ingle most telling measure of his class was his response

RIO DE JANEIRO -- The outstretched arms of the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue are visible, if only just, from the upper reaches of Maracana Stadium in the Olympic host city. But it was divine inspiration on a far less grand scale that Brazilian players were seeking during a soccer quarterfinal against Australia in Belo Horizonte.In that moment, their tournament future at the mercy of penalty kicks, one player kneels with hands on her thighs and head bowed. Another stands and stares skyward with eyes closed, arms across the shoulders of teammates. Two players hold their hands to their faces in what looks like a mixture of prayer and apprehension. In the middle kneels Marta, the star, something close to pain on her flushed face, as a generations best player waits to see if her teammates can absolve her of failure.A place in the Olympic semifinals is a lot, but much more was on the line in that moment.Most national teams in some way serve as representatives of their countries. That may be true of this team, too, but its more discernible role is as the representative of womens soccer to Brazil.The development of womens soccer depends a lot on everything that involves the womens national team, Marta explained during the buildup to the Olympics.After playing to a 0-0 stalemate over 120 minutes Friday against Australia -- the team that eliminated it sooner than most expected in last years FIFA Womens World Cup -- Brazil survived a penalty shootout in the most unlikely manner. Marta, the fifth player to shoot for her team, was the first to see her shot saved. If Australia had made its next kick, Brazil would have been out. Instead, goalkeeper Barbara made the first of two saves and Brazil won in eight rounds.The reward is a place in Tuesdays semifinal, in front of what is expected to be close to a sellout in the massive Maracana -- with a capacity of more than 70,000.Like most Olympics, the event raises questions as to the need for lavish spending on facilities that may go unused when the rest of the world leaves town. Also visible from the Maracana are some of Rios favelas -- buildings and people tightly packed together in these neighborhoods of poverty and violence. Staging an athletic spectacle such as the Olympics necessarily comes at the expense of the part of the local population most in need of investment.Yet in a stadium that has been part of the Rio landscape for decades, albeit recently remodeled, the Olympics can leave something that lasts long after the world departs. A gold medal for the Brazil women, still two wins away, could leave a generation empowered to play a game and much more. But perhaps only if they win -- the one thing they have not done in a major tournament.I think that, generally speaking, the results that we have gotten -- two Olympic silver medals, a runner-up finish in the World Cup -- those have been our best moments for the womens national team, Marta said before this tournament. I think in a certain way that has woken people up and has made them look at womens soccer differently. I think the individual player distinctions weve received, like Formiga, Cristiane -- I dont name myself among them. Everything as a whole has led to something positive and has helped womens soccer as a whole to improve.To reach the gold-medal game that will be played Friday in the same stadium, Brazil must get past the Swedish team that ended the gold-medal reign of the United States in a quarterfinal shootout. Brazil met that task once when it crushed Sweden 5-1 in group play. But that was also the last time Brazil scored in this tournament. A scoreless draw against South Africa to close group play was followed by the stalemate against Australia.Sweden played an open game in the first meeting and was punished by a team that was faster, more athletic and just as skilled. It played a defensive game against the United States and was rewarded for it. Coach Pia Sundhage left little doubt Monday that the mistakes of the past would inform her plans for the present. Brazil will have to solve Swedens numbers massed in defense and do so with limited rest after the marathon in Belo Horizonte. Brazil may also have to do so without the attacking skill of Cristiane, whose status remains in doubt after an injury against Australia.For all of that, Martas first appearance in the Maracana in nearly a decade is both sociology and soccer, that idea again captured both by the enormous crowds that watched the women in Manaus and Belo Horizonte, and by a recent photo of a young fan with a Neymar jersey?