Man United gets Celtic in Champions League draw (AP)
Defending champion Manchester United was drawn Thursday into a group with Scotland's Glasgow Celtic, Spain's Villarreal and Denmark's Aalborg in the first round of the European Champions League. "We always love to draw the champion of Europe as we did last year," said Celtic forward Scott McDonald, whose team faced Barcelona in the opening round of last season's tournament.

Manchester City, Aston Villa qualify for UEFA Cup (AP)
Manchester City and Aston Villa qualified for the UEFA Cup on Thursday night along with Napoli, Stuttgart and Hertha Berlin. Manchester City took advantage of an own-goal by American defender Danny Califf in the 89th minute and advanced to the first round of the UEFA Cup by defeating Denmark's Midtjylland 4-1 on penalty kicks following a 1-0 victory Thursday night.

4 added to US roster for upcoming WC qualifiers (AP)
Defenders Danny Califf, Michael Orozco and Marvell Wynne were added to the U.S. roster for next month's World Cup qualifiers against Cuba, and Trinidad and Tobago. Midfielder Ricardo Clark also was among 20 players selected Thursday by U.S. coach Bob Bradley. Injured midfielder Pablo Mastroeni was dropped along with defender Jay DeMerit.

Cypriots Omonia beat AEK, APOEL oust Red Star (Reuters)
Cyprus inflicted more soccer pain on neighbours Greece on Thursday when Omonia Nicosia knocked out AEK Athens in the UEFA Cup second qualifying round.

Scharner left out of provisional Austria squad (Reuters)
Austria coach Karel Brueckner left Wigan defender Paul Scharner out of his provisional 19-man squad for September's World Cup qualifiers against France and Lithuania.

Klinsmann relishing Champions League foray (AFP)
Bayern Munich coach Jurgen Klinsmann said he was relishing his first foray into the Champions League after the German giants drew Olympique Lyon, Fiorentina and Steaua Bucharest in the group stages.

Eriksson leaves Franco out of Mexico squad (Reuters)
Coach Sven-Goran Eriksson dropped Argentine-born striker Guillermo Franco of Villarreal when he named a 23-man squad for Mexico's CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers against Jamaica and Canada next month.