Having three underclassmen taken in the most recent NBA draft — sophomore Russell Westbrook was picked fourth, freshman Kevin Love fifth and junior Luc Richard Mbah a Moute 37th — Howland said he expects a different kind of pressure next season.

"If you told me right now I'd get back to the Final Four," Howland said, "I'd be elated."

He and his teammates did what had been unthinkable during long decades of Spanish failure of heart and mind and toe. Spain preoccupied Germany so thoroughly that the Germans never could mount one of those late rallies that have made them the opposite of Spain.

Remember the two goals that enabled Germany to catch France in extra time in the World Cup semifinals in 1982, leaving a French player dripping with blood? Then there was the last-minute goal against gallant Turkey in this tournament a week ago. Germany almost always comes back, and particularly against a nation whose supporters had grown accustomed to collapse.

Francisco Franco came and went. Pablo Picasso came and went. Victoria de los Ángeles came and went. But on the lush grass of the World Cup or the European Championship, the Spaniards remained constant in their ability to frustrate.

"I have experienced a lot, but nothing like that — normally I did something wrong, but this time around I don't know. . . . There were no insults, neither from Jogi Loew nor from myself, toward the four gentlemen.''

Mejuto defended his decision, saying: "Myself and the fourth official tried to avoid this decision to send them off, but we had no choice. It is not acceptable to raise your hands to the crowd, to try and raise the temperature of the game."

Hickersberger was not alone in his criticism.

Sweden Coach Lars Lagerback lashed out at Dutch referee Pieter Vink for not calling a foul against Spain and thus allowing David Villa to score an injury-time winner against Sweden.

"It's a bitter way to lose," Lagerback said. "I am standing 20 meters away from Markus Rosenburg being kicked and then Spain goes on and scores. I hope the referee is dealt with."

Poland Coach Leo Beenhakker lashed out at English referee Howard Webb after Webb had awarded Austria a penalty kick in injury time that cost the Poles a victory.

"Since the tournament started I've seen wrestling at free kicks and corners and several divers but no yellow cards," Beenhakker said, lambasting officials for their inconsistency. "I've been 43 years in this business, I always accept referee's decisions, but this is something I really can't understand in relation to other situations."

Aragones' triumph came at the expense of 61-year-old Guus Hiddink, who has taken three national teams to the semifinals of major tournaments only to fall each time at the penultimate hurdle. Russia was the youngest team in the tournament, but it had its legs run out from beneath it.

"We could play with Spain in the first half, and for part of the second half we were still in the game," Hiddink said. "But their plan to tire us by their possession game made our marking a little bit loose in midfield so we had to run a lot. For an hour we could move and after that it was . . . very difficult to play them.

"When you play Spain, you know they have experience and play one-touch football and they know how to neutralize players as well. They know if they keep on touching the ball at the end the opponent is getting fatigued and then they know they can score."

Which is exactly what happened. Spain's second and third goals came in the last 18 minutes

All the homegrown talent that is the backbone of La Liga, one of the toughest national leagues in the world, came through in the rain in Vienna. The Spaniards wore down Russia, 3-0, in the semifinals of Euro 2008, with their skill and experience topping the Russians' earlier exuberance. This is no small victory for Spain to qualify for Sunday's championship match against Germany in Vienna. It will be the first final for a Spanish team in a world-level tournament since Spain lost to France in Euro 1984.

In between there have been so many losses way too early in tournaments, often under bizarre circumstances, that made Spanish fans ask exactly why their teams cannot live up to expectations, why their fancy players fold under pressure, why terrible things happen to them. World soccer fans often get a little crazy when an American like me compares an international situation to our own little local sports. But the best way to describe Spain in American terms is to say that sometimes a hand comes out of nowhere to deflect a ball, the way it happened to the Chicago Cubs in the postseason in 2003. The Cubs have not won a World Series since 1908, and Spain has not won a major tournament since Euro 1964, when it beat the Soviet Union, the spiritual ancestors of Thursday's losing side.