-- the name of the Brazilian mens star crossed out and replaced by that of Marta.Asked about the cultural importance of the game, Brazilian coach Vad?o mentioned, via a translator, the difficulty girls still have playing the game in organized settings. Brazil is not hostile to womens soccer in the way it once was, but a culture, any culture, changes slowly.At one point Monday afternoon, a member of the local staff at the Maracana walked over to inform media members that the Swedish coach would be 20 minutes late. In doing so, the staffer more than once used the pronoun he in reference to Sundhage. It could easily have been a slip of grammar, but it was no less likely a slip of tongue reflective of the culture.As is the case of Vad?o or the coach of the Colombian team, the other South American representative in the womens tournament, women play but men still coach. (Costa Rican coach Amelia Valverde is one of the rare exceptions in Latin America at the international level.)So it was that Sundhage reflected on her own journey to the Maracana, two years after she led the United States to the gold medal game in Wembley Stadium. It was a remarkable set of circumstances considering the soccer world when she was a girl.Its funny, when I was a girl I dreamt to be a professional player, Sundhage said. There werent such thing as girls football, even. Then I dreamt to be a professional coach. And there werent anything like a professional coach.That is how generations of girls in Brazil must have felt, must still feel. Vad?o talked Monday about the Maracana being more than a stadium; it is part of the Brazilian culture. And yet girls have so rarely seen women playing on its field.When the conditions are equal, Vad?o said, the results can be equal.Given enough time, perhaps that change is inevitable. But Brazils escape in Belo Horizonte gives it an opportunity to bring about change that much sooner. Nike Air Force 1 Mid Australia . Artturi Lehkonen, Joni Nikko and Ville Leskinen had the other goals for Finland (1-0) while Juuse Saros stopped 28 shots. Tim Robin Johnsgard had the lone goal for Norway (0-2). Air Force 1 Australia Cheap . -- Gus Malzahn finally had his day in Fayetteville. http://www.salenikeshoesaustralia.com/air-force-1-clearance/air-force-1-low-cheap.html . Ferrer, trying to win his fourth title on Mexican soil, will next play South Africas Kevin Anderson, who eliminated American Sam Querrey,7-6 (2), 6-4. Also Wednesday, Gilles Simon (6) of France beat Donald Young of the United States 6-4, 6-3, Ukraines Alexandr Dolgopolov downed Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 6-3, 6-4 and Croatias Ivo Karlovic defeated Dudi Sela of Israel 7-6 (4), 6-2. Nike Air Force 1 Black Australia .2 billion agreement with Rogers Communications for the leagues broadcast and multimedia rights. Air Max 270 White Australia . It was the second consecutive win for the Pacers (2-5), who lost their first five preseason games. Jeff Teague led the Hawks (1-5) with 17 points and eight assists and Al Horford had 12 points and seven rebounds. Mike Scott scored 15 of his 17 points in the second half. India 455 and 98 for 3 (Kohli 56*, Rahane 22*) lead England 255 (Stokes 70, Bairstow 53, Root 53, Ashwin 5-67) by 298 runs Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsThree days into Visakhapatnams maiden Test match, the prospects of England emerging from this contest with anything less than a hefty defeat remain no less bleak than they had appeared at the height of their top-order implosion on the second afternoon.However, this was a day on which their hopes of a fightback in the remaining three fixtures were exponentially boosted, thanks to a feisty series of performances with bat and ball that required Indias champion bowler and batsman, R Ashwin and Virat Kohli, to summon their very best efforts in order maintain their sides dominance.The tone for Englands day was set by a spirited stand of 110 between their overnight pair of Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow, but their fate was eventually sealed by the wiles of Ashwin, who claimed his 22nd five-wicket haul but first against England, to secure India a priceless first-innings lead of 200.Then, after India had decided not to enforce the follow-on, Kohli reached the close on 56 not out, another imperious display to follow on from his first-innings 167, and one in which he was obliged to overcome an exemplary display of incision and experience from Englands senior bowlers, Stuart Broad and James Anderson, whose combined figures to date are 3 for 22 in 14 overs.Indias overall lead by stumps was an imposing 298, and on a surface now offering sharp turn to the spinners and clear signs of uneven bounce, mere survival will be a challenge beyond anything that England have yet encountered on this trip. Nevertheless, given the na?ve hours batting that had condemned them on the second afternoon, this was a response from which is no platitude to admit that they will take the positives.The general assumption before the start of play was that England would continue to stumble against Indias spin-led attack, and Bairstows alarming arrival on the field of play merely sharpened those thoughts. Jogging out to the middle to resume his innings on 12 not out, Bairstow lost his footing as he crossed the boundary line and had to hobble back to the dressing-room for treatment after rolling his ankle.He showed no ill-effects however, turning quickly for two runs in Umesh Yadavs first over of the day to open his account for the day, and from that moment on, Englands sixth-wicket pairing continued in the same prolific vein that they have displayed all year. Between them, they have now made 772 runs in