WARSAW — Dressed in a patriotic red and white suit and a golden crown adorned with small footballs, Andrzej Bobowski is getting ready to attend his 11th soccer World Cup. The 78-year-old Poland fan has been to every World Cup since 1978 — even when his own national team did not qualify. There are no such worries this time, though. “I actually dreamt that we’ll play in the final against Russia,” he said. “I’m going to attend the first match with Senegal at Spartak stadium. Then I fly to Kazan ... then to Volgograd.” Well-known at home as “king of Polish fans”, Bobowski, nicknamed Bobo, said he had been told by fans he has met at previous tournaments to expect a “royal welcome” in Kazan. The former builder, who also supports the Polish club champions Legia Warszawa, has seen 135 World Cup games since he headed to Argentina in 1978 with a ticket bought by his wife. Since then, he has married again — and even at 78, does not baulk at making the complex travel arrangements for two people. “I worked out my routes using the internet: first — where I land, second — the hotel, third — how to get to the stadium from the hotel.” The outfits are already prepared. For day wear, he has a T-shirt with the contest’s emblem on the front and a list of all the World Cups he has attended on the back — with a question mark for Qatar in 2022. For the matches, he will wear an appropriately regal coat in Poland’s red-and-white, with its white-eagle crest on the back. The coat, made by a local theatre company, has a white furry collar and cuffs with a motif of small footballs. Under the coat will be a white tail-coat, red shirt, red bow tie and red trousers. And on his head, above the mandatory scarf, a soft golden crown, decorated with badges from the tournaments he has attended, and emblazoned with the slogan “King of Polish fans”. The weird to the wonderful Playing football, nothing could be simpler, right? All you need is a ball, a few players and — a pitch. Around the world and whatever the landscape, football grounds abound — and are as varied and diverse as the people who play on them. Perched on top of a Japanese department store, lost on a dusty mountain trail in Nepal or nestled at the foot of an ancient aqueduct in Rome. Where there is a love of football, there will always be a pitch. In football-mad Brazil, pitches are crammed between crowded neighborhoods in big cities like Sao Paolo or swallowed in Rio’s Tavares Bastos favela by buildings piled up like a house of unsteady cards. In New York’s Brooklyn, footballers play by the waterside with the Statue of Liberty for backdrop. Seoul’s nightlife includes a pitch ablaze with light on a rooftop above a shopping center. In Switzerland players drink in the beauty of mountains and valleys with Lac Leman in the distance. The Arctic circle boasts Henninsvaer FC’s ground, whose green synthetic turf is squeezed between Norway’s snow capped mountains and icy seas. In Turin, a local pitch nestles atop a building among church spires and reddish-brown rooftops while in Rugeley, central England, teams play beneath the massive cooling towers of a huge coal-fired power station. France wins off-pitch contest French soccer has won one world contest before its players even fly to Russia for this year’s World Cup, with more blue jerseys sold across the globe than any other national strip, even more than the famous yellow shirt of Brazil. The Nike-branded strips are huge money-spinners. France’s official shirt costs 85 euros, even for a child, according to the French Football Federation (FFF) website. “It’s dramatic. Stocks have run out all over the world. We can’t meet demand. We’re ahead of Brazil in numbers of jerseys sold,” Noel Le Graet, head of the FFF, told BFM TV in an interview. “As soon as a jersey turns up in any of our shops across the world, it’s snapped up.” Nike, which only got heavily involved in soccer when the World Cup was played in the United States in 1994, is supplying shirts for 10 countries, including Brazil, France and England. Rival Adidas is sponsoring 12 of the 32 teams, including strong contenders Germany and Spain, along with hosts Russia. Le Graet said French team players under Didier Deschamps would each get a 150,000 euro ($176,580.00) bonus if “Les Bleus” reach the semi-finals and 280,000 euros for the final. Lanzini out of World Cup Argentina midfielder Manuel Lanzini will miss the World Cup after injuring a knee in training. “Manuel Lanzini suffered, in today’s morning training, the rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament of his right knee,” the national side announced on Twitter Friday. — Agencies