Soccer Watch

The Austin Aztex stayed unbeaten on the road Friday, earning a scoreless draw in the rain in Rochester, N.Y.; with the point, the Aztex maintain their six-point edge on the Rhinos for the league and division lead. This week, the Aztex host AC St. Louis, who have the worst record in the league but are coming off a draw against MLS-bound Vancouver and a 3-0 thrashing of defending champion Montreal. As they head into a travel-heavy second half of the season, this is a game the Aztex really need to win. Saturday, July 17, 7:30pm. House Park, 13th & Lamar. www.austinaztex.com.

World Cup wrap: After a glorious month and with a dominant first-time champion, what's left to say except hats off to the only undefeated team in the tournament: New Zealand, eliminated after three draws in the opening round. A couple of WC-related player notes: Thierry Henry will join the New York Red Bulls as soon as next week; Fernando Torres' injury (he was a nonfactor for Spain) was confirmed as a severely ruptured thigh muscle. Which matters now, because ...

Hard as it is to believe, it's already preseason for the European leagues. And it's become traditional for big teams to tour the U.S. for their exhibition tune-ups. That culminates this year with the MLS All-Stars against Manchester United Wednesday, July 28, 7:30pm, at Reliant Stadium in Houston. As a warm-up to that, catch a good British rivalry – Man U-Celtic – live from Toronto this Friday, July 16, 6pm, on ESPN2.

The Ghana curse? Bad enough that Ghana has knocked the U.S. men out of the WC the last two times, now they're trying to dump us out of the U-20 Women's World Cup, currently under way in Germany. The defending champion U.S. needed a late tying goal from all-everything Sydney Leroux (in her second U-20 WC, after being named the outstanding player of the last one) to stave off a monumental upset in their opener Wednesday; they may have to win both remaining group games against Switzerland (Saturday, July 17, 11am, live on ESPNU) and North Korea (Wednesday, July 21, 11am, ESPN2) to advance. The quarterfinals (Saturday-Sunday, July 24-25), semifinals (Thursday, July 29), and the third-place game and final (Sunday, Aug. 1) will all be shown on ESPNU or ESPN2.