Champions League’s Attendance Up
The European Champions League, the most successful club competition in the world, saw its attendance rise by 10% during the first round of this year’s tournament.
Figures released by UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, showed that 3,378,442 people attended matches during the 32-team first phase, an increase of almost 300,000 from the 2001-2002 season.
Stadium capacity also increased in terms of percentage filled, rising from 74% to 79%, UEFA said, while the television audience in the six major markets -- Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain -- rose from 41.5 million viewers a year ago to 43.5 million this year.
The Champions League’s second round begins this week, with 16 teams still in contention.
Algerian Victory
The Algerian club JS Kabylie on Sunday became the first team to win the Confederation of Africa Football Cup three years in a row, despite losing, 1-0, to Tonnerre Yaounde of Cameroon in the second game of the two-game final at Yaounde, Cameroon.
Kabylie had won the first match, 4-0, in Algeria and claimed the Cup, 4-1, on aggregate.
Santos Resurgent
Santos, the club that was led to worldwide fame by the exploits of Pele more than three decades ago but which has since fallen on harder times, continued its resurgence with a surprise victory over favored Sao Paolo in the Brazilian championship quarterfinals Sunday.
Robinho, 18, and Diego, 17, each scored in a 3-1 victory in the first game of the two-match quarterfinal series. Santos last won the Brazilian championship in 1984.
In another quarterfinal game, Corinthians, led by 1994 World Cup-winning coach Carlos Alberto Parreira, swamped Atletico Mineiro, 6-2, in front of 81,000 as striker Deivid scored four goals.
Also, veteran Romario, 36, created all three goals as Fluminense shut out Sao Caetano, 3-0, and Gremio and Juventude played to a scoreless tie.
Cagliari Punished
The Italian Serie B club Cagliari has been banned from its own stadium for three games and fined $10,000 because one of its fans ran onto the field and knocked Messina goalkeeper Emanuele Manitta unconscious during a league game last week.
In meting out the punishment, the Italian league’s disciplinary committee also awarded Messina a 2-0 victory in the match. Messina had been leading, 1-0, when the incident occurred, causing the match to be abandoned.
Hiddink Moves
The speculation over which South Korean national team players former coach Guus Hiddink eventually would take with him when he left Korea to coach to PSV Eindhoven in the Dutch league appears to be over.
The Dutch team is close to reaching agreement to bring midfielder Park Ji Sung to PSV from his Japanese club, Kyoto Purple Sanga, for a Korean-record $4.5 million and now is moving to also acquire midfielder Lee Chun Soo.
Argentina Rising
Coach Marcelo Bielsa said his first priority now that Argentina has emerged from its post-World Cup hibernation is to rebuild fans’ confidence in the team.
Argentina scored a 2-0 victory over Japan on Wednesday in its first game since being knocked out of the World Cup in the first round.
Asian Champions
All three of Asia’s major league championships have been decided, with Dalian Shide of China becoming the latest title winner on Sunday.
Dalian earned its seventh Chinese championship in the last nine years with a 2-1 victory over Beijing Guoan.
On Saturday, Jubilo Iwata became the first club to win both halves of Japan’s split-season J-League championship, while earlier, Seongnam Chunma won the Korean league title for the second year in a row.
