Sports Briefs

 

Brazil to play El Salvador in friendly

 

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) :

Brazil will meet El Salvador in a friendly next month in a suburb of Washington, D.C.

The game will be held at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland, on September 11, four days after coach Tite's team takes on the US in a previously announced friendly at East Rutherford, New Jersey.

The two matches will be Brazil's first since their World Cup quarterfinal elimination against Belgium in July.

They will also be the first games since Tite extended his contract until the end of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Tite will announce his squad next Friday. The matches are part of Brazil's preparation for Copa AmÈrica, which it will host in June 2019.

 

Scolari shrugs off Brazil critics after joining Palmeiras

 

SAO PAULO (AP):

Former Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari said yesterday that critics would not bother him on his return home to work at Sao Paulo-based giants Palmeiras

Despite leading Brazil to a World Cup title in 2002, 'Big Phil' took a lot of the blame for the team's humiliating 7-1 defeat against Germany in the 2014 World Cup semifinals.

"A 7-1, 0-0, 5-5, it does not upset me in any way," Scolari told a press conference yesterday.

"The last time Brazil won the World Cup was in 2002, and I was with that team. The last to be defeated in the World Cup was not me. That is over," the 69-year-old coach said.

His friend-turned-foe Tite was at the helm for last month's World Cup quarterfinal elimination against Belgium.

 

Vidal agrees to switch from Bayern to Barcelona

 

BARCELONA, Spain (AP)

Chile midfielder Arturo Vidal has agreed to leave Bayern Munich for Barcelona. Vidal will sign a three-year contract at the Nou Camp subject to a medical in the next few days, the Spanish league champion said in a statement yesterday.

The 31-year-old player joined Bayern from Juventus in 2015 and won the Bundesliga title in each of his three seasons in Bavaria.

Neither club has announced a transfer fee for Vidal, who was under contract at Bayern until next June, but media reports in Spain said Barca would pay around 20 million euros (US$23 million).

The former Bayer Leverkusen midfielder featured in 124 games for Bayern, scoring 22 goals.