CORNER KICKS
1 In a repeat of the gold-medal game at the 2004 Athens Olympics, the United States will play Brazil on Thursday for the women’s soccer championship of the 2007 Pan American Games at Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro.
The U.S., which is represented by its under-20 national team while the full national team prepares for the Women’s World Cup in China, advanced to the gold-medal game by upsetting Canada’s full national team, 2-1, on goals by UCLA forward Lauren Cheney.
Brazil reached the final with a 2-0 victory over Mexico, which will play Canada for the bronze medal on Thursday.
The U.S. won the gold in Athens with a 2-1 overtime victory, but host Brazil is favored this time around. Its squad features most of its first-choice national team players, including Marta, the 2006 FIFA women’s world player of the year, and it has outscored opponents, 28-0, at the Pan Am Games.
2 Strengthening its team just ahead of the SuperLiga tournament, FC Dallas on Tuesday acquired Brazilian youth international Ricardo Alves Pereira, better known as Ricardinho, on loan from Atletico Paranaense of the Brazilian league.
Ricardinho, 18, replaces Ecuador forward Roberto Mina, who was put on the season-ending injury list after surgery on his left knee, which was injured in a preseason game, oddly enough against Atletico Paranaense.
3 The semifinals of the 14th Asian Cup will be played today, with Japan facing Saudi Arabia in Hanoi and South Korea squaring off against Iraq in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The winners will meet in the final Sunday in Jakarta, Indonesia. The top three teams in the tournament will qualify automatically for the 2011 Asian Cup, which Sunday will be awarded to Qatar.
4 Brazilian playmaker Kaka, who led AC Milan to its European Champions League triumph in May, said that he would be staying with the Italian club and not moving to Real Madrid, which has been trying to lure him to Spain.
“I have a contract with Milan until 2011, the door for Real Madrid is closed and only Milan can reopen it if they decide to sell me,” Kaka said. “I see myself as a symbol of Milan.”
5 English Premier League champion Manchester United is battling to keep Argentine defender Gabriel Heinze from moving to Liverpool while at the same time struggling to acquire Argentine forward Carlos Tevez from West Ham United.
Liverpool has met Manchester’s asking price of nearly $14 million for Heinze, but Manchester claims a clause in his contract forbids Heinze from joining a legitimate contender for the Premier League title. “Heinze is not going to Liverpool as far as I am concerned,” United Coach Alex Ferguson said.
Meanwhile, FIFA moved the Tevez dispute to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland. Manchester United is willing to pay as much as $61.7 million for Tevez, but the transfer has bogged down on the question of who gets the money -- West Ham United or Tevez’s agent, Kia Joorabchian, who claims to hold the player’s financial rights.
STAT OF THE WEEK
- David Beckham’s debut for the Galaxy against Chelsea attracted a record television audience for a game involving an MLS team, ESPN said Tuesday. The game was viewed by about 1,468,000 people, a sizeable jump from the record 1,092,000 who saw the inaugural MLS game in 1996.
