Football

Mario Balotelli scored the winning goal as Italy edged Mexico 2-1 in their first Confederations Cup game.

The 22-year-old, who stands 6 feet 5 inches tall, agreed a three-year contract at Villa Park after signing for an undisclosed fee.

Uzbekistan narrowly missed out on direct qualification for the 2014 World Cup despite the massive win on Tuesday.

Kinnear, who managed the club in 2008/09 before leaving his job because of illness, revealed his appointment on Sunday.

Arsene Wenger will launch a 22 million pounds bid for Real Madrid striker Gonzalo Higuain this week.

The Ethiopians join Algeria, Egypt, the Ivory Coast and Tunisia through to the third and final phase of the African preliminaries.

Lionel Messi scored a hat-trick to help a second-string Argentina record an easy 4-0 away win over Guatemala in a friendly on Friday and overtake Diego Maradona's international goals tally.

Valdes said he has wants to try out other leagues after almost a decade with the Catalans.

Chelsea have reached an agreement with Bayer Leverkusen to sign Germany forward Andre Schurrle from the Bundesliga club.

The Gunners will start with an exhibition match against an Indonesian XI in front of over 80,000 in Jakarta.

Mourinho is said to be concerned that the 26-year-old gives the ball away too easily and is too erratic to play at centre-back.

Argentina have 26 points, Colombia 23 and Ecuador, who dropped their first points in seven home qualifiers remain third with 21.

The decision means Malaga cannot take up a place in the Europa League next term and eighth-placed Rayo Vallecano or ninth-placed Sevilla will compete instead.

Ronaldo scored in the 36th minute with an angled left-foot shot into the bottom right hand corner of the goal.

Financial details weren't disclosed Thursday but British media reported that Fernandinho will cost City around 35 million pounds.

Luis Suarez scored after less than five minutes on the pitch to give Uruguay a 1-0 win over France in an international friendly.