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THE mystery of Ronaldo's walk-on part in the final of the France '98 will, we suspect, be debated right up until World Cup 2002 -- at which point, of course, the Brazilian superstar will be in his mid-twenties and, general health permitting, be leading the Brazilian challenge yet again.

The jury is still out on what actually went wrong with the ace striker in the hours before the curtain went up on an emotion-charged final against the host nation. But would Ronaldo have been a force to reckon with, even assuming he hadn't suffered that epileptic fit?

As far as French defender Laurent Blanc is concerned, the question is moot.

Blanc missed the final because of a red card earned in course of a hard-fought semifinal against Croatia. But though he may have sat out the final game in the team dressing room, Blanc's influence was very visible on the pitch.

The former teammate of Ronaldo at Barcelona briefed his replacement, defender Frank Leboeuf, on the Brazilian's moves before the final.

"Laurent told me that when Ronaldo dribbles, he takes the left side every time," Leboeuf explained later. "So once I was in front of him, it was easy to tackle him."

Could the secret of how the French tied Ronaldo be as simple as that?

IN the age of chauvinism, it is perhaps in the fitness of things that Zinedine Zidane proved to be the star not only of France's first ever appearance in a World Cup final, but in its ultimate, emotion-charged triumph before the home crowd.

Zidane is the son of Algerian immigrants, and yet another member of a cosmopolitan team, the members of which have roots in Armenia, Ghana, Guadeloupe and New Caledonia.

So eclectic is the mix, in fact, that Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the right-wing National Front, was moved to remark that it was "artificial" to call the side 'French', despite the fact that all the players are full fledged French citizens.

The argument held out by Le Pen and his band of French supremacists has been that only the real, true-blue Frenchman would be so infused with patriotic fervour as to play his heart out for flag and country.

Well, what do you know -- it was the likes of Desailly, Lilian Thuram and Zidane who played stellar roles in taking the national side beyond the frontiers charted by arguably the greatest French side of them all -- the one led by playmaker Michel Platini, which made the semis in 1982 and 1986.

While on Zidane, a sidelight for trivia buffs. During his stint in Serie A with Juventus, the media dubbed the midfield magician le chat noir. Which translates into 'the black cat' -- a nickname that owed neither to his skin colour (more beige than anything else) or his sleek movements on a soccer field.

'The black cat' got the nom de guerre because, in the opinion of the media, he was an unlucky, jinxed star, especially when it came to the big games. Evidence thereof, eminently forgettable performances in the 1996 European Championships and the '97 and the '98 Champions League finals.

Well, they can still call him 'the big cat' -- and, if quizzed, say they meant a panther on the prowl. For there was something of that feline in the way Zidane struck those two death blows at Brazil, nodding home successive corners to give the host nation an unbeatable lead in the final.

SUPER League blues still effect the UEFA, which has now asked its member associations and national leagues to officially state their positions on a breakaway tournament.

This follows the rumoured meeting, last weekend, of the owners of Europe's top soccer clubs with a view to forming the breakaway Super League.

The buzz -- denied, vehemently, by all concerned -- is that the main protagonists of a rebellion that could see a parallel league in the 2000-2001 season are AC and Inter Milan, Juventus, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Paris St. Germain, Ajax Amsterdam, Manchester United and Bayern Munich.

Expressing its surprise "that this matter has remained unnoticed by the national associations and leagues concerned", the UEFA executive committee said that it was now up to the premier teams, and respective associations, to openly confirm their stand on the question.

While demanding that the various superteams come upfront with their intentions, UEFA said that it was willing to further fine tune its competitions "in accordance with the wishes and needs of all components within the structure of European football" to satisfy both the grassroots and the elite.

PENALTY shoot-outs -- despite every attempt by FIFA to ensure more goals in open play -- are here to stay. Vide the method of Brazil's entry into the final -- remember, this is the side that scored more field goals than any other during the competition, and it still took a lottery to get them through to the last stage.

Given this, it won't be long before premier teams spend as much time practising penalty shootouts, getting their lineups right and giving their goalkeepers intense practise in saving the kicks directed by opponents, as they do practising free-kicks, corners and other set piece situations.

And off the top, you can think of two teams that could do with a healthy dose of such practise. The first, of course, is Italy -- which, in three successive Cups, has ended out losing via the penalty shootout.

Giving them a close run in the so-near-yet-so-far stakes is England, which went out via the shootout in two Cups, not to mention one European Championship, this decade.