Fabio Capello saga puts spotlight on World Cup hot seat

As much as Fabio Capello may want to remain England coach, he’s no doubt aware that his fate will be decided as much by the public as by the Football Association officials who’ve told him they need time to decide whether to keep him.

That’s the way it is at the World Cup. Win and you’re a hero. Lose and you’re out of a job — whether that’s because you don’t want the pressure anymore or you get fired.

The coaches of the five African teams eliminated in the first round, including South Africa’s veteran Brazilian manager, Carlos Alberto Parreira, have either already quit or have their positions under review.

Sven-Goran Eriksson, who only had three months in charge at Ivory Coast, said he was only on a contract for the World Cup. He could probably offer Capello some advice — after all, the Swede agreed to resign as English coach in 2006 despite guiding the Three Lions to the quarterfinals at the World Cup and the European Championship.

While the English media went into overdrive Monday in its criticism of the current team and coach, bookmakers were taking wagers on the likelihood of Capello being fired before the July 11 World Cup final. Capello announced after England’s 4-1 second-round loss to Germany on Sunday that he “absolutely” wanted to fulfill a contract that runs up to the 2012 European Championship.

He met with FA board member Dave Richards, who told Capello he’d get a decision on his future in two weeks.

“At the moment, no one is betting that he can see the tournament out, let alone the year,” said Graham Sharpe, a spokesman for gambling firm William Hill.

Before the World Cup, Capello was touted as the kind of strict disciplinarian that England’s star players needed to harmonize into a winning combination. He improved his resume with nine wins in 10 qualifying matches. Now he’s in limbo.

Several coaches with World Cup experience were aware of the no-win situation for underperforming coaches and announced before the tournament that they’d be stepping down regardless of results in South Africa.

That saved the Italian and French federations having to fire Marcello Lippi and Raymond Domenech — opposing coaches in the 2006 final — after horrendous first-round exits. France’s debacle prompted a government review. Lippi’s Italians, winners in 2006, returned to taunts of “Shame on you” in Rome this time.

“When something like this happens, it’s always the leader’s fault,” Lippi said. “I thought I played an important role when the team won, so it’s only fair to have had just as big an impact in this failure.”

Pim Verbeek left the Australian job for Morocco with debate raging Down Under over his tactics in an opening loss to Germany, despite the subsequent draw with Ghana and win over Serbia. New Zealand finished a point less than Australia in another group, but coach Ricki Herbert was feted as a national hero for guiding the Kiwis in three unbeaten matches (they were all ties).

Javier Aguirre said before the World Cup that he’d consider jobs in Europe after the tournament, but backed down amid a rush of criticism about his commitment to the Mexican team. After Mexico’s second-round loss to Argentina, he’s expected to look for a club contract. U.S. coach Bob Bradley didn’t want to discuss his future after an extra-time, second-round loss to Ghana, the only African team still in the tournament.

While Diego Maradona has shrugged off most of the pre-Cup criticism of his coaching methods in qualifying by guiding Argentina to four straight wins and is already telling his critics to hang their heads in shame, Vicente Del Bosque is still very much in the hot seat after taking over a European Championship-winning Spain.

Spain won 25 of 26 internationals after Del Bosque replaced Luis Aragones following Spain’s victory at Euro 2008, but opened the World Cup with its first ever loss to Switzerland, a dent to its early favoritism for the title.

Much attention has been on Del Bosque’s formation, which seems to blunt the attacking instinct of the team, but he’s prepared to stake his reputation on results, even if he’s winning ugly. His next big test comes Tuesday in a second-round match against Portugal.

Brazil coach Dunga’s position is fairly safe, along with his counterparts from Chile and Paraguay, who took their teams into the second round. Brazil beat Chile 3-0 in the second round on Monday night.

South Africa was the first host nation not to progress past the group stage, despite a stirring win over France in its last match.

The most-traveled of the World Cup coaches put the job into perspective when he said he’d earned the right to “take it easy.”

