| Getting their kicks: Soccer fans cheer Japan while watching TV coverage of the World Cup game between the Blue Samurai and Denmark early Friday morning in Chuo Ward, Osaka. Japan won 3-1 and advanced to the knockout stages for only the second time in its history. KYODO PHOTOS |
Cards and flowers are left in front of Michael Jackson's boyhood home in Gary, Ind. on Friday, June 25, 2010. (AP / John Smierciak)
A French dancer strips off atop Australia's most sacred rock, saying she put on the impromptu performance as a tribute to Aborigines and their culture and to fulfill a lifelong dream
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A protestor runs through the streets during a demonstration in downtown Toronto, Canada, June 25, 2010 ahead of the G20 summit.
Credit: Reuters/Mike Segar
HUNTSVILLE Ontario (Reuters) - The world's richest economies, saddled with huge debts after spending their way out of the credit crisis, papered over differences on Friday on how to clean up their finances with minimal damage to growth.
Saturday, June 26th 2010, 4:00 AM
Saturday, June 26th 2010, 4:00 AM
Barack Obama announces the reform bill that will give his presidency a much-needed boost / AFP
Firefighters retrieve the body of a victim of the Redboxx Cafe nightclub / AP
Saturday, June 26th 2010, 4:00 AM
RUSTENBURG, South Africa - When Bob Bradley was an assistant soccer coach at the University of Virginia, his office in Charlottesville was situated next to the visitors' locker room for basketball.
And so coaches and assistant coaches from different sports would gather inside this claustrophobic room and do some serious eavesdropping during halftime on the visiting ACC stars of the day: Dean Smith, Jim Valvano, Lefty Dreisell and Mike Krzyzewski.
"Not to spy for information, but to hear how these guys went about their business," Bradley said.
There were pep talks then, good ones, and now Saturday Bradley himself says he is likely to deliver a short, rousing speech to his own team, before one of the biggest matches he has ever coached. The U.S. faces Ghana, the last African team standing, a difficult but winnable second-round game. The winner moves on to a World Cup quarterfinal against yet another beatable opponent yet to be determined.
There is a sense of possibility these days around Bradley, around these players, that is beyond the short soccer memory of most Americans. And Bradley, who is often perceived as a chronically stoic man, is poised to carpe diem and rev up the rhetoric.
"In certain moments, you speak passionately," Bradley said Friday to a small group of American reporters after his press conference at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium. "You do it in the right moment, in words to be able to put everyone on the same page. The library in my head is pretty good. I never have to write out my speeches."