In between, La Selección has managed to disappoint. Things just happen, and a nation falls silent. I was in Spain in 1982 when La Selección lost. People were indoors watching television - and they never came back out that evening, not even for the traditional stroll or the late dinner. Everything just shut down.

In the 1994 World Cup, Roberto Baggio beat Spain for Italy in the closing minutes in Foxborough, Mass. In the 1998 World Cup, cresting Nigeria just plain outhustled the all-stars from La Liga, in the French city of Nantes. In 2002 an Egyptian referee disallowed not one but two Spanish goals against the host team, South Korea, that looked perfectly legal to most eyes, particularly Spanish ones.

Decio DeMaria, the federation's general secretary, also said that interim coach Jesus "Chucho" Ramirez would decide this week whether he wants to stay on as one of Eriksson's assistants or would prefer to leave.

Both games are on ABC, and the respective viewership numbers from the network should make for interesting reading Monday morning according to the Los Angeles Times.

Contrasting the quality of play would be unfair, no matter what sort of show the MLS teams put on, but it is strange, perhaps even foolhardy, that the league would be willing to risk the contrast being so starkly exposed.

Even if he were, Real Madrid might not meet the asking price. "We would never pay $125 million for any player," Ramon Calderon, the club's president, said. Real Madrid Coach Bernd Schuster, however, has asked Calderon to "pay whatever it takes" to sign Ronaldo.

If a figure is ever agreed upon, it would almost certainly make Ronaldo the world's most expensive player, surpassing Zinedine Zidane. The retired French star said he would be happy to drop the tag.

"They are ready to pay more than for me, and this will lift the weight from my shoulders," Zidane said.

Parker converted her first WNBA slam dunk Sunday night against the Indiana Fever. That dunk also occurred in the final minute of a double-digit victory. Six years earlier, teammate Lisa Leslie had converted the league's only other dunk. All three baskets came on the same end of Staples Center.

"A lot of us have just seen history," Sparks Coach Michael Cooper said. "You're going to see more because Candace Parker is very, very good."

"I do know that more and more women are going to do it and it's something that people are going to have to accept," the 6-foot-4 Parker said Monday as she accepted the Honda-Broderick Cup, an award given to the top female college athlete of the year.

It was only a few months ago that she starred for the Tennessee Lady Vols, helping them to another championship, playing through the pain of a dislocated shoulder. Now she stars for the WNBA, and is racking up the stats. But will her dunk help change the WNBA's image as, well, plodding and unexciting?

David Carter, executive director of the Sports Business Institute at USC, said the publicity generated by Parker's dunk shows that the WNBA "hasn't arrived yet," and the league needs to showcase more than a few dunks if it intends to reach a broader audience.

"It's indisputable that the excitement brought to basketball because of the dunk has made the NBA a successful, profitable league," Carter said. "But the WNBA has to balance what is realistic with what is ideal."

WNBA President Donna Orender said the dunk can become a part of the women's game — and even said a slam-dunk contest could one day appear in the league — but said she hardly sees the league turning into a "dunkfest."

But on Monday, when Sundhage named her team, Scurry was listed as only an alternate, with Hope Solo, 25, and Nicole Barnhart, 26, selected as the starter and backup, respectively. Was it because of the spat between Solo and Scurry at the 2007 Women's World Cup in China?

"No, not at all," Sundhage said Monday by conference call from her native Sweden.

"I thank all of those people who have addressed words of encouragement or compliments," Aragones said, "but . . . this adventure is ending for me, whatever happens to Spain here. We have created a great group with a great atmosphere. But I'm not going to get involved in whether they should offer me another contract or not. It is over and that is it."

For Donadoni, the picture is less clear. He had breakfast Monday with Giancarlo Abete, president of the Italian soccer federation, but revealed little of what was said. Asked whether he would resign in the wake of Italy's elimination Sunday, Donadoni rejected the idea.

