Argentina to Tour With Young Bunch

Argentina will play Mexico at the Coliseum on Feb. 4 in what will be Ricardo Lavolpe’s first game as Mexico’s coach, oddly enough against the country of his birth.

The match will be the second in a three-game tour for Argentina, which will also play Honduras in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Feb. 1 and the United States in Miami on Feb. 8.

On Friday, Argentina Coach Marcelo Bielsa named a very young and inexperienced roster of 18 players for the tour. Bielsa did not select any of Argentina’s European-based players, the entire roster being picked from Argentine league teams.

Of the 18, only three have played for the national team before, led by Boca Juniors forward Marcelo Delgado, who has made 17 international appearances.

Argentina, which will hold a monthlong training camp outside Buenos Aires just before the tour, also is trying to arrange games on the road against the Netherlands, Ukraine and Libya later in 2003.

Mexico has not played a game since being knocked out of the World Cup by the U.S. in June. Lavolpe, a reserve goalkeeper on Argentina’s 1978 World Cup-winning team, moved to Mexico after that tournament and has lived there ever since. He was named Mexico’s coach in October.

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Brazilian Semifinals

A last-minute goal by teenage striker Diego earned Santos a 2-1 victory over Sao Paulo in front of 70,000 fans in Sao Paulo on Thursday night and put the club into the Brazilian championship semifinals.

Santos had won the first match in the two-game quarterfinal series, 3-1 at home, and advanced on aggregate, 5-2, against heavily favored Sao Paulo.

In the semifinals, Santos will play Gremio, which edged Juventude, 1-0, on aggregate. The other semifinal will pit Corinthians against Fluminense, which ousted Sao Caetano.

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Pumas Reach Copa

The Mexican club UNAM qualified for South America’s Copa Libertadores for the first time Thursday night when it defeated Cruz Azul, 2-0, on second-half goals by Francisco Fonseca and Miguel Espana in Mexico City. Cruz Azul had already clinched a place in the 2003 tournament.

Camacho to Benfica

Jose Antonio Camacho, who resigned as Spain’s coach after the team was knocked out of the World Cup in the quarterfinals by South Korea, has agreed to become coach of Benfica, once Portugal’s leading club but recently fallen on hard times.

Camacho, 47, will take charge for the remainder of this season, with an option to extend that contract for another year. Terms were not revealed.

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Friedel Returns

Brad Friedel, the U.S. national team goalkeeper who had surgery Nov. 17 to repair cartilage damage in his left knee, is expected to play for Blackburn Rovers today against Fulham in an English Premier League game.

“I am recovering well and my knee is responding all the time,� Friedel told Associated Press on Thursday. “One thing is for sure, the pain has gone away. Right now, I’m heading for 100% fitness, and it’s a pretty good feeling.�

That 149-0 Result

Zaka Be, the Madagascan coach whose team purposely scored 149 own goals in protest against allegedly biased refereeing, was suspended from coaching for three years Friday by the country’s soccer federation and also banned from entering any stadium for the same period.

With Be orchestrating matters from the stands, to which he had been banished, his team, Olympique de L’Emyrne, last month put the ball into its own net 149 times in a farcical league match against AS Adama, whose players just stood around and watched.

Four Olympique de L’Emyrne players were banned until the end of 2002, while the rest of the players from both teams were warned about their conduct.