World Cup

At Picanha Grill, a Northeast Philadelphia restaurant serving South American barbecue alongside wide-screen World Cup futbol , Brazilian immigrant Vania Schock nervously nibbled the fingernails she had painted lime green to honor her native country's team. "Go! Go!" she exhorted in Portuguese, as if the players could hear her as they overran North Korea Tuesday in the South Africa soccer spectacle. "They are playing in the middle. They need to work the sides!" In Norristown two days after Brazil's 2-1 victory, Mexican-born bartender Damien Guerrero, 35, passed a Dos Equis beer to a customer at Restaurante la Michoacana.

If Philadelphia is an "international city," why do I have to look through the snow on Channel 35 in order to watch the World Cup soccer games? In international terms, the World Cup is second only to the Olympics in importance. Why are we not given the chance to see it well? I can only hope that four years from now Philadelphia will have joined the world community and we can all see prime-time local television coverage of this tremendously exciting sports event. If the militia members in the streets of Beirut can watch during spontaneous game-time cease-fires, surely we should be able to get some coverage here where the obstacles are not nearly so formidable.

Argentina vs. Germany   What: Quarterfinal game When: Today, 10 a.m. Where: Green Point Stadium, Cape Town TV: 6ABC, Univision For kicks: You have to love it: A World Cup game where there will be no kissing afterward. Players from these teams fought in the tunnel under the stands after Germany's shootout win in a quarterfinal 4 years ago sent Argentina out. Germany's Bastien Schweinsteiger: "When you look at their body language and gesticulations, the way they try to influence the referees, they have no respect.

Japan vs. Paraguay   What: Second-round game When: Today, 10 a.m. Where: Loftus Versfeld Stadium, Pretoria TV: ESPN For kicks: Japan was impressive in eliminating Denmark, 3-1, in last game of Group E, also beat Cameroon . . . Like South Korea, Japan has advanced out of World Cup first round for first time other than 2002, when the countries were joint hosts . . . Midfielder Keisuke Honda (CSKA Moscow) would make first-round All-Star team . . . Paraguay won GroupF, where Italy finished last, without one player standing out, scoring only three goals in three games . . . Roque Santa Cruz (Manchester City)

ABC and ESPN will broadcast their fourth straight World Cup next year and will televise all 64 games in high definition. The networks will not decide until after the draw on Dec. 9 how to split the games among ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, they said yesterday. All games of the tournament, which will be played in Germany from June 9 to July 9, will be broadcast live. For the 2002 World Cup, in Japan and South Korea, 58 games were televised live, with the final on ABC, 16 on ESPN and the rest on ESPN2.

The event that stops the world arrives in the United States today, almost quietly, in the middle of a heat wave. After Diana Ross sings and President Clinton makes a speech, after Philadelphia's Daryl Hall introduces the official World Cup '94 jingle, titleholder Germany and overjoyed-to-be-here Bolivia will kick off a month of World Cup soccer by slogging around sweaty Soldier Field under the midday sun. Most World Cup games will be held...

Three months ago, Jorge Solari was coaching a soccer team named Newell's Old Boys in Rosario, Argentina, with a temperamental star named Diego Maradona. Yesterday, Solari arrived at the Atlantic City International Airport, the coach of Saudi Arabia, a team with four guys named Mohammed but no Diegos. If you wanted an event to mark the opening of the 1994 World Cup, it happened yesterday afternoon when the Saudi team arrived, the first of the 23 nations that will join the host United States in the 24-team field.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Soccer City's orange seats were difficult to differentiate from the Netherlands' fanbase, the Oranje, a.k.a. Clockwork Orange. For FIFA, this was a decidedly good thing because it was nearly impossible to distinguish, on television broadcasts anyway, exactly how many empty seats existed inside the World Cup's marquee stadium. But there were plenty. An hour later, as Cameroon played Japan inside Free State Stadium, the white seats stood out as stark as goalposts.

Two French-made, portable land-to-air missiles will be deployed outside South Korean stadiums during World Cup games to prevent possible terrorist attacks. Military jets will patrol the skies over the stadiums during the tournament, air force spokesman 1st Lt. Kim Ki-ho said yesterday. The air force will make sure jet noise does not affect matches, he said. The security plans are the latest in a series of measures being planned by South Korea officials to safeguard their portion of the tournament, to be played from May 31 to June 30. Five French special police-force members arrived in Seoul yesterday for five days of joint training with their South Korean counterparts.

By this time next year, we'll be reminiscing about that great 1994 World Cup, the one played in the United States with 52 sellout crowds in nine stadiums, all of which will be used as home fields for that soon-to-be great American professional soccer league. Not really. But by this time next year, Argentina will have won its third World Cup out of the last six played and the U.S. Soccer Federation will be looking for leadership after all of the World Cup honchos, including the non-English- speaking head coach of the national team, jump ship.

L INDSEY VONN won a downhill by nearly a second yesterday in Schladming, Austria, for her 12th victory of the season, the second-highest total in World Cup history. It also was the American's 17th top-three finish in a race this season, one short of the World Cup record. Vonn, who clinched her fourth overall title last week and her fifth consecutive downhill title last month, finished the race in 1 minute, 46.56 seconds. That was 0.92 ahead of Marion Rolland , of France. "This definitely is my best season ever.

