His exploits, including eight league titles, earned him the sobriquet "major," though others in Kiev preferred the more affectionate "flea."

But with Ukraine having made the quarterfinals here on their debut, others have been referring to the eminence grise on the bench as the general.

"Why they should promote me I don't know," he smiled.

Trap-ped
Blokhin made a brief slip of the tongue in looking forward to the quarterfinal with Italy.

When asked if he thought the Azzurri would field Francesco Totti from the outset Blokhin said: "that's Trapattoni's problem," referring to former Italian coach Giovanni Trapattoni.

"Sorry, I mean that's Lippi's problem," he corrected himself.

Extra large
Hamburg, which will host the quarterfinal clash between Ukraine and Italy, will see the unveiling of the largest football shirt ever. The shirt is composed of 1,000 different shirts from around the world and measures a whopping 330 square metres after Hamburg sports federations spent ten months stitching it together.

Increasing seats
As the tournament progresses more and more fans are going home as their teams are knocked out. But the journalistic fraternity is still around in as much force as ever and organisers are having a headache to fit them all in to an ever decreasing number of matches. Organisers have already had to make available a few extra media seats for the semifinals and final. Whereas Munich and Dortmund, hosting the semis, previously had 600 press seats that will now be boosted to 2000. Berlin's Olympic Stadium, which will host the final, will be bulging with 3000 journalists rather than the current contingent of 600.

Wrong ones
After an Argentine comic gatecrashed a German training session a German joker tried to gain 'revenge' on the hosts' quarterfinal rivals. The German prankster went to the Argentine hotel in the southern town of Herzogenaurach accompanied by a Franz Beckenbauer and a Diego Maradona lookalike and tried to gain entry to team headquarters. A few journalists were briefly fooled into chasing after a possible interview -- but the police weren't and the pair failed to make it past security.

Imperialistic American!
Actor Spike Lee is not alone in lamenting referee's mistakes which cannot, as yet, be rectified by technology. Lee, a keen fan, told the official FIFA website that instant replays ought to be brought in.

"I might sound like an imperialistic American but they've got to bring in instant replays.

"Also, the field is too big, the game is too fast. Twenty years ago one man could referee a game. Now it's too fast -- you need more than one referee on the field and you need instant replays."