A visit to the zebra preserve

SEOUL -- Once the World Cup kicks off on Friday, there's one group you absolutely, positively will not hear from: the referees. And so, on the one occasion this month when reporters could speak to FIFA's zebras, I schlepped over to Seoul's west side to meet the guys who may help determine the U.S.'s fate in the World Cup. (I also wanted to bask in the aura of Italy's Pierluigi Collina, the hairless top dog -- or is it chihuahua? -- of global refs, a guy so famous he has an endorsement deal with Adidas.)

Come to think of it, FIFA refs are so well known that even though they were all wearing the exact same black uniforms (without nametags, I might add), organizers just assumed we would be able to recognize them by their faces. After a half hour, I finally tracked down the men in the middle for the U.S.'s first two games:

Urs Meier (U.S. vs. South Korea, June 10). A big smiler, Meier is from Switzerland, which has to be the best source of referees in the world. ("All of the referees from Switzerland are neutral," he told me in a fit of referee humor. "It's really a good country, no?") When Meier, 43, isn't busy running a Swiss electronics and washing machine-sales company, he works some of the biggest games around, including this year's Champions League final and the U.S.-Iran match in World Cup '98. He called the pregame flower exchange between the Americans and Iranians "the best moment in my life as a football referee. I hope we have the same as we had four years ago."

The same sportsmanship, at least. The U.S. players would prefer to change the scoreline of the 2-1 loss. "He's a good ref," says captain Claudio Reyna. "I know him from some European games. Pretty strict, too."

Byron Moreno (U.S. vs. Portugal, June 5). Moreno, a 32-year-old law student, wasn't amused when I asked him if he was the only guy from Ecuador named Byron, but he seemed earnest enough when I inquired about his impressions of the Americans. (He worked the semifinal of the 1999 under-17 World Cup, a 2-1 victory by Australia over the U.S.) "It was a good team," Moreno said, "especially Landon Donovan." As opposed to the grandstanding Collina -- the Ed Hightower of soccer refs, for you college hoops fans -- Moreno is much more reserved on the field. "I hope not to speak much to the players," he told me.

The verdict: "I don't remember him being bad, so that's probably a good thing," says Donovan. "You'd remember him if he was bad."

As the games start, and the referees supposedly begin clamping down on diving (FIFA's point of emphasis for this World Cup), keep this in mind: The best-known referees like Collina are rarely the favorites of the players. "The best refs are the ones you don't notice," Reyna says. "They seem to be harder to find these days. A lot of refs really stamp their authority on the game, instead of letting things flow."

If that's the case, then the U.S. might be in luck with Meier and Moreno. In a sort of test to determine the most controversial officials, I did a search of the Nexis database to see how many times a particular referee's name had appeared in the same sentence of an article as the words controversial or dubious. Collina matched 58 times while Meier had six hits and Moreno zero.

The name game

Remember the p.r. mess George W. Bush created when he was unable to name the leaders of random foreign countries? Well, the U.S. players are in a similar situation here. When several local reporters asked Reyna to name the best Korean players a couple days ago, a look of horror came over his face as he admitted he didn't know any of them. Fearing a brutal headline (COCKY AMERICANS DON'T KNOW KOREANS' NAMES), Reyna said he would be on top of the situation in a few days.

"I feel bad, you know," he told me. "I know a lot of them by their faces, like the guy who plays for Perugia [Ahn Jung-Hwan]. It's not in any way disrespectful -- they have a really good team -- but a lot of them look alike."

Rest assured, the U.S. players will know plenty about the Koreans by the time they meet on June 10. (They've already met twice in the past six months.) The indisputable expert is assistant coach Dave Sarachan, the man responsible for scouting South Korea. Said Sarachan: "The guy who has been steady is Song, C G Song. He played as a sweeper when they didn't have [Myung-Bo] Hong and they didn't use [Sang-Chul] Yoo. [Ji-Sung] Park and Song have been very consistent, and Hong has the most experience."

Well done, Dave! "It's taken me six months," he says proudly. "Call it an intensive study."

Through-balls

Having watched Wednesday's bizarre FIFA presidential election -- the nastiest, most Machiavellian campaign in the history of sports governing bodies -- I'm totally mesmerized by this Sepp Blatter cat. Talk about Darth Vader. All he was missing was the messed-up hand, the black helmet and the voice of James Earl Jones. In fact, the whole FIFA "Congress" procedings were like a bad Star Wars script, all talk of confederations and abuses of power, etc., presided over by the iron fist of Blatter, who (like C-3PO) seems to speak every language in the universe. When the next Congress comes around in 2006, Sepp had better let Senator Amidala have the floor ... U.S. players reacted with surprise to the recent New York Times Magazine report that described a foiled Al-Qaeda attempt to assassinate members of the team at World Cup '98. "I never heard about it until guys started talking about it," said forward Joe-Max Moore. "Scary, isn't it? It was shocking to me." ... If anyone knows that four points isn't always enough to advance out of the first round in an international tournament, it's U.S. coach Bruce Arena. At the 1996 Olympics, Arena's team finished 1-1-1 in a group that included Argentina (a 3-1 loss), Tunisia (a 2-0 win) and Portugal (a 1-1 tie). "For any coach who has been through that kind of experience, you store certain things in the back of your head," says Sarachan. "You still think four points probably gets you through, but there's no guarantee. In our preparations between now and June 5, we'll talk about how to manage games." ... Arena revealed that over the past few months he has received several faxes and instant messages at his home from random fans suggesting lineups. Maybe the U.S. is catching up with the rest of the world after all ... One final word on the now-infamous New York Times Magazine U.S. soccer fashion shoot: the only player who posed for photographs but didn't appear in the layout was goalkeeper Brad Friedel, who didn't appear too bothered that Kasey Keller got the nod on this front.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Grant Wahl covers soccer for the magazine and will contribute frequently to CNNSI.com throughout the World Cup tournament.

 

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