It was a sixth World Cup as coach for the 67-year-old Carlos Alberto Parreira, who guided his native Brazil to the 1994 title after leading Kuwait in 1982 and the United Arab Emirates in 1990. He took Saudi Arabia to France in 1998 — when he was fired after losing two matches. Then he returned to Brazil for the 2006 World Cup, which ended in a quarterfinal defeat.

“South Africa allowed me to be the first coach to participate in six World Cups. It’s a privilege, an honor and I am deeply grateful,” Parreira said. “This team now has an identity and, if I am proud of anything, it’s that I have given this team an identity.”

Tennessee officials brace for more flooding, deaths

About 1,500 guests of a downtown hotel complex spent the night in a high school to escape the flooding Cumberland River, which was expected to crest Monday following weekend thunderstorms that killed at least 19 people in Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky.

Officials in Tennessee were preparing for more deaths and for the Cumberland River, which winds through the Music City, to crest more than 11 feet Monday afternoon, putting portions of downtown in danger of the kind of damage experienced by thousands of residents whose homes were swamped by flash floods.

The Cumberland River had already reached record levels since an early 1960s flood control project was put in place. With so much water inundating the Cumberland’s tributaries, however, it was difficult to gauge whether the river would stop at 50 feet or exceed the forecast, increasing the water’s spread in the city.

Authorities weren’t taking any chances. They evacuated the downtown area and north Nashville where a leaky levee threatened residents and businesses. Flooding could hit the downtown tourism industry, a commuter train depot and the nearby LP Field, where the Tennessee Titans play.

Floodwater spilled onto a couple of downtown streets near the riverfront and restaurants and bars in the tourist district were closed.

At the Opryland Hotel, Monday morning brought sunshine and a view of flooded parking lots around the hotel and adjacent venues. Water surrounded the Grand Ole Opry House and the Opry Mills shopping mall.

Mayor Karl dean called on Nashville residents Monday to use water only for cooking and drinking because one of the city’s two water treatment plants was flooded.

Forecasters were on the money when they warned residents there would be severe weather across the Mid-South, but few could have predicted the devastation the relentless line of storms brought.

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen called it an “unprecedented rain event,” but that failed to capture the magnitude. More than 13 inches of rain fell in Nashville over two days, nearly doubling the previous record of 6.68 inches that fell in the wake of Hurricane Fredrick in 1979.

“That is an astonishing amount of rain in a 24- or 36-hour period,” Bredesen said Sunday.

At least 11 were dead in Tennessee, six in Mississippi and two in Kentucky.

Tennessee Emergency Management Agency officials say there was likely an additional victim, but a body had not been recovered. Three people in Mississippi were killed when high winds believed to be tornados hit their homes and three others were killed in what authorities said were weather-related traffic accidents.

Kentucky Emergency Management officials said two deaths in Barren and Madison counties in central Kentucky were weather-related.

The weekend deaths came on the heels of a tornado in Arkansas that killed a woman and injured about two dozen people Friday. And just a week ago, 10 people were killed by a tornado from a separate storm in western Mississippi.

Bredesen said officials hoped for the best, but knew there might be more deaths reported Monday as authorities got their first real look at the damage after a weekend filled with frantic rescues.

“This is going to go on for a while,” Bredesen said. “It’s going to take a while for the water to recede and us to get down into this. It’s going to take several days for this to get back to anything near normal.”

Much of the damage from flooding was done in outlying areas of Nashville and across the middle and western parts of Tennessee. Rescues turned dramatic with homeowners plucked off roofs and pregnant women airlifted off a waterlogged interstate.

The rain ended Monday but there will likely be weeks of cleanup for residents and public works employees alike. Though there was no official estimate, it was clear thousands of homes had been damaged or destroyed by flooding and tornados. Thousands of residents were displaced with some going to more than 20 shelters opened around Tennessee.

