Togo Coach Has Yet to Return

Togo may again be without a coach, three days after Otto Pfister left the team hotel in a huff and hours after Togo's federation said he agreed to come back.

Pfister was expected to arrive at the team's hotel last night, and the Togo federation said he would be on the bench for the game against South Korea today. But Pfister had not arrived from his home in Zurich by 9 p.m.

When asked if Pfister would coach Togo today, federation spokesman Messan Attolou said, "I'm not sure."

The country's prime minister traveled to Germany in an attempt to broker a compromise in a dispute over money between the players and the soccer federation. That dispute led Pfister to leave the team on Saturday.

The players, most of whom are with smaller European clubs, have been holding out for $200,000 each to play in the tournament, plus $39,000 each per win and $20,000 per draw.

· IRAN CAPTAIN OUT : Ali Daei, Iran's captain and top international scorer, likely will miss the match on Saturday against Portugal because of a back injury.

· SMOKING BAN: Mexico Coach Ricardo LaVolpe will have to quit smoking during games or risk getting in trouble with FIFA, which has a no-smoking rule for those on the sideline.

· THEY'RE WATCHING: ABC's broadcast of three World Cup matches from the opening weekend, none of which included the U.S. team, drew an average overnight rating of 2.8, a 65 percent increase over the network's average from two matches during the opening weekend of the 2002 World Cup.

Of course, those games were played in Asia and broadcast in the early morning in the United States. The average rating for two ABC games during the opening weekend of the 1998 Cup in France was 2.5, 12 percent less than this year.