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LONDON (AP) _ Benjani Mwaruwari scored a hat trick on Saturday to lead Portsmouth to a 7-4 win over Reading in the highest scoring match in the Premier League's 15-year history. Arsenal won 1-0 at West Ham to keep the lead of the standings from defending champion Manchester United, which won 1-0 at Birmingham. At Fratton Park, Reading goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann made a string of saves but was still beaten seven times. Mwaruwari scored twice to put Portsmouth ...

STUTTGART, Germany (AP) _ Energie Cottbus lost its last game and dropped to the bottom of the Bundesliga, then fired the coach. Now comes a trip to Bayern Munich. Maybe best to head straight for the Oktoberfest. Even in the best of times, there was not much for Cottbus to hope from a trip to the Bavarian capital. In four games against Bayern, the club has four defeats, with only two goals scored and 13 conceded. That record ...

LONDON (AP) _ Arsenal's move to a bigger stadium has paid off, with turnover increasing by almost 50 per cent to a club record 200.8 million pounds (C$406.6 million) and giving manager Arsene Wenger a healthy transfer budget. Arsenal Holdings PLC said Monday its record results, for the year ending May 31, came as a result of the move to the 60,400-capacity Emirates Stadium in July 2006. The Gunners had played at the 38,500-seat Highbury Stadium for the ...

PARIS (AP) _ Avram Grant has only just settled into the Chelsea hot seat vacated by Jose Mourinho. He must wonder how long he'll be there. The former Israel coach watched the Blues lose his first game in charge _ 2-0 to rival Manchester United _ to slide to sixth in the Premier League. During Sunday's game at Old Trafford, Grant heard the Chelsea fans chant the names of Mourinho and his assistant, Steve Clarke, who was sitting ...

LONDON (AP) _ Arsenal can make its good start to the season even better when it enters the Carling Cup against Newcastle on Tuesday. The Gunners are top of the Premier League, have tied manager Arsene Wenger to a new contract and have been confirmed as England's most profitable club. They now enter a competition in which they were runners-up last season. In one of eight matches Tuesday, Arsenal meets a Newcastle side enjoying its best start ...

COLOGNE, Germany (AP) _ Strikers Lukas Podolski and Patrick Helmes will start in Germany's friendly against Romania on Wednesday, while goalkeeper Jens Lehmann will rest because of an elbow injury. The Arsenal goalkeeper had pain in his elbow after Germany's 2-0 win over Wales in a European Championship qualifier Saturday in Cardiff, coach Joachim Loew said Tuesday. His place will be taken by Timo Hildebrand, who has been only a reserve after moving to Valencia in the off-season. Podolski ...

MILAN, Italy (AP) _ Ronaldo's thigh injury is more serious than first feared, and the AC Milan forward could be sidelined for another month. The Brazilian was hurt July 31 during summer training and hasn't played since. Milan's physicians originally diagnosed Ronaldo's injury as a muscle strain and said he could return against Siena on Saturday. Further tests have revealed a more serious tear, the Gazzetta dello Sport reported Monday. ``We made a mistake in our first evaluation,'' Milan ...

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) _ Chelsea has upset Michael Ballack and German national team officials again for delaying permission for the midfielder to take part in a publicity spot for Germany's main sponsor. Ballack and rest of the team were scheduled to take part at the filming of an advertising spot for Adidas on Monday. But Chelsea, Ballack's team, withheld its permission until late Sunday and Ballack by then had returned to London. ``That's not how you treat a ...

LONDON (AP) _ Chelsea has left Germany captain Michael Ballack off its squad for the group stage of the Champions League. Ballack was linked with a transfer, most notably to Real Madrid, during the off-season but Chelsea said it omitted the midfielder because the ankle injury that has prevented him from playing this season may rule him out of the majority of the club's six group matches. However, Germany manager Joachim Loew has said he hopes Ballack will ...

