Steven Gerrard to MLS: Ten things you should know about US soccer

Major League Soccer's popularity and quality is constantly increasing, with Steven Gerrard expected to join Robbie Keane, David Villa, Jermain Defoe and Clint Dempsey Stateside.
This is BBC Sport's 10-point guide to football/soccer in North America.
1. Michael Bradley earned more than Thierry Henry

US international Clint Dempsey was the highest paid player in MLS in 2014, earning �4.3m ($6.69m). Dempsey's countryman Michael Bradley was second at �4.2m ($6.5m). Four former Premier League stars were among the biggest earners in the league: Jermain Defoe, third, �4m ($6.18m); Robbie Keane, fifth, �2.9m ($4.5m); Thierry Henry, sixth, �2.8m ($4.35m); and Tim Cahill seventh, �2.3m ($3.63m).
At the other end of the scale, 54 players earned the league minimum of �23,800 ($36,500). The average MLS salary in 2014 was just under �137,700 ($208,000) - comparable to England's League One.
2. Sixty times more people watch the Super Bowl than the MLS final on TV

December's MLS Cup final - the championship match of the league - was watched by 1.9 million television viewers in the US. During the 2014 MLS campaign, the games broadcast nationally in the US on ESPN and ESPN2 drew an average audience of 240,000 viewers.
While television audiences are up significantly from 2013, they are still miniscule in the US sporting television landscape. In 2014, the NFL's Super Bowl drew an audience of 112 million, college basketball's national championship 21.2 million, and the final game of baseball's World Series 16.2 million.
3. MLS covers two countries

MLS serves as the top flight for two nations: the United States and Canada (England and Wales are separate countries for football but are both part of the United Kingdom politically). Toronto FC became the first Canadian club in the league in 2007. Vancouver Whitecaps followed in 2011 and Montreal Impact a year later. This precedent was set by the North American Soccer League of the 1960-80s, with clubs in five Canadian cities. Another part of the world where two nations are served by one senior division is the A-league of Australia and New Zealand which features Wellington Phoenix.
4. MLS is 20 years old

Major League Soccer (MLS) will mark its 20th season when the new campaign opens in March. The league was officially formed in 1995 and began the following year, with the inaugural match taking place on 6 April 1996.
Prior to MLS, the US went 11 years without a first division, as the North American Soccer League had disbanded following the 1984 season.
5. MLS draws bigger crowds than Brazil

The 2014 MLS season saw record crowds, with an average attendance of 19,151. The average crowd at a Premier League match in 2013-14 was 36,657.
The best supported MLS club in 2014 was Seattle Sounders, drawing an average of 43,734 spectators per match. In the football world, MLS ranked eighth in terms of crowds, ahead of first divisions in nations such as Brazil, Argentina, Portugal and Japan.
6. David Beckham has a rule named after him

MLS has a salary cap, which was �2m ($3.1m) per club in 2014. However, all clubs can also have three players they can pay as much as they want, and who are not part of the salary cap, under the Designated Player Rule.
Created in 2007 and known then unofficially as 'The Beckham Rule', this exception to the salary cap allows MLS clubs to attract - and pay - big-name stars from the US and overseas.

7. You don't win the league by finishing top

MLS uses a play-off system to determine its champion, which occurs in the final match of the year, the MLS Cup. In the 2015 campaign, 12 of the 20 clubs will qualify for the play-offs - also known as the post-season. Finishing top of the table during the regular season earns a club the Supporters' Shield, and the top seed in the play-offs.
8. MLS fans don't like the cold

Rather than following the standard pattern for a season that begins in August and ends in May, MLS starts its new season in March (6 March in 2015), and finishes with the MLS Cup final in December. This schedule was put in place when MLS launched for two major reasons: the fear that US fans would not attend matches in the coldest months, and an attempt to stay clear of the end of the NFL and American college football seasons.

9. MLS teams play fewer league games than Premier League sides

In the 2015 season, all 20 MLS clubs will play 34 regular-season matches before the post-season of the play-offs and MLS Cup final. Premier League sides play 38 league games.
The 17 US-based MLS clubs also compete in the US Open Cup, while the three clubs based in Canada enter the Canadian Championship. On top of that, five MLS clubs, including a minimum of one from Canada, qualify for the Concacaf Champions League.
10. 'It costs $100m to become an MLS club'

With no system for promotion, MLS adds new clubs through the process of expansion. Currently, the expansion fee charged by MLS to enter the league as a new club is a reported �65.2m ($100m). In 2015, two expansion clubs will begin life: the Manchester City-backed New York City FC, and Orlando SC. MLS officials have stated their desire to grow the league to 24 clubs by the 2020 season.

Sepang MotoGP: Marc Marquez takes record-equalling 12th win of 2014

Marc Marquez took his first MotoGP victory since August as he defeated Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo in the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang.

After his astounding streak of 10 wins in the first 10 grands prix of 2014, Marquez had only won once in the following six races, and crashed in three of them.

He finally put that right in Malaysia, though only after a first-corner brush with Lorenzo that dropped him to eighth.