"Resign? The thought would never even enter the antechamber of my brain," the 44-year-old coach said.

Atta said the shooting after Iraq's victory over China this month killed one person and injured about two dozen others. Therefore, he said, "we had made orders to arrest the violators and transfer their cases to the judicial system, whether civilians or the security forces."

Some of the most flagrant shooting last week was done by soldiers manning checkpoints, critics said.

"Hopefully our team will win today, and we will celebrate, but expressing happiness should be away from all the gun firing," Atta said.

Predictably, the warning was not heeded. A scattering of muzzle reports crackled across the city at the end of the 90-minute match in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. But it was nothing like the mighty fusillade that would have followed a victory. The Qataris took the day, 1-0, eliminating Iraq from the 2010 World Cup.

In Donadoni's defense, there were a few mitigating circumstances. For one, Italy was drawn into the "group of death" with the Netherlands, France and Romania. But while the Dutch played stylish soccer until they ran out of ideas and the Romanians put up a brave resistance, the French were abysmal and, as world champion, Italy should have disposed of the opposition.

The News & Observer reported that the school avoided paying the University of Louisville $450,000 for opting out of three football games. Duke lawyers essentially had argued that the Blue Devils were so bad any Division I team could have replaced them on the Cardinals' schedule.

Louisville's breach of contract suit, filed in Franklin County (Ky.) Circuit Court, was dismissed by Judge Phillip J. Shepherd on Thursday. The contract had called for a penalty of $150,000 per game to be assessed if a date with a "team of similar stature" could not be scheduled in the event of a cancellation.

According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, the judge's summary included the following:

"At oral argument, Duke (with a candor perhaps more attributable to good legal strategy than to institutional modesty) persuasively asserted that this is a threshold that could not be any lower."

Duke has gone 13-90 over the last nine seasons and beat only Northwestern en route to a 1-11 mark and winless ACC campaign last year.

The teams, which played in 2002, were slated to face each other last season, this season and in 2009. Louisville played nonconference games last season against Championship Subdivision Murray State, Middle Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina State and Syracuse.

On Saturday, the Netherlands plays Russia in a quarterfinal in what promises to be one of the most attractive games of the tournament, given both teams' willingness to attack and to play wide-open soccer. The Russians, once a dour lot who relied more on physical strength than skill, are learning under Dutch Coach Guus Hiddink that stylish soccer can bring its rewards.

While the Netherlands has won all three of its matches to date, including routs of France and Italy, and has outscored its opponents, 9-1, Russia has made its own mark with well-deserved victories over Greece and Sweden. But the Dutch team has been the one to watch, the one that not only plays the game the way it is intended to be played but does so at high speed and with the sort of creative touches and flowing moves that win fans as well as games.

The game in Basel was a mere 22 minutes old when Schweinsteiger beat defender Paulo Ferreira to Lukas Podolski's cross and side-footed the ball powerfully past goalkeeper Ricardo. Just over four minutes later, Schweinsteiger curled a free kick into the penalty area that Miroslav Klose rose to head into the net. Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo failed to track Klose's run, leaving the German striker with ample time and space to score. Another Schweinsteiger free kick just past the hour mark found Michael Ballack, who shoved Ferreira out of the way — and was fortunate not to be called for the foul — and then flashed a header past the hapless Ricardo for what would prove to be the winning goal.

Had the Portuguese players done their homework, they would have known about Schweinsteiger's dribbling skills, his deadly finishing and, above all, his ability to deliver free kicks to precise spots in the same manner as David Beckham.

The traveling home game will give NBC eight Fighting Irish broadcasts a season and push its payments - which are never publicly disclosed but are believed to provide Notre Dame with much more TV cash than any other football program - much higher than the current deal, which will end in 2010. NBC will benefit from selling the advertising time for the off-site games at potentially higher prices because they will be the only prime-time home games played by Notre Dame, which will not stage them in South Bend.

