Jorge Barcellos, the coach who led Brazil's women's national team to a silver medal in the Olympics, was hired to lead the St. Louis team in the new Women's Professional Soccer league.

The league will have teams in St. Louis, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and New Jersey/New York when its first season begins in April.

POLAND SUSPENDS PLAYERS: Poland goalkeeper Artur Boruc and two other players were banned from two World Cup qualifiers for their behavior after losing to Ukraine last week.

Boruc, along with Dariusz Dudka and Radoslaw Majewski, will miss matches against Slovenia on Sept. 6 and at San Marino four days later.

LIVERPOOL JUST MAKES IT INTO CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Dirk Kuyt scored in the 28th minute of overtime, and Liverpool squeaked into the European Champions League with a 1-0 victory over Belgium's Standard Liege on Wednesday night.

Arsenal, Atletico Madrid, Fiorentina and Olympique Marseille also advanced to the group stage along with Denmark's Aalborg, Belarus' BATE, Basel, Dinamo Kiev, Turkey's Fenerbahce, Ukraine's Shakhtar Donetsk and Steaua Bucharest.

They join teams that automatically earned first-round berths, a group that includes Manchester United, Chelsea, Inter Milan, AS Roma, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Lyon.

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