Soccer Watch

Big congratulations to the Houston Dynamo, who broke ground this week on their new 22,000-seat stadium in downtown Houston's East End, near Minute Maid Park, the George R. Brown Convention Center, and the Toyota Center. The stadium, to be ready by mid-2012, will also host Texas Southern University football, concerts, and more.

Some interesting international results Wednesday; here are a few: Denmark 1, England 2; France 1, Brazil 0; Argentina 2, Portugal 1; Germany 1, Italy 1.

European Champions League play restarts this Tues­day and Wednesday, Feb. 15-16. Fox Soccer Channel will show one game live at 1:30pm each game day through the spring: Tuesday it's AC Milan vs. Tottenham, and on Wed­nes­day it's Arsenal vs. Barcelona, clearly the marquee matchup of this first knockout round. The other pairings are Valencia vs. Schalke; Roma vs. Shakhtar Donetsk; Copenhagen vs. Chelsea; Lyon vs. Real Madrid; Inter Milan vs. Bayern Munich; and Marseille vs. Manchester United.

Also under way this week: the Copa Liberta­dores group stage, with 32 teams contending for the South American club championship.

Cedric Golden had an enigmatic item in Sunday's Austin American-Statesman, describing Austin boxer Brian Vera's big win Friday night over former world champ Sergio Mora as taking place "in the backdrop of the" World Cup. Not sure what Golden was getting at there, seeing as it's seven months since the last WC and three-and-a-half years until the next one in Brazil, but I've got to give kudos whenever the daily's usually gridiron-obsessed big boys take off the blinders and acknowledge the world's most popular sport.