HODDLE KEEPS FAITH BUT LOSES FACE
GLENN HODDLE doesn't help himself much, does he? One minute he's banging on about how the media shouldn't care less that the players Gazza sees most of these days are the ones that comes in packs on 20. The next, he's pondering the effects of passive smoking on the rest of the squad while the press corps laps it all up. And if Hoddle wants to avoid nation-wide ridicule for his spiritual beliefs, he can surely see the sense in not telling people that I have been here before as a spirit. This is just my physical body, it is just an overcoat.
The fact is that Hoddle, like all evangelists, desperately wants the country to share the faith he has in Eileen Drewery and her ilk. It was only fair to her and everyone else that we brought this out in the open, he told Radio 5 Live. She has contributed to our qualifying. She was involved way back in our first qualifier against Moldova in September 1996. That was the first time she saw any of the players. Along with our two masseuses, two physios and two doctors we've got Eileen as well.
Three-quarters of the group have been seeing her for 18 months. Many players have gone back between England games for healing, so the proof is there. Anybody who sees her will gain from it, whether it's a physical or mental problem. With her, we're covering every conceivable angle.
It's fair to say that Hoddle is the first England manager to take this kind of thing seriously. When Bobby Robson was asked about it at a London press conference yesterday, he defended Hoddle's right to use whatever methods he saw fit, but made it clear he was less than impressed when Bryan Robson asked for permission to consult faith healer Olga Stringfellow in the run-up to Italia 90. She's got a nightclub now, joked the PSV Eindhoven chief, before adding: Bryan was struggling with one of his knocks and he asked me whether it would be OK to see this woman as a last resort. I thought it was worth a gamble, but it didn't work.
At the same press conference, launching ITV's World Cup coverage, Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson did come to Mrs Stringfellow's defence. I actually took Bryan to that first meeting with her, he told Robson. I remember she held her hand out over his leg and her fingers actually crackled with electricity. I said to Bryan: ‘Let's get out of here quick!' She's certainly quite a woman.

FERGUSON BACKS SCUTTLED COLE
TALKING of Alex Ferguson, he diplomatically avoided criticising Hoddle's decision to leave Andy Cole out of England's preliminary 30-man squad, but at the same time revealed that he hadn't consoled the striker. "I haven't spoken to Andy since the squad was announced but obviously any player would be disappointed not to go to the World Cup as that is the pinnacle of their careers," he said. "I don't think it tells me that he's a bad player.
"Some strikers can, because of their ability, create chances from nothing but as they create a lot of chances sometimes they convert only one in five of them. Other strikers only get one chance in a game but can take it. You have to decide which type you prefer.
"You have to have great patience with a striker who can maybe miss three or four chances but will score one of them, yet you also have to admire the fact that he can create those chances. And I think to have someone that is creating chances is not a bad thing."
Ferguson could not stifle his laughter at the ITV launch when giant video screens previewing the station's World Cup coverage showed Frank Skinner dressed as David Beckham, with his TV partner David Baddiel in drag as Posh Spice, but said the United midfielder could easily cope with those kind of jokes and any other attention that came his way.
He's under no pressure on the field because attention is on other players, so he can relax a bit, said Fergie. The other stuff, he can handle. That goes with being a footballer, with being in the World Cup and with going out with a pop star. He's made those choices and that's his look-out, but he's big enough to cope.

BRAZIL NUTS
THE Brazilians might be expecting to meet with little resistance in France this summer, but that doesn't mean they've got to start practising. Yet walkovers are currently all the rage in the Carioca, which is the all-important state championship of Rio De Janiero.
A fortnight ago, Botafogo refused to play then-leaders Vasco de Gama in protest over changes to the fixture list. That gave Vasco an official 2-0 win for the record books and took them nearer a title which they wrapped up last Thursday but not before Flamengo and Fluminense, each also complaining about rearranged matches, failed to turn up for a match against each other. That left both in the unusual and unhappy situation of losing the same match 2-0.
Then, at the weekend, Vasco were due to play Flamengo at the Maracana Stadium, site of the second-greatest moment of John Barnes' career (after that Lucozade advert). The result? Another walkover, with Flamengo saying they were showing solidarity with Botafogo, and an officially-recorded Maracana attendance of 34, all of whom knew that no football would be played, but just wanted to see it for themselves.