possible (and do his hip while they were at it).

That has to be interpreted as an outright snub, but the irritated Eriksson has since admitted that he now understands the situation.Scholes was carrying an injury and was ruled out of the Middlesbrough game, but a late decision on Roy Keane caused a rethink. That doesn’t explain why Ferguson played Scholes after informing England that the player was injured. He didn’t have to release him until Thursday.And while most people thought that Wales had granted United dispensation by allowing them to play Ryan Giggs on Tuesday night that, too, was permissible under the four-day rule. But it means that the Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, was quite within his rights to play Paul Scholes against Middlesbrough on Tuesday night. They are supposed to be on the side of the national associations. For friendlies, the reporting time is only 48 hours before the game.Why Fifa have brought in a change that cuts down the access of national teams to their players is difficult to understand. The period for which clubs are obliged to supply players to play for their countries has been changed by Fifa to four days, including the day of the match – and that is only for qualifying matches.

Even the England manager, Sven Goran Eriksson, was at fault on Friday when he threatened to invoke the five-day rule in future and insist on players reporting to the England camp five days before a match whether or not they were injured.Unfortunately, someone neglected to tell him that there is no longer a five-day rule when it comes to releasing players for international duty. Regardless of what happened in yesterday’s international matches, the players deserved a much more considered and discursive approach to their labours than the hysterical reprise of the age-old club v country conflict that dominated the sports pages all week.
What made it worse was that most of those concerned, especially the media, got hold of the wrong end of whatever stick was lying around. “It’s a chance to see whether I’d fit into the English system.”. The Australian midfielder told his Dutch club’s website he was looking forward to the game. He wrote: “It seems to me morally wrong that national associations can simply demand the use of players, free of charge and free of all risk.”Feyenoord’s Brett Emerton, the subject of an £8m transfer offer from Newcastle United before the late-summer transfer deadline, will use his Champions’ League trip to St James’ Park on 24 September to look at what it would be like to play in England. Togeth-er, we are the best in Asia,” North Korea’s coach, Ri Jung-man, said after the first match between the teams since 1993, when the South won 3-0.None of the South Korean players with clubs in Japan’s J-League or Europe returned for the match, but their popular World Cup coach, Guus Hiddink, who is now in charge of the Dutch club PSV Eindhoven, made his debut in his new role as special adviser to the new coach, Park Hang-seo.Fulham’s chairman, Mohamed Al Fayed, broadened the club v country debate yesterday by writing to the seven national associations who called up his club’s players, hinting that they should pay their salaries while they had them. Wherever we go, playing football can improve diplomatic relations and promote peace.”Hence the match in Seoul yesterday in which North Korea took on South Korea in the stadium where the 2002 World Cup began.Diplomacy reigned as a crowd of about 60,000 saw a determined defensive performance from the North Koreans hold off a late surge by the bigger and more creative South Koreans in a 0-0 draw.”We made it to the quarter-finals of the World Cup in 1966 and the South Koreans proved themselves the best in Asia at this year’s World Cup.

“The English people took us to their hearts and vice versa,” he said “I learned that football is not only about the winning. Memories of one of the biggest shocks in World Cup history will be rekindled on Teesside next month when the seven surviving members of the North Korea side who beat Italy 1-0 at Ayresome Park during the 1966 World Cup finals return to the North-east for the first time since their victory captured the imagination of the whole country.
Pak Doo Ik’s goal was enough to see off the Italians and book his unfancied side a quarter-final against Port-ugal. 100: 273 mins, 213 balls, 15 fours.Tendulkar 50: 97 min, 76 balls, 10 fours.Ganguly 50: 112 min, 76 balls, 8 fours.Umpires: E A R de Silva, D L Orchard TV replay umpire: N A Mallender Referee: C H Lloyd.. New ball taken after 100 overs at 307-4.Dravid 50: 116 min, 88 balls, 8 fours. They are both handsome to watch and they have made this summer. Dravid, incidentally, spoke in his customarily dignified way last night.This is his time, rather as it is Vaughan’s. Test cricket might be a serious business but Fletcher knows it is also only a game.