NICKNAMES

What's in a name? Sometimes everything, sometimes nothing, sometimes just a good laugh. Brazil's Roberto Carlos is called Thunder Thighs; Argentina's Ariel Ortega, Little Donkey; Italy's Christian Vieri answers to Bobo. Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, and the rest of Brazil don't need last names; Figo (Portugal) doesn't need a first. Teams have nicknames too. Nigeria: The Super Eagles. Denmark: Danish Dynamite. England: The Three Lions. Costa Rica: The Ticos. Another reason for being sorry the Dutch (Clockwork Orange) aren't here? We'll never know if Dennis Bergkamp -- called the Nonflying Dutchman because he so hates flying -- would have come on the team plane or hired his own boat.

OWEN

Four years ago in France, a waiflike 18-year-old with an angelic face scored the most memorable goal of the World Cup, sprinting 60 yards with the ball and turning Argentine defenders into a domino-line of missed tackles before calmly ripping the net with a 14-yard laser. World, meet Michael Owen. Many goals for both England and Liverpool later, Owen is not likely to get that type of running room in this Cup. Look for defenders to begin marking him (and tugging on his jersey) upon his entrance into the stadium. They'd better: Owen goes from zero to top speed faster than any player in the world.

	Don't blink or you might miss Michael Owen.

PENALTIES

The bane of the world's most popular sporting event is its reliance on penalty kicks to break ties. The first World Cup match to end in penalties -- the epic France-West Germany semifinal in 1982 -- was one of the greatest games ever, and the penalties provided high drama. But the novelty soon wore off. In 1986, three games ended in penalties; in 1990, four; in 1994 and again in 1998, three. Until FIFA comes up with a better solution -- and there just may not be one -- settling games with penalty kicks will never leave us with heroes, only goats.

QUARTERFINALS

Getting there makes Cast Away look like a day at the beach. First comes round-robin play in your own four-team group, three games in 10 days. The two teams with the best records advance. But often, more than two teams in the group finish dead even in points (3 for a win, 0 for a loss, 1 for a tie). The first tiebreaker is goal differential: total scored minus goals allowed. The second tiebreaker, if needed, is just goals scored. And there's even a third, more complicated, tiebreaker. That's total points vs. noneliminated teams in the group. Still tied? Back to goal difference, then total goals, etc., only this time it's vs. the noneliminated teams. Got it? The 16 teams that advance enter an NCAA Tournament-style bracket, single elimination. Winners go to the quarters; losers go home. Every four years the soccer gods seem to single out a squad to receive an Advance-to-Go-Collect-$200 ticket to the quarters. This year, as if it needed it, it's Brazil. That's right: Ronaldo, Rivaldo and the gang, after struggling in qualifying, were placed in ultraweak Group C, where they'll easily dispose of soccer poofs Turkey, Costa Rica and China (first World Cup). Then Brazil gets four days of rest before facing the second-place team from not-so-scary Group H (Belgium, Russia, Japan, Tunisia) in the Round of 16. Luck of the draw? Far as we know.

RINGERS

Ah, the ties that bind. Over the past decade, the Irish perfected the art of recruiting the foreign-born player with a link, however tenuous, to the Emerald Isle -- someone, say, with a great-granddad from Donegal -- to play for Ireland. On the US team, French-born left back David Regis is American only by marriage. Japan just naturalized a Brazilian -- Alex, a seven-year vet of the Japanese pro leagues -- so he could play under the Rising Sun. A Ghanian, Gerald Asamoah, is a German national for World Cup purposes. And Poland's best player is a Nigerian -- sorry, Pole -- named Emmanuel Olisadebe. Poland wouldn't have been invited to the dance if coach Jerzy Engel hadn't persuaded President Aleksander Kwasniewski to speed up Olisadebe's naturalization. The explosive striker scored a goal a game in qualifying to lead Poland to its first Cup competition in 16 years.

SAVIOLA

Remember the name, if you don't know it already. And the nickname, El Conejito (Little Rabbit), hung on the 5'5'', 20-year-old magician because of his protruding teeth. And the label: the New Maradona. Javier Saviola has drawn the Diego Maradona comparison ever since he turned pro four years ago. At 18, he led River Plate to the Argentine league championship before moving on to Spanish giant Barcelona last season. The Little Rabbit's a rare talent, a creative master inside the six-yard box with an unteachable knack for finding net and, just maybe, the next savior of Argentine football. There's just one catch: Saviola won't play in World Cup this year, because he didn't make the squad. Second-guessers will scream that coach Marcelo Bielsa's phobia about creating a cult of personality around a "New Maradona" has caused him to make a fatal blunder. After all, even the original Maradona has given Saviola his seal of approval: "Every time I see him play, I get goose bumps. I would give him a lot of freedom and not bother him with tactics. Those are for people who don't know how to play." But in reality, Saviola's absence is nothing more than a testament to just how strong the Argentine side is. So deep is Bielsa's talent pool at forward, with the likes of Serie A star Hernán Crespo, forward Claudio López and two-time Cup veteran Claudio Caniggia, that he might not even start Gabriel Batistuta, the man with the most goals in the country's history. Midfielder Juan Sebastián Verón, an anchor of Argentina's defense, isn't worried. "People say we don't have a Maradona this time," says the Man U star. "In my view, we have 23 Maradonas." Maybe, but if Argentina comes home without the Cup, a whole country's going to demand Bielsa's head for spurning one Little Rabbit.

