Soccer Championships

World champion Italy and 2006 World Cup runner-up France launch their European Championship quests today when they play the Netherlands and Romania, respectively. The Italians and the Dutch, two of the top teams in the 16-nation tournament being jointly staged by Austria and Switzerland, should provide one of the event's early highlights. Both are attack-minded teams and both feature some of soccer's premier players.

It would be easy for Sigi Schmid to gloat these days. No one would blame him for walking around with a self-satisfied smile, or even with the swagger that comes from having proved critics irrefutably wrong. But that's not who Schmid is, and the former UCLA and Galaxy coach is simply enjoying the moment. On Sunday, Schmid's Columbus Crew will play the New York Red Bulls in Major League Soccer's championship game at the Home Depot Center in Carson.

This column is supposed to be about how Major League Soccer can take the next great leap forward and about the sort of things that are holding it back from doing so right away. But first, a few words about Danny Cepero. Yes, the two would appear to have nothing in common, but they do. Just read on. Six weeks ago, Cepero was a soccer nobody, a 23-year-old goalkeeper and New York Yankees fan from Baldwin, N.Y., without a single second of professional experience.

Afterward, in the champagne-soaked bedlam that was the Columbus Crew locker room, every player had to have his say. The Crew had just beaten the New York Red Bulls, 3-1, at the Home Depot Center on Sunday to win its first Major League Soccer championship. The party was beginning. "It feels surreal right now," said U.S. national team defender Frankie Hejduk, an MLS original who was celebrating not only his first league title but one of the great goals of the year.

Before UCLA women's soccer Coach Jillian Ellis walked onto the practice field Friday, she saw her players huddled together. They talked as a group about their upcoming opponent, Duke, in an NCAA quarterfinal at Drake Stadium tonight at 7. That meeting and the practice afterward convinced Ellis that her team carried the same focus from its 1-0 victory last week over USC in the third round of the tournament.

Cuauhtemoc Blanco was angry -- furious would be a better word -- when he was left off Mexico's World Cup roster last summer. The Club America striker was mollified somewhat when Ricardo Lavolpe stepped down as Mexico's coach after the world championship in Germany to be replaced later by Hugo Sanchez.

It's humongous and floating into town Wednesday night, but exactly what is it? It's the European Champions League soccer final, it's just about as eyeballed as the Super Bowl, and it's so big it induces some people \o7to drive here from Liverpool, England\f7, across England, under the English Channel, across exactly 10 countries and roughly 2,000 miles with, of course, that logical stopover in Belgrade. Side note: These people have no tickets.

Peru won the opening match of the Copa America soccer tournament, upsetting 14-time champion Uruguay, 3-0, Tuesday night on goals by Miguel Villalta, Juan Carlos Marino and Paolo Guerrero. Villalta headed in the first goal off Jefferson Farfan's crossing pass in the 27th minute after a corner kick, Carlos Marino beat goalkeeper Fabian Carini from 25 yards in the 70th and Guerrero scored off a pass from Andres Mendoza in the 89th minute.

As he has been for 100 games over the last 17 years, goalkeeper Kasey Keller again will be the last line of defense for the United States national soccer team today when it opens Copa America play against tournament favorite Argentina in Maracaibo, Venezuela. If anyone can thwart Lionel Messi, Hernan Crespo, Juan Sebastian Veron, Carlos Tevez and the rest of the high-octane Argentine attack, it's Keller. Fifty-three victories, 47 shutouts and a 0.

Mexico upset Brazil for the second time in a row at a major tournament, beating the five-time world champions, 2-0, Wednesday night in first round of the Copa America. Nery Castillo scored on a spectacular solo effort in the 23rd minute when he took a pass from Juan Carlos Cacho, flicked the ball over defender Maicon, collected it again and beat goalkeeper Doni.