Football: Nakayama: the man who can't stop scoring
AROUND THE WORLD BY RUPERT METCALF
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MASASHI NAKAYAMA continued his incredible goalscoring spree on Wednesday by netting a fourth successive J-League hat trick.
Nakayama has now scored an amazing 16 goals in his last four matches, with tallies of five, four, four and three. His latest hat-trick came in Jubilo Iwata's 4-0 midweek victory over Consadole Sapporo.
Nakayama tops the League's scoring chart with 18 goals. He has also hit 12 goals in 24 games for and is a certainty to lead their attack at the World Cup.
One of the more obscure hat-tricks of his career was scored in the humble surroundings of Scunthorpe United's Glanford Park stadium - a football venue for the 1991 World Student Games. In a 3-3 draw against Great Britain, both captains found the net three times before half-time. They were Nakayama and Jon McCarthy, now with Birmingham City.
Cameroon
ROGER MILLA, the player who did most to put his country on the football map, has been shunned by Cameroon in the build-up to their fourth World Cup finals.
Twice the African player of the year, Milla is unhappy at not being invited to help with Cameroon's preparations for the tournament. "I'm worried about how things will go for the team in this World Cup," he said. "There's no longer any solidarity among the players, who are more interested in the financial than sporting aspect."
Cameroon, eliminated in the first round of the recent African Nations' Cup, have changed coach three times this season, with the Frenchman Claude le Roy now in charge.
Now 46, Milla, who played in three World Cups, will still be involved in the 1998 tournament as a French TV analyst.
France
PARIS ST-GERMAIN have approached South Africa's World Cup coach, Philippe Troussier, for next season. Troussier met PSG's new executive president, Charles Bietry, in Italy last week while watching South Africa's striker Phil Masinga.
PSG, a disappointing eighth in the French League with one game to go, are undergoing a major overhaul for next season which includes the departure of the Brazilian coach, Ricardo.
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