Short takes
• The National Women's Soccer League final (Saturday, 3:30 p.m., Lifetime) matches up the league's best two teams across the whole season. Portland overwhelmed Orlando in the semifinals 4-1 while regular-season champion North Carolina got a last-minute winner to beat Chicago 1-0. With Tobin Heath back in the lineup, you have to give the edge to the explosive Thorns offense.
• In Qatar news, Paris Saint-Germain Chairman Nasser Al-Khelafi has been charged by the Swiss government with offering bribes to disgraced FIFA official Jerome Valcke, allegedly in the hopes of getting FIFA to award TV broadcast rights for the World Cup to Qatar-owned beIN Sports. It's a good example of how Qatar, PSG and beIN Sports are all parts of the same whole.
• The North American Soccer League's lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation, charging that the governing body conspired with Major League Soccer to kill the NASL, has reached the "name-calling" stage. The USSF filed a motion to dismiss the suit, calling the NASL's claims "nonsensical." The motion summed up all of the ways in which NASL was a failed league, incapable of continued existence and therefore incapable of being the victim of a conspiracy.
