Madrid  - Spanish giants Barcelona, Valencia and Sevilla cruised into the quarter-finals of the Spanish King's Cup on Wednesday, knocking out Atletico Madrid, Racing Santander and Deportivo Coruna respectively.

A reserve-packed Barca side came from behind to beat Atletico 2-1, with goals from Bojan Krkic and Eidur Gudjohnsen. Atletico had taken an early lead through Florent Sinama Pongolle, but never looked capable of turning the tie around.

London  - An injury to Wayne Rooney marred a good night for Manchester United as they moved to within two points of leaders Liverpool in the English Premier League after beating Wigan Athletic 1-0 at Old Trafford on Wednesday.

England striker Rooney scored the only goal of the game in the first minute of the match to lift champions United above Chelsea into second, but the striker is now expected to be out for three weeks with hamstring trouble.

Ruhpolding, Germany  - World champions Germany ended Russia's winning run on Wednesday with first place in a biathlon women's relay race on home soil.

Andrea Henkel, Kati Wilhelm, Kathrin Hitzer and Magdalena Neuner took the lead on the second leg of the 4x6-kilometres race for victory in 1 hour 16 minutes 41.2 seconds in front of a big home crowd in Ruhpolding.

It was the first season win for the German women's relay which had won all races in the last campaign but saw Russia triumph in the first three relays this time around.

Munich  - Lukas Podolski's return to Cologne from Bayern Munich is expected to be finalized next week, officials from both clubs said after a meeting on Wednesday.

"The final decision will come next week. There is a clear tendency towards Cologne," Munich general manager Uli Hoeness told the website of the Bild daily.

Cologne general manager Michael Maier also said that Podolski's future will be decided "early next week."

Wengen, Switzerland  - Swedish skier Markus Larsson suffered a concussion and facial injuries on Wednesday when he crashed during the first training for the Lauberhorn World Cup downhill ski races.

Race spokesman Hugo Steinegger said that Larsson, 30, briefly lost consciousness when he crashed in the final section of the downhill course. He was taken to a hospital in Interlaken by helicopter.

Zurich- The Arab world will soon have its own language channel on the website of the ruling body FIFA, it was announced on Wednesday.

The Arabic channel joins English, Spanish, French and German versions of the popular site and is to reach out to an audience of around 350 million Arab speakers.

The new channel will be launched shortly ahead of the June 14-28 Confederations Cup in South Africa, FIFA said in a statement. It will be presented ART (Arab Radio & Television), one of FIFA's long-term broadcast partners.