WebSports: Ready, Set -
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Links to Fútbol Mundial '98:

Paris:- Sunday, 29. June 1998:- From a reader's letter that came this evening:

Dear Ric,

I do hope you'll note the French victory in Metropole - YOU WILL WON'T YOU OR I'LL BEAT UP ON YOU !

What a game!

Linda

Dear Linda,

Gazooks! What can I say? I was minding my own business at the SportsBar and Grill when some bikers broke the TV when they wouldn't put on the Vespa races in Greasewater Flats, Wyoming. After the TV broke, I was sent out for fish pizza - and wouldn't you know it but they were right out of cheese. When I got back with the no-cheese pizza, the true SportsFans wouldn't let me listen to the game on the wireless. It's all true, Linda.

While real FootFans are live and in color in Paris these days, the real hardcore sports fans at the SportsBar, known as the Football Café are in SportsFans' heaven - in a place that has every variety of junk-food known to mankind - except pizza with cheese - so this week it is not heaven, but Mudville.

What would sports be without pizza? What would sports be without TV?

In honor of the historic invention of TV, the Americans also had the wit to invent a game to go along with it and it is known throughout the part of the world today as football.

This is a game that takes more time than cricket because it has a longer pre-season and longer post-season. Cricket has neither of these seasons. Soccer on the other hand, has seasons on both sides of the equator, and this is the reason for having a World Cup championship - so the Brazilians can come up to Europe and beat the pants off short-handed national teams who have had to lend half of their players back to Brazil. This 'Football Café' Web site is the great-grandgeezer of them all: more than 10,000 pages! Nothing but sports, sports and more sports.

Despite this over-long blurb, the remainder of the Fútbol Mundial links are exactly the same as last week's. If these are not be enough for you, send me some new ones.

Less uplifting are the 'official' Web sites: represented by the FIFA - which stands for Federation International - and which will be choosing a new leader any minute now - and of course, the French Organizing Committee, known to all far and wide as the CFO. I don't what the initials stand for, just like RATP does not sound like métro to me.

The Paris suburb, next to Paris-Expo, of Issy-les-Moulineaux has had 11 youngsters, aged between 17 and 25, in training for six months, to be 'cyber-reporters.' With a little help from Issy and France Télécom, they have formed a 'Cyber Team' of Web reporters to 'cover' the World Cup '98.

Their reports from Issy are to appear on a city-sponsored Web site, starting Wednesday, 10. June.

What's Issy got that's worth covering? Well, there's the WC'98 International Press Centre at Paris-Expo, the Eurosport TV headquarters, the editorial offices of 'L'Equipe' - the daily sports paper - and TVRS 98, the outfit that will be sending out all worldwide TV coverage.

Libération - Mondial 98 - follow this link for constant updates and fair commentary. For example, there is a site called 'Stade de France,' which Libération says is a 'heavy loader.' Extensive links also point to African sites and even to a religious site, for those whose team is in trouble.

Of the two state-TV channels, France 3 has traditionally handled the bigger Sports Events - with extensive reports on the Paris-Dakar and the Tour de France. Now they take on the World Cup, playing in France for the first time since 1938. For daily reports, tune your Web dial to France 3 TV.

• SoccerNet - easy to navigate; even has Cameroon. Linda's choice.
• Gillette's Search Football WC'98
• Weltmeistershaft 98
• Kicker Online
• Yahoo's World Cup in Japanese - note: some characters may not display correctly if they are not in your computer's system.

• El Pais - Madrid
• Mexico
• Rumbo a Francia
• - seems to be 'Under Construction'
• Fútbol Chileno
• Yahoo's Fútbol
• Copa do Mondo
• - Brazil
• Anothe r Brazil
• More Brazil
• Links Fútbol
• - Internet Soccer Fans Association

• In case you have been getting your football news from French sources, the Délégation Générale à la Langue Française has prepared a French/English dictionary of football terms to help you out. Learn French derivatives such as 'footez' and 'footix,' and I suppose I could look at it too to learn the origin of the word 'soccer.'

• 'Down With Football Madness' Site - recommends pouring 1O,000 litres of de-grass on the pitch on the eve of the opening game at the Stade de France. Boo! Also proposes, in French, the idea of dropping 80,022 cream pies from hot-air balloons on hardcore SportsFans. Double-Boo! Linda Thalman, who only champions the Cameroon team, doesn't like this site at all.

• Scorbut is for those for whom 1998 'c'est déjà demi-footue,' and offers cartoons by Cabu, Kerleroux, Wozniak, Luz et Charb - all of whom are well-known lefties and dangerous guys with pencils. Like all of us raving red, commie, cartoonists.