Slovene Football Team Loses Best Defender Before World Cup Qalifier with Romania

Munich, 23 October - After seriously hurting his right Achilles tendon on Sunday at the German first-division match with Bayern Muenchen, Aleksander Knavs, member of the Bundesliga top-club Kaiserslautern and defender of Slovenia's national team, will have to undergo surgery. He will thus miss out on the two-leg playoff with Romania for a place in the 2002 Football World Cup in Japan and South Korea.