Emily Petro, with the Red Cross in Nashville, said the agency was sheltering about 2,000 people across Tennessee — about 1,200 of them in Nashville.

Hospitals, schools and state buildings also were flooded. Most schools in middle Tennessee would be closed Monday and most universities in the Nashville area postponed final exams, though many state workers were expected to return to their jobs, if possible.

The state’s roads were in bad shape. The three major interstates in the Nashville area were closed over the weekend and Interstate 40, which runs east to west through the state, would likely remain closed since standing water is still stranding drivers.

Bredesen said more than 150 roads were closed in middle Tennessee alone with washouts and bridge damage destruction fairly common.

The Cumberland could add millions of dollars to the damage total.

Officials in Tennessee said Sunday the flooding is as bad as they’ve seen since 1975 when water memorably inundated the old Opryland amusement park east of downtown Nashville. Even the state’s own emergency operations center wasn’t immune. It took up to a foot of water below a false floor, forcing officials to relocate to an auxiliary command center.

“I’ve never seen it this high,” said emergency official Donnie Smith, who’s lived in Nashville 45 years. “I’m sure that it’s rained this hard at one time, but never for this much of an extended period.”

Thornton’s first goal leads Sharks past Wings 4-3

A third-period comeback, a broken stick that leads to the winning goal. This seemed to be just the type of playoff game the San Jose Sharks would lose in the past, only this year’s bunch got the good fortune.

Joe Thornton scored his first goal of the postseason after an odd-man rush set up when Nicklas Lidstrom broke his stick and the Sharks beat the Detroit Red Wings 4-3 on Sunday night to take a 2-0 lead in the second-round series.

“You need breaks,” Thornton said. “But I think you make your breaks like we did tonight.”

That didn’t seem to happen in playoffs past as the Sharks have failed to make it out of the second round despite having the second-best regular-season record over the past five years.

The biggest reason for the change is the play of Joe Pavelski, who scored two more goals to increase his playoff-leading total to nine and set up Ryane Clowe’s between-the-legs score to continue a breakthrough postseason for the player no longer known as “Little Joe.”

Pavelski is the first player to have three straight multi-goal games in the playoffs since Mario Lemieux did it for Pittsburgh in 1992.

“It’s good to see pucks go in the net,” Pavelski said. “It’s good to work hard and get rewarded. It always feels good to chip in. There’s a lot more to go though.”

The Sharks head to Detroit for Game 3 on Tuesday night with the series lead in part because Lidstrom broke his stick attempting a slap shot in the offensive zone midway through the third period.

Dany Heatley came up with the loose puck, skated up ice on a 3-on-2 break and fired a shot into Jimmy Howard’s pads. Thornton beat Brian Rafalski to the rebound in the crease and knocked in the winner.

“This is what you think about when you’re laying in bed a lot of times and you can’t sleep,” Pavelski said. “You want to score points. You don’t know if they will keep coming like that. You can’t worry about that. As soon as you feel you shouldn’t be doing it, that’s when it does stop.”

Pavel Datsyuk, Tomas Holmstrom and Lidstrom scored for the Red Wings, who were unable to hold onto a 3-2 lead heading into the third in part because they committed too many penalties.

Pavelski tied it early in the third when he poked in a rebound that was in the crease with the Sharks on a two-man advantage that he had set up. With Todd Bertuzzi already in the box for holding Marc-Edouard Vlasic in the offensive zone, Pavelski drew a tripping call on Niklas Kronwall that gave San Jose the 5-on-3 power play for 1:20.

“Obviously he’s in the zone right now,” coach Todd McLellan said. “Everything he touches seems to go in the net. He had 11 shots on goal. He feels very comfortable. But he’s earned that. He works hard on every shift and he’s diligent. He’s a catalyst right now.”

Pavelski scored what proved to be the winner in the opener on another two-man advantage early in the third period that had Detroit coach Mike Babcock steaming. He was more upset at his team after this game, when the Sharks had a 10-4 advantage on power plays, including one to end the game for too many men on the ice.

