The USA weathered a strong first half from a feisty England side Saturday night to advance, 3:0, to the semifinals of the 2007 Women's World Cup in China. England, looking much sharper than their competition, held a hard-won scoreless tie at the halftime and appeared to have the US squad back on their heels and playing "not to lose". "Tonight I would have liked to see us start better than we did," said US head man, Greg Ryan, when asked why his team seemed outplayed in the first half of such an important match. "Maybe it's just that we are a young team [with] so many new players," he concluded.

Brazil confounded the doubters to bag their fourth Copa America title in five, beating much-fancied Argentina 3-0 in Maracaibo, Venezuela. The two South American giants had met in the previous final in 2004 in Peru, which Brazil had won on penalties after a 2-2 draw, but it was their old rivals who had been the more impressive going into this game. Brazil had lost their opening match 2-0 to Mexico while Argentina had dazzled the tournament with some fireworks football, blitzing all opposition including Mexico 3-0 in the semi-final. Much was expected of their three musketeers of Juan Riquelme, Carlos Tevez and Lionel Messi, but before the albiceleste could find their feet in the 34C Venezuelan afternoon, Julio Baptista gave Brazil a dream start with a thumping strike in the fourth minute. Baptista, who was on loan at Arsenal from Real Madrid last season, picked up a long spear from Elano, took two taps to beat veteran Roberto Ayala and then rifled past a frozen Roberto Abbondanzieri in the Argentina goal to give Brazil the lead. Riquelme hit the post with Argentina’s first attack five minutes later and a dream final looked in the making. Argentina then took the game to Brazil but always looked vulnerable to a swift counter from their more muscular opponents. Riquelme then drew a diving save from Brazil goalie Doni before disaster struck again for the albiceleste. Five minutes before the break, Daniel Alves swung over a cross from the right and the unlucky Ayala, threatened by the lurking Vagner Love, stretched and turned the ball into his own net. Two-nil down, Argentina laboured hard in their efforts to eke out a comeback, only to succumb again to a break in the 69th minute. Vagner Love carried the ball forward against the retreating Argentina defenders before releasing Alves, who found the net with an inch-perfect diagonal drive to make it 3-0. Carlos was the victim of a split-second offside call error late on as he found the goal, but otherwise his country was well-beaten by the hitherto-underrated holders. Brazil’s strength and power comfortably dominated Argentina’s skill and finesse, and every time the albiceleste strove to drag themselves back into the match, their silky techinique ran aground against a yellow wall of rugged tackles and massed defending.

UEFA President Michel Platini has made some changes to the 2010 World Cup qualification process for European nations. Instead of groups of seven and eight teams, European nations will be in one of eight groups of six teams and one of five. The nine group winners will qualify and the best-performing eight second place teams go into play-offs for the additional four places on offer. Records against the bottom-placed teams in each group will not be taken into account. FIFA President Sepp Blatter showered more praise on South Africa on his most recent visit to the World Cup hosts last week, again insisting that preparations are on schedule.

The longest day of the year sees CONCACAF's final four square up as the North/Central American tournament nears its conclusion. Hosts the United States play Canada while traditional giants Mexico tackle unfancied Guadeloupe for a place in the final at Soldier Field, Chicago, on Saturday. As another Gold Cup field whittles down almost inevitably to another USA v Mexico final, the weaknesses of this region are again exposed, despite the three and a half places in the World Cup finals FIFA generously awards them. Beyond the big two of CONCACAF, a revolving door of alternately Costa Rica, Jamaica or Trinidad & Tobago have represented the region at the FIFA World Cup in recent years, and have invariably come home 'before the postcards'.

The sport's world governing body certainly put the cat amongst the South American pigeons last week when it announced that no more games would be played at altitude, for health and safety reasons. This curious and unexpected directive seemed to me at first to have been an arbitrary blow against Ecuador and Bolivia, whose national teams play internationals in their high-altitude capitals. Ecuador qualified for the 2006 World Cup thanks to an unbeaten home record in Quito (elevation 2,800 metres) which included the scalps of traditional South American superpowers Brazil and Argentina.

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A Pippo Inzaghi brace handed Milan their seventh European crown as the Rossoneri defeated Liverpool 2-1 in the Champions League final in Athens' Olympic Stadium. Inzaghi deflected Andrea Pirlo's free kick seconds before half time and latched on to Kaka's delightful through-ball eight minutes before the final whistle. Dirk Kuyt headed a consolation for the Reds a minute from time. Milan gained revenge for throwing away a three-goal lead against the same opponents in the 2005 final and completed a remarkable season which began with a 15-point penalty for their role in the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal, later reduced to eight points on appeal, and a fourth-place finish in Serie A, which city rivals Inter won by a huge 22 points.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter has increased the doubts surrounding South Africa's ability to host the World Cup in three years' time by admitting the world governing body has back-up countries in place, should the hosts fail to be ready in time. England, Spain, Japan and the USA are the reserve hosts, according to Blatter in an interview with the BBC, but only "a natural catastrophe" will derail the African World Cup. England and the USA have already announced their intention to bid for the 2018 finals. Blatter openly backed the South African bid for both 2006 and 2010, and recently referred to it as "a moral obligation", mindful of the continent's votes which got him elected, but only last year he expressed concern that the construction of the ten new or renovated stadia was behind schedule.

The USA is getting ready to launch a bid to host the 2018 World Cup Finals, according to its soccer federation president. USSF boss Sunil Gulati told the Washington Post, "We showed in 1994 that the U.S. is capable of hosting a terrific event. Now, with the way the soccer landscape in this country has evolved, we would be in position to put on a spectacular event." No official bids have been launched for the 2018 tournament yet, but England's FA have already signalled their intention to run, confirmed by a UK government statement of support. China is widely expected to launch a bid for the tournament and Australia has also been mentioned several times in world football circles as a possible competitor.

PSV Eindhoven coach Guus Hiddink has been appointed coach of the Australian national team in a bid to lead them to the 2006 World Cup in Germany . The Dutch coach, 58, lead Dutch champions PSV to the semi-finals of last season's Champions League and was in charge of the South Korean national team which reached the semi-finals of the 2002 World Cup.