The World Cup's four remaining teams got a chance to recuperate Sunday, with just a week to go until the final of the monthlong tournament. Organizers said they still did not know if Nelson Mandela would attend the July 11 final at Soccer City but Uruguay, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain have all shown enough to suggest that South Africa's former president would enjoy a great match if he did show. Germany is the form team after its 4-0 demolition of supposed contender Argentina, while Diego Forlan has helped carry Uruguay further than most predicted. The Netherlands fear no one after beating Brazil but Paraguay coach Gerardo Martino thinks Spain only beat his team in the quarterfinals because of a bad refereeing decision. David Villa's fifth goal of the tournament carried Spain through to its first ever World Cup semifinal and what should be a thrilling meeting with Germany. It is a match worthy of a final, but only one can make it to the showpiece at Soccer City and a possible audience with Mandela. The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who turns 92 this month and appears increasingly frail, was instrumental in bringing the World Cup to South Africa but has yet to appear at the tournament. Mandela had sent a letter to the national football federation to wish the last African team in the tournament success at the match Friday. Mandela was prominent at the 1995 Rugby World Cup but the 91-year-old former president has kept a low profile during the monthlong football equivalent. The anti-apartheid icon has received visitors, including the Ghana squad, throughout the tournament and was expected to attend the opening match on June 11. But he made a late decision not to go following the death of his great granddaughter in a car accident on the eve of the game. Mandela “has an open invitation to attend any match he wants to attend,” organizing committee spokesman Rich Mkhondo said Sunday. “If he comes, we will be very happy. If he does not, we will understand.” Paraguay's exit left Uruguay as the only South American survivor in the tournament. Brazil could be looking for a coach to replace Dunga but Luiz Felipe Scolari is not planning to return for a second stint as coach of his native country. Scolari led Brazil to the 2002 World Cup title and has been touted as a possible replacement, but said his focus for the next two years would be with Brazilian club Palmeiras. “It would be wonderful to finish my career coaching a national team in the World Cup in Brazil,” he told Brazil's Radio Eldorado in South Africa. Joy and pain for Mueller Thomas Mueller was Germany's golden boy Saturday after his glancing header helped it into the World Cup semifinals, but the young Bayern Munich star will miss the biggest match of his career. But Mueller's joy was tinged with regret after he picked up another yellow card to go with the one he got against Ghana, for controlling the ball with his hand on 35 minutes. It means he is not eligible to play in the last-four clash against either Spain or Paraguay in Durban next week as Germany go in search of their fourth World Cup title and first since 1990. While Mueller misses out, he can at least take consolation from having made sure Diego Maradona will never again forget who he is, after the Argentina coach said he mistook the Bayern Munich forward for a ballboy when they first met. He was little known outside Germany when he made his debut in a 1-0 friendly defeat to Argentina in Munich in March and attended the post-match press conference as his country's great new hope alongside the Argentina coach. Maradona joked that he thought the ballboy had arrived and felt so slighted that he stormed off and refused to return until the German left the stage to him alone. But with four goals at this World Cup and a Champions League final appearance, plus the German league and cup double, under his belt, Mueller is now a household name – and one Maradona will not forget in a hurry. Striker Miroslav Klose joined the elite 100 club Saturday, cementing his place in German football history while edging closer to Ronaldo's all-time World Cup goal-scoring record. The Bayern Munich striker's 100th cap, in front of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, put him in the company of top players like Franz Beckenbauer, Juergen Klinsmann and Lothar Matthaeus as one of only nine Germans to reach the milestone. Having scored against England and Australia in South Africa and now against Argentina, he has 14 World Cup goals, surpassing Brazilian legend Pele's 12 and the 13 scored by Frenchman Just Fontaine. He now stands level with German great Gerd Mueller, the star of West Germany's 1974 World Cup winners, and just a single strike behind Ronaldo. He also sits third on the all-time German goal-scoring hit-list with 52, behind Mueller's 68 goals for West Germany and Joachim Streich's 55 goals for East Germany.
