Ac Milan

WASHINGTON -- With the addition of several new players for yesterday's Italian Soccer Super Cup, AC Milan coach Fabio Capello said he thought his team was going through a period of transition.If that's true, transition never looked so good, even if the score didn't show it.Forward Marco Simone scored early in the first half, and his defense allowed two shots on goal, as Italian League champion AC Milan defeated Italian Cup winner Torino, 1-0, before 25,268 at RFK Stadium.This was the first time in the six-year history of the Super Cup that the game was played outside Italy.

TUESDAY'S TELEVISION HIGHLIGHTS MLB Orioles@Tampa Bay MASN, MLB3 San Francisco at Los Angeles MLB10 C. base. Nebraska@Kansas State FCS7:30 Mississippi@Florida (T) TCN10 M. bask. NIT Semifinal, BYU vs. Baylor ESPN27 CIT Final: Weber State vs. E. Carolina CBSSN8 NIT Semifinal, Iowa vs. Maryland ESPN29 NCAA w. Regional Final: Duke vs. Notre Dame ESPN7 Regional Final: Louisville vs. Tenn.

History AC Milan was founded by British expatriates in 1899. Historically, it has been embraced by the city's working class. Some Milan greats include players Gianni Rivera and Marco van Basten, and now-Chelsea coach Carlo Ancelotti. Milan's nickname is the Rossoneri, which is roughly translated as red-black, a reference to the team's home jersey. It has won the UEFA Champions League seven times, second only to Italian rival Juventus. Upon winning the European Super Cup in 2007, Milan claimed the title of "most successful club in the world" with 17 international trophies.

Mystique will give way to history when 22 of the world's best soccer players rendezvous on the freshly sodded pitch of M&T Bank Stadium before a sellout crowd of 71,000 on Friday night. If Florent Malouda is any indication, there will be as much curiosity on the pitch as there is in the stands when Chelsea FC stares down AC Milan in the World Football Challenge exhibition, known as a "friendly" in soccer parlance. Malouda, a 29-year-old French winger playing for Chelsea, was clearly intrigued with the prospect of a packed stadium on U.S. soil.

This is what the American Dream looks like when you take soccer and fuse it with the promise and the possibilities of globalization: Oguchi Onyewu. Of course, Onyewu, 27, whose parents emigrated from Nigeria before he was born and raised him in Silver Spring and Olney, doesn't really look at it that way. He's just a hardworking, physically gifted, hyper-competitive center-back trying to fit in with a new team, AC Milan, which just happens to be one of the best soccer clubs in the world.

It's probably accurate to say that the final score of Friday's World Football Challenge match between Chelsea Football Club and AC Milan at M&T Bank Stadium wasn't particularly important. At least not nearly as important as the selling of "the beautiful game" to American fans, both those in attendance and those watching on television. Officially, Chelsea walked away a 2-1 winner in the exhibition, primarily thanks to a well-struck blast by striker newcomer Yuri Zhirkov in the 69th minute.

LOS ANGELES - -Did David Beckham bring the crowd down on his own head Sunday night by taunting, challenging and perhaps insulting Galaxy fans at the Home Depot Center? That was the contention of several fans Monday in the wake of the Los Angeles Galaxy's 2-2 tie with AC Milan in a sold-out friendly match in Carson, Calif. It was Beckham's first home game back with the Galaxy after his five-month loan to AC Milan, and he was visibly angry at the anti-Beckham banners in the stadium and at the verbal abuse he received from those who question his loyalty to the Major League Soccer team.

TELEVISION HIGHLIGHTS M. bask. DePaul@Seton Hall (T) MASN 9 a.m. Rider@Saint Peter's (T) MASN 11 a.m. Connecticut@Villanova (T) ESPNU 2 Holy Cross@Bucknell (T) CBSCS 3:30 Kansas@ Texas A&M (T) ESPNU 3:30 Drexel@Virginia Commonwealth CN8 7 Michigan State@Indiana ESPN 7 Wake Forest@ Virginia Tech ESPN2 7 Cincinnati@ South Florida ESPNU 7 William & Mary@ George Mason MASN 7 North Carolina@ Georgia Tech 54, 20 9 Kentucky@ Mississippi State ESPN 9 Rutgers@DePaul ESPNU 9 Radford@Liberty (T)