TIME

South Korea and Japan are 13 hours ahead of the Eastern time zone. Remember the Nagano syndrome? The only difference is, unlike people who dip in and out of Olympics coverage, soccer fans are insane enough to watch their games live. On the East Coast, most of the games will start at 2:30 a.m and 7:30 a.m. ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC will show 58 live games, only six on tape-delay. Univision and TeleFutura combined will have 64 games -- all live. But if you're watching the 2:30 game on Univision, remember to keep the volume down. Gooooaaal!

UNDERACHIEVERS

Despite their two great clubs (Real Madrid and Barcelona) and a host of other good ones, Spain is the all-time underachieving World Cup contender. Even when they hosted in 1982, they failed to advance past the second round. This year, with players like Raúl and Morientes, they have the talent to go far. But that's been true just about every Cup year. Belgium, the only nation to qualify for the past six tournaments on merit (that is, without being a holder or host) has never set the World Cup on fire, but did manage the semifinals in 1986, which is better than Spain has ever done. Include Russia (and the USSR -- plenty of talent, never got past the quarters) in this group. South Korea qualified for the past four tournaments, and is competitive, but has yet to win a game. And if Nigeria, loaded with high-profile footballers who play in Europe, again fails to make it beyond the second round, add it to the underachievers list.

VILLIANS

The Axis of Evil -- Iran, Iraq, North Korea -- won't be in attendance. And that's too bad. Back in 1966, North Korea defeated Italy in one of the biggest World Cup upsets of all time. Four years ago, Iran beat the US. There was talk of North Korea hosting one of the semifinals, but that fell through, as did an attempt to include a North Korean player on the South Korean team as a show of goodwill. Traditionalists will tell you that the team they love to hate is Germany, but for 2002, Uruguay may collect enough cards to get the nod. The tiny South American country plays with a lot of ... let's say, passion. "They can be rather violent and tough in individual challenges," says French D Bixente Lizarazu. "The main fear we have is that they may turn the game nasty."

WITCH

Is there a (witch) doctor in the house? Since 2000, organizers of the African Nations Cup have banned witch doctors, who are quite popular in African soccer, from traveling with their teams to Mali. But no such bans have been decreed for the World Cup, and Cameroon plans to bring a witch doctor to its opening match against the Irish. Can't blame 'em -- he was on the team bench when Cameroon held Senegal scoreless in the Nations Cup final.

X-FACTOR

The World Cup loves a good redemption story, and this year's leading candidate is Ronaldo, the Brazilian star who, at 25, is staging a comeback when most soccer players are just starting to realize their potential. Ronaldo was the World Cup glamour boy in 1998, but after a mystery seizure before the final prompted a deer-in-the-headlights performance, his career went into a free fall of injuries and innuendo. The good news is that his latest woe, a lingering knee injury that's kept him out of Inter Milan's lineup for nearly two years, finally appears to be healed. Fit and goal-hungry, Ronaldo is returning to the form that made him a two-time FIFA Player of the Year. This spring, he netted three crucial goals during the stretch run of Inter's third-place showing in the Serie A championship. The reason for his resurgence? Ronaldo claims his prayers to a shrine of the Virgin Mary in Rio de Janeiro helped cure his injuries and restore his skills. Hey, what's a World Cup without a little divine intervention?

	Don't call it a comeback, Ronaldo's been here for years.

YOKOHAMA

The final will be played in this industrial city of 3.3 million on June 30, and you're probably wondering who's going to be there. Well, here's how we see the next month unfolding. Two weeks of Group play halves the field of 32. (Sorry Nigeria, Mexico and Russia -- have a nice flight home.) In the Round of 16, France squeaks past England in a thriller, Spain gets past Ireland, Italy sends the happy-to-be-there US crashing back to earth, Brazil breezes by hometown favorite Japan, Belgium defeats Group C runner-up Turkey (though no one seems to care) and Portugal sneaks by sleeper Ecuador. Still following? In the quarterfinals, France defeats Brazil in the rematch of the 1998 final, Germany falls to Italy 1-0, Portugal continues its quest by breaking Spain's heart, and Argentina outclasses Belgium. Yes, we agree, the first semi -- Argentina vs. France -- should have been the final. But only one of them can advance, and in a game for the ages, it's Argentina. Italy and Portugal square off in a match of Tradition vs. Destiny, and this time Destiny prevails on penalty kicks. So, on the final day of June, Argentina's Los Gauchos and Portugal's Golden Generation meet in a historic, and beautiful, battle to determine who'll be the first team to kiss the Cup in the 21st century. The winner: Argentina.

ZIDANE

This article appears in the June 10 issue of ESPN The Magazine.