“The reality is that you can’t have momentum if only half your players can get on the ice because they are sitting in the penalty box all night long,” Babcock said.

Evgeni Nabokov made 28 saves for San Jose, including a sharp glove stop on Datsyuk early in the third to keep the Sharks’ deficit at one goal.

The Sharks have won five straight games since Dan Boyle’s pass deflected off a Colorado stick and into his own net in Game 3 of the first round. That’s a sign they might finally be shedding the label of postseason underachievers. To do that, they still need to knock off the Red Wings, who have ruled the Western Conference by going to six of the past 14 Stanley Cup finals. No other team in the conference has been to the finals more than twice in that span.

“It’s just an easygoing feeling in the room right now with a lot of confidence,” Clowe said. “We feel like we’re going to get it done and we did.”

Patrick Marleau returned from an illness that sidelined him for Game 1 but was not back to the form he had when he scored a team-leading 44 goals in the regular season for San Jose. He did win the faceoff that led to Pavelski’s first goal and rejoined Thornton and Heatley on the gold-medal line for the third period.

Marleau also committed the boarding penalty at the end of the first period that led to a key goal for Detroit. With Nabokov trying to move Holmstrom from in front of the net, Lidstrom fired a shot from the point that sneaked in for the even-strength goal just as Marleau’s penalty ended. It was Lidstrom’s fourth goal of the playoffs and first since celebrating his 40th birthday on Wednesday.

Holmstrom’s net presence led to Detroit’s second goal when he tipped in Rafalski’s shot from the point on the power play to tie it at 2 in the first period.

NOTES: Red Wings F Patrick Eaves was scratched because of an arm injury. Jason Williams got the call, getting his first action since Game 1 in the first round. … Sharks F Jed Ortmeyer was scratched to make room for Marleau’s return.

Alejandro Valverde tops rankings as doping verdict nears

Alejandro Valverde has taken the top spot in cycling’s world rankings as he waits for a court ruling that could ban him from racing worldwide for doping.

Valverde leads the International Cycling Union’s rankings published Monday, a day after winning the Tour de Romandie in Switzerland.

The 30-year-old Spaniard leads Belgium’s Philippe Gilbert 392-294 in the season-long points race.

But Valverde cannot race in the 21-stage Giro d’Italia starting Saturday because Italy’s Olympic Committee banned him from racing there after connecting him to a Spanish blood-doping ring.

The UCI wants that two-year ban extended worldwide and had its case heard at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in March. A ruling is expected within weeks.

Michael Douglas: Son’s prison sentence ‘adequate’

Michael Douglas believes his son’s five-year sentence for dealing drugs could be a lifesaver, he said Monday on NBC’s “Today,” describing the prison term as “adequate.”

Douglas expressed hope that incarceration would give 31-year-old Cameron Douglas the time he needs to kick the drug habit that has plagued him since he was 13.

“He was going to be dead or somebody was going to kill him,” Douglas said. “My son was a drug dealer, and he tried to kill himself for a while, and I can’t condone his behavior.”

Last month, a judge sentenced Cameron Douglas to five years for dealing methamphetamine from a trendy Manhattan hotel.

“It’s going to take that amount of time for him to rebuild and start himself afresh,” Douglas said.

Douglas said his son’s spirit is good but added that the past year’s imprisonment awaiting a sentence has been “really, really difficult.”

“With all the mistakes and the disease that Cameron has, he is a great young man,” Douglas said, “and I wouldn’t be supporting him if I didn’t feel that way.”

The 65-year-old Oscar winner has accepted a major portion of the blame for his son’s problems, describing himself as an absentee father during Cameron’s youth too concerned with building his career.

Ask by “Today” host Matt Lauer what advice he’d give to other parents whose children might fall prey to drugs, Douglas said, “You have to catch it early. Your options once your children turn 18 are limited.”

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