CLAIREFONTAINE, France (AP) _ France will be without key players and its coach Raymond Domenech will be sitting in the stands when Les Bleus play Italy in a crucial European Championship qualifier. Defenders William Gallas and Willy Sagnol are both injured, and captain Patrick Vieira is struggling to overcome a thigh injury to be ready in time for Saturday's Group B match in Milan's San Siro stadium. ``William is a mainstay in the team,'' France winger Franck Ribery ...

LONDON (AP) _ West Ham is in talks with Inter Milan over a loan deal for Brazil striker Adriano. ``The possible deal is in its early stages and money has not yet been discussed,'' a West Ham statement said late Tuesday. ``The club are investigating the possibility of a loan deal at this stage.'' Inter wants Adriano to leave the club, preferably for a temporary period, after disciplinary problems and a loss of form last season. It ...

MADRID, Spain (AP) _ Real Madrid signed Wesley Sneijder from Ajax for 27 million euros (C$28.87 million) Monday, the second Dutchman to join the Spanish champion in five days. The 23-year-old Netherlands midfielder agreed to a five-year deal and wass to unveiled at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium later Monday. ``Right now, this is a dream come true. I couldn't ask for more,'' Sneijder told sports daily As. ``I want to play at Real Madrid and I want ...

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) _ A player with second-division club Jiul Petrosani was beaten after he tried to cancel his contract because he wasn't paid on time, authorities said Monday. Mihai Lungan and his agent Dumitru Tudor accused the club's owner Alin Simota of ordering his bodyguards to beat the player, said Florin Nicolae, head of the Petrosani police. ``We know who the attackers are,'' Nicolae told Realitatea television, adding that investigators are looking for evidence to prove guilt. Nicolae ...

WASHINGTON (AP) _ David Beckham emerged from the home baseball dugout at RFK Stadium in a Los Angeles Galaxy uniform, waved a few times to the crowd, then took his seat on the end of the bench _ with the rest of the substitutes. Beckham was among seven substitutes on the Galaxy's lineup sheet for Thursday night's game against D.C. United, giving the sellout crowd of more than 45,000 at least some optimism that the English midfielder ...

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) _ Some Brazilian players returned to the hotel drunk after being given time off between matches during the 2006 World Cup, according to the president of the Brazil's soccer confederation. A year after Brazil's quarter-final elimination in Germany, Ricardo Teixeira said a group of players lacked discipline during the World Cup, but did not mention anyone specifically, the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper reported Wednesday. ``There were players who arrived between 4 and 6 ...

NYON, Switzerland (AP) _ European soccer's governing body disqualified Partizan Belgrade from the UEFA Cup on Thursday following crowd trouble during a qualifying match against Zrinjski. Twenty-eight police officers were injured, one seriously, when Partizan's Serbian supporters fought with Zrinjski's Bosnian-Croat fans in a first-round qualifying match on July 19 in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Partizan, which won the first-leg match 6-1, was also fined 50,000 Swiss francs (C$43,485). The club has three days to appeal the decision. Subject to an appeal, Zrinjski ...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) _ A Danish fan who attacked a referee during a European Championship qualifier between Sweden and Denmark has been charged with violence and trespassing, police said Tuesday. The man, who cannot be named under a court order, stormed the pitch June 2 and tried to attack German referee Herbert Fandel for sending off a Danish player and giving a penalty to Sweden. If found guilty, he faces up to three years in prison. ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ David Beckham attracts Hollywood stars the same way he draws defenders on the soccer field. In large numbers. A glittery array of actors and entertainment world luminaries turned out Sunday for what was billed as an official welcome-to-Los Angeles party for the international soccer icon and his wife, Victoria Beckham. With Tom Cruise and Will Smith playing co-hosts for the invitation-only bash at the Museum of Contemporary Art's Geffen Contemporary gallery, the guest list ...

TORONTO (CP) _ Colour the FIFA U-20 World Cup light blue yet again. An 86th-minute goal Sunday by Mauro Zarate gave Argentina a 2-1 comeback victory over the Czech Republic and the FIFA U-20 World Cup title for the sixth time. Zarate's low angled shot through traffic from the edge of the penalty box handcuffed goalkeeper Radek Petr, who was beaten to the short side. Sergio Aguero also scored for Argentina in the 62nd minute, cancelling out a ...