seven stands in 2016, the most by any batting pair.India stuck doggedly to their guns throughout a fallow first hour - arguably too doggedly, with Ashwin initially stymied in a nine-over spell that yielded an early wasted review for lbw and one half-chance for a stumping off Stokes. However, there was little of the threat and penetration that he had displayed on the second evening.That, in part, was down to the quality of Englands batting. With Bairstow working the singles while Stokes interspersed his hugely improved defensive technique with an assassins eye for anything remotely loose, the pair had come within ten minutes of batting clean through the morning session when Umesh produced a beauty, a fast inswinging yorker that crashed into Bairstows stumps via the base of his pad.It was a body blow to Englands hopes of approaching parity but, when Kohli opted to take the second new ball soon after the interval, Stokes and Adil Rashid were ready to take full advantage with an enterprising counterattack.The hardness of the new ball suited Stokes methods just fine, as he clipped Mohammad Shamis second ball off the pads through square leg, before rifling a ferocious pull through midwicket. At the other end, Rashid snaffled three fours in a single over from Umesh, the best of them a scorching cover drive that left Kohli at slip spitting with rage.Sure enough, his sseamers were soon banished and Kohli instead threw the ball back to his senior spinners, who responded with the days most vital breakthrough.ddddddddddddPropping forward to the extra bounce of Ashwin, Stokes was given out lbw by umpire Kumar Dharmasena for 70, even though replays implied that he had grazed an inside edge. No matter - the ball had also deflected into the hands of silly point, so the verdict was correct even if the mode of dismissal was moot.Zafar Ansari did his best to support Rashid, who was accumulating fluently at the other end, but having flicked a well-timed four through midwicket off Ashwin, he was pinned on the back leg as he played round a full ball from Ravi Jadeja, and burned up Englands last review with one of the more futile attempts at a reprieve since the last days of Shane Watson.Broad might have wished he hadnt - his subsequent lbw against Ashwin looked distinctly leg-sided but England had no more recourse to the third umpire. One ball later, however, Anderson had no such doubts as he was nailed plumb in front of middle on the back foot.Englands tail had once again been docked cheaply - the last four wickets had fallen for 30 in 12.2 overs. But, if there had been any suspicion that England were about to surrender the contest and conserve their energy for next weeks third Test in Mohali, then Broad confounded that by bounding in with the new ball in spite of the fact that he was still awaiting the results of a scan on his injured right foot. At the close of play, it was confirmed that he had strained a tendon and, though he will continue to be monitored for the rest of the match, he will be fit to continue.After back-to-back maidens before tea, Broad resumed with the sort of rhythm and bounce through his action that brought images of Trent Bridge 2015 and Johannesburg 2016 swimming into the minds eye.He grabbed two wickets in 25 balls before conceding a single run - both of them overturned on review after initially being given not out by Rod Tucker. Murali Vijay inside-edged a nipbacker onto his thigh, for Joe Root to snaffle with a dive in the slips, before KL Rahul feathered the thinnest of tickles through to the keeper. It was so thin, in fact, that no-one behind the bat was sure thered been an edge, but Broad was convinced, and so too, crucially, was Haseeb Hameed at short leg. His vigorous insistence was enough to persuade Alastair Cook to take a look - something for Kohli and India to consider as they come to terms with the nuances of DRS usage.So out came Kohli with India in a bit of bother at 16 for 2. But perhaps the single most telling measure of his class was his response to Broad with his tail up. Where none of his team-mates had been able to get the ball off the square in his spell, Kohli helped himself to six runs from the first five balls he faced, a flick off the pads for two and a filleted four through the covers.After six overs of Broad, the return of Anderson offered a subtly different challenge, and Kohlis fellow first-innings centurion, Cheteshwar Pujara, was not equal to it on this occasion. After being pushed back onto his stumps by a sharp bouncer, Anderson followed up with an offcutter to open his gate, before completing his three-card trick with a pummelling nipbacker that burst into the top of Pujaras off stumpAjinkya Rahane, on 2, was lucky to survive an edge off Rashid that deflected to safety off Bairstows knee, when Stokes would have been lurking at slip to pounce. But he endured to the close, on 22 not out, a distant second fiddle to the majestic Kohli, who brought up his second half-century of the match from 63 balls. He was playing on a different surface from the rest of the players on display. England, for all their efforts, are unlikely to be allowed to share his private net. ' ' '