Brazil coach pays for Olympic failure

Wanderley Luxemburgo was last night sacked as coach of Brazil. Ricardo Teixeira, the president of the Brazilian Soccer Confederation, sacked Luxemburgo during a lunch meeting at a Rio golf club. The move follows Brazil's failure to win the Olympic title.

Under Luxemburgo, Brazil has been disappointing in their World Cup qualifying group, currently lying fourth after embarrassing losses to Paraguay and Chile. Only the top four South American teams are guaranteed spots in the 2002 tournament.

Luxemburgo also doubles as coach of Brazil's Under-23 team, which was knocked out of the Olympic quarter-finals by nine-man Cameroon.

In the past few days, Luxemburgo had denied reports he was on the way out and told reporters he would lead the team for its World Cup qualifier against Venezuela on October 8.

oJuventus kicked off the new Serie A campaign with a 2-1 victory at newly-promoted Napoli.

Alessandro Del Piero scored the all-important winner for the Turin side.

In front of 80,000, Napoli's Roberto Stellone, making his debut in Serie A, opened the scoring after 41 minutes.

But goals from Juventus substitute Darko Kovacevic and Del Piero secured the points for the visitors.

In the only other game played last night, Bari and Verona drew 1- 1.

All the action came inside the final 10 minutes with Bari taking the lead in the 81st minute after Svede Yksel Osmanovski was pulled down inside the penalty area and his compatriot Daniel Andersson converted the spot kick.

Verona grabbed an equaliser three minutes from the end when Natale Gonnella volleyed home a corner for his first goal in Serie A.

oGerman champions Bayern Munich suffered a shock 1-0 home defeat to unfancied Hansa Rostock yesterday but stayed top in Germany as second-placed Schalke 04 lost 2-0 at SV Hamburg.

Hansa midfielder Christian Brand silenced the 60,000 crowd at Munich's Olympic Stadium with the winner in the 15th minute.

The easterners hung on to notch up a third straight win and send the discomfited hosts to their first home defeat in the Bundesliga since April.

At Kaiserslautern, Otto Rehhagel is fighting for his career again after a poor start to the season which saw them draw 1-1 at home to Energie Cottbus - their first away point since being promoted.

Schalke missed injured Belgian striker Emile Mpenza at Hamburg's Volkspark Stadium, where they have not won for eight years.

Goals from Czech Marek Heinz in the 35th minute and Iranian Mehdi Mahdavikia seven minutes from time gave Hamburg the points to go seventh, four points behind Bayern.

The goal of the day came in the capital where Brazilian striker Alex Alves, spotting Cologne goalkeeper Markus Proell off his line, scored from the centre spot to get Hertha Berlin straight back in the game just seconds after finding themselves 2-0 down inside half an hour.

A minute later, Michael Preetz equalised and a brace of goals either side of half-time from Dariusz Wosz made it 4-2.

Hertha's comeback took the pressure off trainer Juergen Roeber, who has had a nightmare week following a 5-2 defeat at lowly Unterhaching.

The Berliners are now fourth on 12 points.

In France, Monaco and Bordeaux, who face Old Firm opposition in European competetion shortly, drew 2-2. Promoted En Avant Guingamp denied Paris St Germain their first away win of the season as the Britanny side forced a 1-1 draw in the first division.

oAmid pounding rain and brisk winds, Real Madrid fought to a soggy stand-off in a frustrating 0-0 match against Racing de Santander, currently sitting second bottom of the Spanish first division.

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