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Argentines get OK for sex
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- In a break with tradition, Argentine soccer players can have sex at the World Cup next summer.However, coach Daniel Passarella doesn't want his players indulging 48 hours before a game or at the team's living quarters.
"I won't let them do it at the hotel where we're staying," he said in the newspaper La Nacion on Friday. "But I won't object if they rent a house or find a place to do it."
Passarella, a disciplinarian who has banned his players from having long hair or wearing earrings, said sex could be "healthy."
"Sex is fine, as long as they're playing every five or six days -- not if they're playing every 48 hours," said Passarella, whose team qualified for 32-team tournament in France by leading the South American standings.
Coach Carlos Bilardo imposed a sex ban during the 1986 and 1990 World Cups. The Argentines won the 1986 World Cup in Mexico and were second four years later in Italy.
In the United States in 1994, coach Alfio Basile was reported to have relaxed the rules to allow stars Diego Maradona and Claudio Caniggia to secretly meet their wives. Argentina was eliminated in the second round.
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