World Cup Soccer Tournament

Angry at Colombia's elimination from the World Cup soccer tournament, gunmen Saturday shot and killed Andres Escobar, the player who accidentally scored a goal against his own side in a match with the United States and helped seal the team's fate, police said. Escobar, 27, was shot to death outside a restaurant in Medellin barely 48 hours after returning home from Los Angeles, where Colombia fell 2-1 to the United States on June 22. The unidentified gunmen confronted Escobar around 3 a.m.

The Women's World Cup in Germany keeps taking one weird turn after another. On Tuesday, the story of the day should have been England and Germany clinching first place in their first-round groups with 2-0 and 4-2 victories over Japan and France, respectively. But, no. First, New Zealand stole a little of the thunder by scoring twice in injury time at the end of its game against Mexico in Sinsheim for an unlikely 2-2 tie. "It's a draw that feels like a defeat," said Mexican striker Maribel Dominguez.

Paul Caligiuri, who scored the only goal in the victory over Trinidad and Tobago that put the United States into the 1990 World Cup soccer tournament, has signed with the U.S. national team.

Reporting from Johannesburg and Cape Town — Eusebio, the only Portuguese player to win the Golden Boot as the top goal-scorer in a World Cup, came to the defense of his countryman Cristiano Ronaldo, whose Portugal team bowed out of the tournament in a second-round loss to Spain this week after Ronaldo netted just one meaningless goal in four games. "Unfortunately for Portugal, Cristiano Ronaldo actually did not do very well," Eusebio said Thursday. "But I am not going to condemn him for that.

The United States, the host nation for the 1994 World Cup soccer tournament, will play defending champion Germany in December, 1993, with Los Angeles as a possible site.

Ten years ago, in front of the bulging eyes of a nation, a female athlete tore off her shirt, baring her black sports bra and her powerful soul. Today, the shirt is in a drawer, the bra is in a frame, but the essence of that soul still soars through a woman's sports landscape that was changed forever. "It was about so much more than soccer," Brandi Chastain says. You remember, right? Will anybody who witnessed the culture-changing events of that sweltering summer day ever forget?

For Laguna Hills muralist Willie Herron, the part of the World Cup soccer tournament that will be played in Los Angeles represents far more than just the ending of an international ball game. It's an opportunity for him to capture, symbolically through art, the uniting of hundreds of ethnically and racially diverse players--many on the same teams--from around the globe in the struggle to achieve a single goal.

The United States, which has a 35-year history of failing to qualify for the World Cup soccer tournament, failed again Friday night. It wasn't one of the giants of the international soccer world that did the damage. Don't blame Brazil or West Germany or Italy or England. In fact, don't even blame the team that won. Costa Rica merely accomplished what it had to do. It won. The score was 1-0 in front of an El Camino College stadium crowd of 11,800.

Reporting from Pretoria, South Africa — It was subtle. And it might have been nothing more than frustration boiling over after a difficult loss. But there have been signs that all may not be well in the Mexican camp, something Coach Javier Aguirre hinted at in his postgame news conference after Mexico qualified for the second round despite losing to Uruguay on Tuesday. "We cannot coach by congress," said Aguirre, who has been criticized by fans and the Mexican media for his team's inconsistent performance "When it comes to setting up the national team, it's my responsibility and we'll see how far we can take it."

Group F: ITALY VS. SLOVAKIA Where: Ellis Park, Johannesburg. Time: 7 a.m. PDT. TV: ESPN, ESPN Deportes and TeleFutura. Radio: Sirius/XM, KLYY-FM 97.5 and KDLD-FM 103.1. The buzz: With two indifferent performances behind it, defending world champion Italy cannot afford a third. The Azzurri have been tied by Paraguay, 1-1, and tied by New Zealand, 1-1. Italy's offense has yet to get on track and their defense has proved to be vulnerable to free kicks.

The geography is a little twisted to be sure. But then the best way to get from one point to another isn't always by following a straight line. Especially if you want to win some soccer games once you get to the World Cup. That's why Nestor de la Torre, the director of national teams for the Mexican soccer federation, has mapped out an arduous itinerary for his country's World Cup team, one that will take it to at least 11 cities in five countries...

As the days draw down toward the 2010 World Cup, only 137 to go now, every incident involving a potential U.S. team member is magnified, whether for good or bad. So it was last week that there was a scare for Clint Dempsey , a defeat for Landon Donovan , a bit of good news for Ricardo Clark and new reason to hope for DaMarcus Beasley and Maurice Edu . Similarly, Freddy Adu and Eddie Johnson scrambled to find a...

This is the year in which the World Cup will take a huge bite out of the middle of the Major League Soccer season, consigning the circuit to little more than sideshow status for a month. So what does MLS need to do? Normally, the answer would be to sign half a dozen or more high-profile players, hoping that their arrival from foreign climes would generate some fan excitement. But big-name signings have been exceedingly thin on the ground; nonexistent, in fact. There are only a couple of weeks left until players report for preseason training, but a glance at the rosters reveals little that would cause fans to stampede to the ticket windows.

Oswaldo Sanchez's play in goal was a big reason why Mexico made it to the second round of soccer's World Cup four years ago. Which is one reason why Sanchez thinks he should be wearing the tricolores again this summer in South Africa when Mexico opens play in the 2010 tournament against the host nation on June 11. "I've been in three World Cups. And I'd like to go to a fourth," Sanchez said. "But I have to play well for that to happen." So far, that hasn't happened.

The United States put its star-spangled stamp on the world's most popular sports event Friday, opening the World Cup soccer tournament in sizzling style under a broiling sun before a crowd of 63,117 that included President Clinton and an array of dignitaries. The opening game, predicted to be a ho-hum blowout matching defending champion Germany--the powerhouse soccer nation--and Bolivia, was unexpectedly close.

Poor fellows. Because they are American soccer players, they are assumed to have been born to moon landings and Miracles on Ice and other unprecedented successes. "Even some of my friends who don't know much about soccer say, 'You guys better bring home the Cup!' " said Paul Caligiuri, the midfielder whose goal against Trinidad and Tobago in November barely sneaked the Americans into the 24-nation final field of the World Cup Soccer Tournament. They can't win.