I Don't Remember Reading About This

Breaking more than a decade of silence, former U.S. soccer coach Steve Sampson said Tuesday he dropped John Harkes from the national team roster two months before the 1998 World Cup because the American captain was having an affair with the wife of teammate Eric Wynalda.

Harkes has long denied having an affair with Amy Wynalda.

Wynalda brought up the situation Monday night during a discussion on "Fox Football Fone-In" about a scandal in England over an alleged relationship between current English captain John Terry and the former partner of Wayne Bridge, his teammate on the national squad.

Sampson told The Associated Press on Tuesday he was glad the story was coming out now because "maybe people will have a little better of an understanding of what happened in the final months leading up to the World Cup."

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Wynalda said he spoke out during the program he co-hosts on Fox Soccer Channel because he was asked about Terry, who has been front-page news since Saturday in British newspapers.

"There's a lot of similarities between what happened to us in '98 and what's happening now to England," Wynalda told the AP. "It's an unfortunate time for England, because I know how that can affect a team firsthand. Obviously, we all know how we did in the World Cup in '98."

Somehow Harkes forgot to put this into his book.

That is ironic because it seems, evidently, he's quite good and putting things into stuff.

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