The FA Cup party I went to in a TV studio here featured 500 Poms and a few dozen bemused Aussies gathering round a giant screen for the midnight kick-off. (Also in attendance were several groups of young women, doubtless lured by that rare commodity in Sydney, a roomful of straight, single men.) Regarded by many in the ex-pat community as the hottest ticket in town, the invitation said it would be an authentic recreation of the Wembley atmosphere. However, as everyone knows, the Wembley atmosphere is actually a unique aromatic blend of beer and pie farts, urine and police manure.So it was disappointing to discover that the meat pies contained meat, not the mad cow gristle and pig sphincters that we remembered so well, and were thus quite unable to generate the necessary flatulence.Worse, toilets had been provided, and there was not an incontinent police horse to be seen.Yet once the game kicked off these limitations were quickly forgotten, though they were soon replaced by those of the match itself. It is about whether he will be selected to play for the national team - and if not, why not.At the popular level, the argument revolves around two questions.

The first, which may have a familiarity to English ears, is: "How can our most gifted player be left out?" The second is: "If he won't play in France, why should he be picked?"At the professional level, the arguments are twofold: whether the French national coach, Aime Jacquet, is ready to re-admit a player he ejected from the national team with a flourish of invective more than a year ago, and whether Cantona can be re-integrated into the style of the French team as it has developed since Jacquet has a week in which to make up his mind.. The fact that it was Cantona who sealed the victory and that he is French was mentioned almost in passing. Once a player, even one of Cantona's standing and notoriety, plays abroad, day-to-day public interest in France declines. Among the few reactions to Cantona's achievements in Britain over the season yesterday was this from Guy Roux, the Auxerre trainer who discovered him, aged 15, in Marseille.Roux said he was proud of Cantona's performance at Wembley and described him as, "an excellent ambassador for France".There is a debate in France about Cantona, but it is mostly not about his transformation from villain to hero, nor even about whether, deep down, he is a "good boy" or a "bad boy". Manchester United's defeat of Liverpool at Wembley in the FA Cup final headed French television's sports news on Saturday evening, but not because of the part played in it by Eric Cantona. It was the event itself, and the fact that Manchester United had won the Double - a feat replicated in French football a few hours later by Auxerre - that attracted most notice. There is, however, disappointment here that the standard of domestic football does not match its popularity, and it has not kept pace with other sports like athletics and boxing.Hezekiah Wepukhulu writes for The Nation. The match had been the main talking point the whole week long, with Liverpool and Manchester United having their supporters, though United enjoyed the clear majority The match was screened on Kenyan television.

There was widespread disappointment about the standard of the football, but relief among the United contingent that their team had won. Football is the most popular sport in Kenya, as in many other African countries, and many Kenyans follow the fortunes of English clubs. Clubs in the Premiership are, by and large, more popular than their Continental counterparts. As United players lifted the trophy, real Liverpudlians embraced real Mancunians. Dave Fanshawe, a 28-year-old security guard from Manchester, embraced Kenny Pugh, a 38- year-old Liverpool supporter, by the billiard tables when the final whistle blew.Almost spontaneously Dave gave his United scarf to a local black girl, Donna, at the bar while Kenny pinned on her a Liverpool rosette..

Never before has an overseas football cup tie been followed as keenly in Kenya as Saturday's FA Cup final on Saturday. You're wasted at Man United," yelled Gary Graham as the Frenchman wove his magic. "Up thee 'ammers," added Chris Hubbard, a businessman and West Ham fanatic who has lived in Miami for eight years.To the Haitian immigrant kids who peered through the door, the football microcosm revealed the game at its best. Of the hundred or so expats who turned up at Churchill's pub, hidden away in Miami's Little Haiti district, few noticed the man in the yellow goggles. Those who did left him alone ."Cantona, you should be at West Ham. Bono wanted vodka but Churchill's (despite the name) doesn't serve hard liquor. Kick-off time was 10am locally but, needless to say, Dave, the owner, managed to produce a bottle.Bono and The Edge may be famous but Saturday was about football.