Germany

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USSF D-2 soccer Second-half deflection gives Palace Baltimore key 2-1 win A shot from Shaun Pejic deflected off Andrew Marshall and into the net midway through the second half, and Crystal Palace Baltimore picked up a 2-1 road win Sunday afternoon over the Montreal Impact in front of an announced sellout crowd of 13,034 at Saputo Stadium. The Impact took the lead when Leonardo Di Lorenzo blasted home a shot past goalkeeper Evan Bush just three minutes into the contest.

The U.S. national team got back to its winning ways against Germany with a 22-4 victory in the Federation of International Lacrosse world championships at the University of Manchester in England. Attackman Brendan Mundorf (UMBC) scored five goals and added three assists to pace 10 different scorers for the U.S., which was coming off a 10-9 loss to reigning world champion Canada. Ryan Powell , Drew Westervelt (UMBC) and Paul Rabil (Johns Hopkins) added three goals apiece.

DURBAN, South Africa — Joachim Loew could have said what everyone expected. Germany's boyish coach could have made excuses. He could have blamed his players or his ill-conceived game plan for his team's loss. Instead he simply said what everyone already knew. "Spain was just better than us tonight," Loew confessed. "Over the past two or three years Spain has been the most skilled team of all. They are masters of the game." Spain made history Wednesday with a 1-0 victory over Germany, advancing to its first World Cup final.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Former German great Franz Beckenbauer on Monday said one reason this year's World Cup team has played so well is because it has benefited from a blend of players from different cultures. Eleven of Germany's 23 players would have been eligible to play for other countries, including Polish-born forwards Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski and 21-year-old Turkish playmaker Mesut Ozil . "There are players that are not born in the country but of course they have German passports and maybe that's another reason the German team is playing so well," Beckenbauer, who won World Cups as both a player and coach for Germany, told the Associated Press.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Suddenly, it's 2006 all over again in Germany. Fans are turning out in tens of thousands on the streets of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and elsewhere to watch what is surely the best German soccer team put together in the past quarter-century. That team, in a performance as devastating as it was comprehensive, demolished Argentina 4-0 on Saturday to sweep into the semifinals of the 2010 World Cup. "I feel like I have been hit by Muhammad Ali," said Diego Maradona, Argentina's coach.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Here's a dilemma. Which team does a self-respecting Englishman want to see knocked out of the World Cup first, Argentina or Germany? On the one hand, if the Germans give the Argentines a hiding (much like they gave the English) and send them packing back to Buenos Aires on Saturday in the quarterfinals, we would be rid of Diego Armando Maradona, which is always a good thing. On the other hand, it would also deprive the tournament of its most captivating player, Lionel Messi, and that's a bad thing.

He was known as the friendly priest, the one whom parishioners could talk to without fear of judgment. He ministered to the small parish of German immigrants in Washington as no one else had recently, parish officials said, doubling its size in five years. Then, suddenly, the Rev. Michael Schapfel returned home to Germany shortly after Easter. Allegations of sexual abuse from that country flooded in to the parish Tuesday, shocking those in Washington's tight-knit German Catholic community.

On an icy track slowed by bureaucracy and weather, Germany's Felix Loch won the men's luge competition by being the overall best at the start. At 20, he is the youngest luge gold medalist. The two-time world champion derailed Italy's Armin Zoeggler from his quest for three consecutive gold medals in a competition largely decided by international federation officials, who lowered the starting line about 600 vertical feet to the women's take-off point after last Friday's fatal crash.

Marie Isabelle Ewing, who witnessed the coming of World War II in Germany and later settled in Baltimore, died of a blood clot Jan. 3 at the Broadmead retirement community in Cockeysville. The former Homeland resident was 92. Born Marie Isabelle vom Rath in Berne, Switzerland, she was the daughter of an American mother and a German father, who was a lieutenant in the German army during World War I. As an infant, she lived through the war with her mother and grandparents in Frankfurt, Germany.