Angolans to get $5000 per goal • Angola’s Banco Internacional de Credito (BIC) has promised to give $5,000 to every national team player who scores at the World Cup, state-owned newspaper Jornal de Angola reported on Friday. The bank’s president, Fernando Teles, also said he would offer $5,000 to the best Angola player in each of their Group D matches against Portugal, Mexico and Iran. The incentives offered by BIC include $50,000 to be shared among the players and technical team for every win in Germany plus a further $50,000 if Angola get beyond the group stage. Angola face former colonial power Portugal in their opening group game on June 11 in Cologne. Tim Cahill in race against time • Australia midfielder Tim Cahill has admitted he is struggling to be fit for the opening World Cup game against Japan but still hopes to play. The Everton player has been sidelined with a knee injury and is almost certain to miss Australia’s friendly against European champions Greece in Melbourne next week. Cahill said he was pleased with the way with the knee was responding to treatment but still in doubt for the Group F clash against Japan on June 12. “It’s really difficult because I’ve partially torn my posterior cruciate,” he told Australian radio on Friday. Germans game with Dutch grass • German national pride suffered a blow when it was announced more than a year ago that the honour of laying the grass in the stadiums had gone to their bitter, long-time soccer rivals Netherlands. Tensions subsided, however, as details emerged of the Dutch firm’s expertise in grass cultivation and news came out that a German firm would lay the turf at the five other venues. The Dutch grass seed company Hendriks Graszoden is in fact geographically closer to most of those venues. The German contractor Buechner and Dutch farmer John Hendriks have kept secret the exact locations of the grass grown for the World Cup to keep away souvenir hunters, pranksters or other trouble-makers.
