(By Brian Williams) Reuters, England fans bet on it. A Nigerian player's wife does it. An Argentine coach may even have lost his job over it.
Hair in the many colors of the rainbow. Hair in all shapes and sizes. No hair.
However you look at it, hair is THE fashion statement of the 2002 World Cup.
The short back and sides is out -- except for losing teams.
The Mohawk, the chin lock, the skinhead, the dreadlock, the 1970's long flowing locks look -- even some styles you'd never dare wear in the streets -- are in.
After the first week of the Cup, it seems a player is as likely to arrive at a game with hair dye in his kit as his football boots.
What does it all mean? Is it just vanity or something deeper?
Top Japanese hair stylist Aki Watanabe, who does the hair of Japan's French coach, Philippe Troussier, when he is in Tokyo, says that in the modern game hair has become the only way for a player to standout and express his individuality.
Watanabe, whose salon is a magnet for Japanese and foreigners alike, says that as a result of the explosion of money in football through marketing and advertising contracts what a player wears is tightly controlled.
"The only thing he has control over is his hair," Watanabe told Reuters. "If he wants to make a statement that he is a warrior, he wears a mohawk. If he wants to say to opponents 'Beware I am a hard man', he shaves his head."
HAIR CAN GET YOU NOTICED
Watanabe says that in the era of football globalization, where players have become mercenaries seeking the highest wages anywhere in the world, a stand-out hair style is a way to be noticed by talent scouts.
"If you're trying to break into the big time, you change your hair style or color so you leap out from the other players on the field, not just with your skill but your look," he adds.
The award for the standout hair -- singular -- goes to Nigerian defender Efe Sodje, an example of a player still trying to be noticed and get into the big money bracket.
Sodje, who plays for English second division team Crewe Alexandra, sports a chin lock.
The single-strand of beard, in the national color of green, juts out from his face at a gravity-defying -- and eye-catching -- angle guaranteed to attract an opponent's attention.
"My wife spent hours doing it for me," he says.
Even for an established star like England captain and fashion icon David Bekham, his hair style causes as much comment as his ball skills.
British book maker William Hill has odds of 4-7 that Beckham, whose ever-changing hairstyle has included a mohawk and a shaven head, will wear two or more different looks during the Cup.
When Beckham, wearing a modified mohawk with a black stripe down the middle of his blond hair, was replaced midway through England's 1-1 draw with Sweden this week, one fan commented:
"He was obviously having a bad hair day."
LONG HAIR MAKES A COMEBACK
Long hair is making a comeback both on and off the pitch. Senegal's French coach, Bruno Metsu, and Cameroon's German coach, Winfried Schaefer, both favor shoulder-length locks.
England goalkeeper David Seaman has sported a pony-tail for a couple of seasons.
For Argentina, which after the early matches has emerged as the new tournament favorite, a change of team hair policy is seen as at least contributing to their new status.
Long hair came back into fashion in Argentina about four years ago, coinciding with the end of Daniel Passarella's tenure as national coach.
Passarella had demanded that his players wear their hair short, and even Gabriel Batistuta cut it when he was called up.
Fernando Redondo, then with Real Madrid, famously refused to play for his country under Passarella over ideological differences including freedom of hairstyle.
With hair restrictions lifted under new coach Marcelo Bielsa, the Argentinians are back to their mercurial best, coinciding with a switch to free-flowing shoulder length hair now worn by nearly all players apart from shaven-headed Juan Sebastian Veron.
Hair color, not style, has become the hallmark of co-hosts Japan and South Korea (news - web sites) as much as their rise as Asian football powers.
As with their hair-dye crazy youth generally, natural black is fading from both squads coinciding with better results.
The Japan team sports some seven hair colors from several shades of brown, via the bright crimson, once orange, of midfielder Kazuyuki Toda to the silver locks of midfielder Junichi Inamoto, hero of Japan's surprise 2-2 draw with Belgium.
South Korea's multi-colored hair warriors caused another shock with their 2-0 defeat of Poland.
Hair stylist Watanabe credits Japan's Hidetoshi Nakata with starting the present worldwide craze for standout hair.
The naturally black haired Nakata, now sporting an orangish crewcut, dyed his hair red at the 1998 World Cup in France to catch the eye of European scouts.
He now plays with Italy's Parma after spells at Perugia and AS Roma.
"A change of hair made all the difference to Nakata's career," says Watanabe.
Maybe the final proof of the difference a hair style can make is in the poor performance of the tournament's two main underachievers so far -- China, beaten 2-0 by Costa Rica on their World Cup debut, and Saudi Arabia, thrashed 8-0 by Germany.
Most players on both teams sport the clean cut, short back and sides that would make a 1950's school sportsmaster proud but is unlikely to provoke a squeal from a 21st century teenage girl.
"He is just so kakkoii," schoolgirl Saori Shinohara said on the eve of the tournament, using the Japanese word for "cool" to describe England captain Beckham.
"Everything," she replied, when asked what it was about Beckham that she liked.
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