Lindsey Vonn of the United States won the World Cup giant slalom race in Are, Sweden, Friday to clinch her fourth overall title. Vonn was tied with Phil Mahre of the United States with three overall titles. "I don't know what to say," an emotional Vonn said. "I just wanted to have two aggressive runs today. I felt like I had nothing to lose and I was having fun. I'm just really excited, I'm thrilled. It's crazy. " Olympic champion Hannah Kearney won the individual moguls event in Are for her 10th freestyle World Cup victory over the season.

Katie Uhlaender has given the United States its second gold medal at the skeleton world championships in Lake Placid, N.Y., since the women's competition debuted in 2000. Uhlaender, of Breckenridge, Colo., finished the four heats over two days at Mount Van Hoevenberg in 3 minutes, 42.33 seconds. She beat Mellisa Hollingsworth of Canada by 0.17 seconds on Friday. Uhlaender also won silver at worlds in 2008 in Altenberg, Germany, and bronze the previous year in St. Moritz, Switzerland, when teammate Noelle Pikus-Pace won. Elizabeth Yarnold of Britain took the bronze, 0.36 behind and just ahead of teammate Shelley Rudman , the World Cup champion.

Brady Quinn apologized to Tim Tebow for unflattering comments Quinn made about the Denver Broncos' starting quarterback in a GQ article. The article on Tebowmania was written by Michael Silver and titled "The Year of Magical Stinking: An Oral History of Tebow Time. " In it, Quinn was quoted as saying, "We've had a lot of, I guess, luck, to put it simply. " He also said he felt the fans were the reason Tebow leapfrogged him on the depth chart when supplanting Kyle Orton as the starter.

La Salle's Caitlin Storbeck, an Archbishop Carroll graduate, won the mile run in 4 minutes, 57.41 seconds at the Atlantic Ten Indoor Track and Field Championships in Kingston, R.I. Teammate Wendy Hutchinson finished third (2:56.20) in the 1,000 meters. Preseason favorite Charlotte won the conference title, while the Explorers finished in eighth place. Liu Xiang beat Dayron Robles in a resumption of their hurdling rivalry and Lerone Clarke upstaged Jamaican sprint rival Asafa Powell at 60 meters at the Birmingham Grand Prix in England.

AFTER A CAREER that has taken him all around Major League Soccer, to the 2000 Olympics and the 2006 World Cup, Chris Albright is coming home. The veteran defender from Penn Charter and FC Delco has signed with the Union, the team announced yesterday. Albright, 33, has been a member of three MLS Cup championship teams - D.C. United in 1999 and the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2002 and '05 - in a 13-year pro career. He spent last season with the New York Red Bulls, starting six of eight games, but missing time with a knee injury.

Two weeks after the United States women's soccer team lost a heartbreaker to Japan in the World Cup final last July, midfielder Carli Lloyd was making her way to Leslie C. Quick Jr. Stadium at Widener University in Chester. Her Atlanta Beat team was facing the Independence in a Women's Professional Soccer game, and Lloyd was one of the national team members being honored in a pregame ceremony. Because of a league rule regarding yellow-card accumulations over consecutive games, Lloyd had to watch the game from the press box, and as she and a few friends maneuvered through the enthusiastic and sold-out crowd, nobody stopped to talk to her. Later the same day, a waiter ran to get a soccer ball from the trunk of his car, gushing to the Rutgers alum what her autograph would mean to his daughter.

Venus Williams returned from a five-month layoff, and Serena Williams and Christina McHale won singles matches Sunday in Worcester, Mass., sending the U.S. team past Belarus, 5-0, in the first round of the Fed Cup. By blanking Belarus in World Group II, the Americans head to a playoff in April in hopes of playing their way back into the top tier of the Fed Cup after getting bounced last year. Tomas Berdych won his seventh career title, beating defending champion Gael Monfils , 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, in the Open Sud de France final in Montpellier.

A career milestone and a rare family reunion. All of which left Lindsey Vonn in tears, and it made for a perfect day in Garmisch-Parten-Kirchen, Germany. Vonn captured her 50th World Cup victory Saturday, winning the downhill on the demanding Kandahar course with temperatures plunging to minus 13. "Fifty World Cup wins is a huge mark for me in my career and more than I even thought possible. I just wanted the 50th win," Vonn said. Few skiers reach the 50-win landmark.

Michael Shank Racing pulled off a stunning win in Sunday's Rolex 24 at Daytona, with NASCAR driver A.J. Allmendinger behind the wheel of the team's No. 60 Ford-Riley during the final stint. Allmendinger shared driving duties with Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series regulars Ozz Negri and John Pew , as well as IndyCar Series driver Justin Wilson in the 50th anniversary of the 24-hour endurance race at Daytona International Speedway in Florida. Allmendinger crossed the finish line 5.2 seconds ahead of Starworks Motorsports' No. 8 Ford-Riley, driven by Ryan Dalziel during the last hours.