The pressure is off Brazil's men's soccer team. For now. After opening with a pair of scoreless ties against South Africa and Iraq that were greeted with derision from media and fans, the host Brazilians moved into the quarterfinals of the Olympic men's soccer competition with a 4-0 win over Denmark.

East German soccer ended after the 1990-91 DDR-Oberliga season, a year and a half after the Berlin Wall came down, with an American connection. Paul Caligiuri played for Hansa Rostock, the Oberliga's last champion before it disbanded amid Germany's reunification.

So the Paul Pogba move to Manchester United is official. Late Monday night the English club issued a statement that the 23-year-old Frenchman completed his transfer from Italian club Juventus and signed a five-year contract, with the option to extend for a sixth year. What it didn't say: Pogba's annual salary of $20 million.

Rarely during the past several decades has Newcastle United stood among the elite of English soccer, but so deep is the club’s tradition and so passionate are the fans that every new season at St. James’ Park is fraught with hope and foreboding. Stepping into the managerial breach is the well-traveled Spaniard, Rafael Benitez, who a year ago was at the helm of Real Madrid and in 2005 steered Liverpool to a remarkable treble that included the Champions League. Fired by Real in January, Benitez took over the Magpies from Steve McLaren in March to rescue them from relegation. That …

As a young engineer when I learned that the best product was the one that sold the best -- hence marketed well -- and not the best designed or the technically flawless one, I was flabbergasted. How could be the best designed product could not be the best one in the market? As an engineer, I had trouble comprehending this fact, but c'est la vie.

It's a good thing Nigeria's opening match of the Olympic men's soccer tournament against Japan in Manaus on Thursday is the last of eight opening games, kicking off at 9 p.m. local time. The Dream Team's flight from Atlanta, originally scheduled for last Friday, isn't scheduled to arrive until 2 p.m. Talk about cutting it close.

Zinedine Zidane's transition from player to coach reminded me of another World Cup winner's move to the sideline. Like Zidane, Franz Beckenbauer started without a coaching license. "What I am a going to learn from instructors who couldn't take the ball away from me if I had my shoes tied together?" asked Beckenbauer.

Bayern Munich has played two games on its latest U.S. tour, drawing crowds of 53,629 in Charlotte and 44,826 in Chicago, and should attract another big crowd when it closes out its International Champions Cup schedule with a match Wednesday against Real Madrid at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.