MILAN, Italy (AP) _ Head stewards at Italian soccer stadiums could be armed next season. Gazzetta dello Sport reported Friday that Italian authorities are considering the move as part of a revamped security package at games in Italy's top leagues. In February, a police officer was killed during rioting at a Serie A match between Catania and Palermo. In April, the government decided to adopt the so-called ``English model'' of placing stewards in charge of security inside ...

MANCHESTER, England (AP) _ Manchester United wants world soccer's governing body to help untangle the contractual issues that are delaying its bid to sign Carlos Tevez. United wants to sign the Argentina striker from West Ham, but the deal has been stalled by debate over who owns Tevez's contract. Representatives from Manchester United have been in discussions with the Premier League and West Ham this week over the transfer, but with no resolution. Manchester United chief executive David ...

MADRID, Spain (AP) _ Real Madrid is lining up Chelsea winger Arjen Robben as its next transfer target. The Spanish champions said Wednesday that any deal to bring Robben to the Santiago Bernabeu stadium is unlikely to go ahead before next week at the earliest. ``It is a negotiation which will take place in the coming days or weeks and if the situation is favourable, by which I mean financially, I think that he is a player ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ The Los Angeles Galaxy's website has been counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until superstar David Beckham joins the Major League Soccer team. But does anyone besides hard-core soccer fans, admirers of the dashing and fashionable Englishman or paparazzi care in a country where interest in the sport known overseas as football has never registered more than a blip? ``I'm not quite sure why, but Americans think soccer's boring,'' said Doug Wood, ...

Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon introduced the former Getafe coach Monday at Santiago Bernabeu stadium. ``This is a happy day for me,'' Schuster said. ``I thank the president and everyone here for giving me the opportunity.'' Schuster will take over from Fabio Capello, who was fired June 28, less than two weeks after leading Madrid to its first Spanish league title in four years and ending the club's longest major trophy drought in 53 years. Schuster, a former ...

NEW YORK (AP) _ It's already time to brand it like Beckham. Adidas is launching an advertising campaign this week featuring English soccer star David Beckham and New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush swapping sports during practice in ``Futbol vs. Football.'' ``There's very few people whose names transcend their own sports. People know the name of David Beckham, whether they follow soccer or not,'' said Stephen Pierpoint, vice president of brand marketing for Adidas America. After helping Real ...

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) _ Thierry Henry has completed his move to FC Barcelona after passing a medical exam. ``I'm really pleased to be here, it's been a long chase but I'm finally here ... and can't wait to show what I can do for the fans,'' Henry said Monday at a news conference at Barcelona. ``Hopefully I can be a great asset to the team.'' The former Arsenal striker underwent medical tests at Barcelona Hospital and continued ...

LONDON (AP) _ Thierry Henry for FC Barcelona? Samuel Eto'o for Arsenal? Didier Drogba for AC Milan? Transfer speculation is increasing in Europe, with big stars being linked with moves even though there is no hard evidence they want to leave their current clubs. Although the Spanish season is approaching a thrilling finale with the title race at stake in Sunday's final round of games, all the other major domestic leagues have finished. While most of Europe's stars ...

MADRID, Spain (AP) _ David Beckham missed a Real Madrid training session on Tuesday to rest his injured left ankle. He was hurt in his country's 3-0 win over Estonia in qualifying for the 2008 European Championship last week, but played in Madrid's 2-2 draw at Zaragoza in the Spanish league on Saturday. Raul Bravo, Antonio Cassano and Miguel Torres also sat out the practice due to injuries. Madrid is unbeaten in 11 games since Beckham was ...

MADRID, Spain (AP) _ Real Madrid coach Fabio Capello admits he was wrong to drop David Beckham earlier this season. Capello benched Beckham in January, questioning his motivation, after the England star signed a five-year deal to join the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer. But, since being reinstated by Capello, Beckham has played a major role in Madrid's charge toward a possible 30th Spanish league title. ``The truth is with him we were all wrong,'' ...