Not a bad deal for a program that went 3-9 last season.

"We told him we would clarify his situation this summer," United General Manager Dave Kasper said. "Our objective is to keep him."

Emilio registered his first MLS hat trick last Saturday in front of an RFK Stadium crowd of 18,622 that included Luis Fernando Tena, coach of Mexican club Morelia, and one of his assistants.

Morelia first showed interest in Emilio last winter after he won the MLS scoring title with 20 regular season goals and was named the league MVP. At the time, United had no intention of selling him, but when Emilio slipped into a prolonged scoring slump this spring, his departure during the summer transfer window (July 15 to Aug. 15) seemed more likely.

With six goals in the past four matches, however, Emilio has regained his standing with United and some leverage for a new contract. He had wanted to renegotiate his deal last winter, but settled for only a 7 percent increase to $313,000.

In the 34th minute of a scoreless game, Blanco was fouled on the edge of the Chivas USA area. Blanco beat goalie Brad Guzan on the ensuing free kick, producing a roar from America and Chicago Fire fans. But Claudio Suarez spoiled the party for Blanco and the Fire, tying the score in the 82nd minute on a penalty kick. It was a great night for two major figures of Mexican soccer, who face each other again Thursday at the Home Depot Center.

"It's one more game," Blanco said. "We know that Chivas USA is not going through a good time, but we should not be overconfident. We have to attack and take advantage of the opportunities."

Since signing with the Fire in April 2007, Blanco has scored eight goals and passed for 13 assists in 25 games.

"I always said this would be my final competition," the Chelsea player said. "I have no regrets at finishing now. I have sweated for this shirt and it has brought me 100% happiness, so there are no regrets."

No regrets, either, for defender Lilian Thuram, 36, who said that he, too, had played his final game for the national team after being left on the bench Tuesday. Team captain Patrick Vieira, who turns 32 on Monday, is expected to announce his international retirement after having not played one minute during Euro 2008 because of injury, and Thierry Henry, France's all-time leading goal scorer, said he was weighing his options. At 30, he might go on.

That would make a change after back-to-back shutout losses — first in a friendly to Venezuela and then to Paraguay. But Dunga is not planning on changing his lineup.

"Sometimes, a change in attitude is better than a change of player," he said. "We're not going to change our entire way of working because of one game."

Look for one of the big four to be English champion again. Combined, they have won 25 of the last 30 titles.

But the coach dodged the question of whether it really is necessary for the U.S. to play 18 qualifying games over the next 16 months when the end result is a foregone conclusion that they will be in South Africa.

"I'm not ready to tackle that one," Bradley said.

The U.S. team is training in Miami this week prior to leaving on Friday for Bridgetown, Barbados, and the second leg of the series on Sunday. With an eight-goal advantage, Bradley has released a handful of players, including the Galaxy's Landon Donovan, back to their club teams and will use a new-look lineup.

"That is how the Dutch should also think," Piturca said when told that European bookmakers have made Romania the favorite to win the game. "For their own good, they should not play against France and Italy in the semifinals."

The theory is that a resurgent French or Italian squad could be a handful, even if the Dutch already have easily beaten them both.

Romanian journalists took things a step further, showing up at a Dutch training session wearing T-shirts that bore the message, "Let Us Win" and waving flags with the same plea.

Then, on Sunday, there occurred an event that even the most hard-hearted of sports editors surely would not have denied their reporters a chance to witness -- a six-a-side game along the shores of the Danube between two teams of topless women.Yes, you read that correctly.

Actually, the players were more than topless. They wore thongs — and body paint in the national team colors of Austria and Germany — and not much else.

The match was a prelude — or pre-lewd — of sorts. The two countries will play each other in Vienna on Monday night in a very real and very meaningful Euro 2008 match, with a spot in the quarterfinals at stake.