Lorenzo had made a good start to put his Yamaha between Honda duo Dani Pedrosa and Marquez as they approached Turn 1, where contact between the two champions sent both wide.

While Marquez dropped all the way to eighth, Lorenzo pulled back onto the line in third place, and then swiftly overtook both fast-starter Andrea Dovizioso's Ducati and Pedrosa to lead at the end of the opening lap.

Pedrosa then fell from second place at the final corner on lap two, but there was little respite for Lorenzo as Valentino Rossi and the recovering Marquez were soon on his tail.

The lead trio spent the first half of the race covered by just a few tenths as they ran in a very tense three-bike train.

After many, many attempts under braking, Rossi finally got ahead of Lorenzo at half-distance.

Marquez followed the Italian soon afterwards, with Lorenzo - who was running a harder front tyre than his rivals - then falling away in third place.

Rossi held on a little longer before Marquez made it past, although it took the final two laps of the race for the Honda to shake the Yamaha off completely.

Marquez's win draws him level with Mick Doohan for the record of 12 premier class victories in a single season, and he can now break that mark in the season finale at Valencia in a fortnight.

Rossi's second place increases his advantage over Lorenzo in the battle for the championship runner-up spot. This is now an all-Yamaha affair with Pedrosa out of contention after crashing for good when back up to 13th place.

Dovizioso developed a problem in the closing laps and tumbled right back to eighth place, which meant Stefan Bradl and Bradley Smith ended up battling for fourth, with the German coming out on top.

Pol Espargaro bravely rode to sixth despite breaking a bone in his foot in a Saturday practice crash and having some very close calls with Yonny Hernandez, who finished seventh.

Attrition levels were high again: in addition to Andrea Iannone non-starting due to arm injuries from a Friday clash with Marquez, Aleix Espargaro and Alvaro Bautista collided early on, and Cal Crutchlow parked his Ducati from sixth with a mechanical problem.

Champions League: Bayern Monaco Rome, Garcia: "They have not won"

Technician: "Anything can happen. We'll try to get some points." De Rossi: "Bayern? We're not going to figure provincial"

"In a game anything can happen, is the beauty of football." Rudi Garcia believes it. On the eve of the Champions League match with Bayern Monaco, the French coach does not see a prediction for closed its Rome, recovering at the last minute also Iturbe. "Although the club is the most economically powerful in the world, with great players, this does not mean that the battle is already won for them - announces -. It will be difficult, but we will do everything to get some points. We always respect the ' opponent, but we are not afraid of anybody.

 " A concept also dear to Daniele De Rossi, not willing to play tomorrow at the Olympic Stadium role of sparring partner. "If we play a game of daring, to Rome, to his face, even a draw would not be bad, but we will not go into the field to put us all behind, to make the figure of the provincial front of the whole world in front of our fans - the message Remote midfielder training Guardiola -. For us that tomorrow will be a memorable evening, we will enter into the field to win, and if we play well even a draw would not be thrown away because we face a wonderful team.

 " That by the end of August does not lose and has not undergone networks. In short, a real battleship, Garcia dreams of breaking down: "It will be a competition of high standard, with an Olympic III & IV. After we will see, there will be the truth of the camp, we will have our moments and we must use them all. We have to be smart we have nothing to lose, rather than gain from this race. "

 "Our only goal is to disprove the predictions that already gave us removed from the group at the time of the draw - still remembers the coach -. And with a good result tomorrow, things would get interesting." The same opinion De Rossi. "We want to go through and I am convinced we can do it despite our role as outsiders. Our ambitions have changed" shows before explaining where such certainty arises: "What I'm experiencing now is the time to be higher when they are Rome, do not say it's the strongest team, but it's the moment when I feel better. I feel surrounded by the players, coach and now very strong, so I could not be happier with how they are now nowhere else.

 " A feeling that certainly agrees with Francesco Totti, captain of a thousand battles called tomorrow night maybe write another page in the history of red and yellow. And who knows that the last chapter can not coincide with a trophy on the pitch mainland. The first is just to hope so Rudi Garcia: "The plan is to lead the Roma elite European and even better to win the Champions League with Francis, it really deserves with his fantastic career - the words of the French magazine 'Kicker' -. Already this year? No, it's definitely too soon. It would be a huge success through the difficult group in which we came, but the two challenges with Bayern are a good test to see where we stand. "

Alert Olympic, over 1100 agents 

 Utmost attention on the security front for the Champions League match between Roma and Bayern Monaco that will take place tomorrow night at the Olimpico. 0ltre 1100 the law enforcement officers that will be used to ensure the safety not only on the outside of the stadium, but also in railway stations, airports, parking lots and exchange to escort the buses that will accompany the visiting fans from the point of collection Villa Borghese to the Olimpico. No special controls is in the vicinity of the stadium is in the city center and to ensure that the two sides can come into contact.

 For tomorrow's match is expected to be about five thousand supporters who joined the German capital by plane, by train and by car. This morning there was a technical committee chaired by the new superintendent Nicholas D'Angelo in which they were decided measures for their facilities and services. In particular, it was identified as a collection point for foreign fans of Canestre square, Villa Borghese. From there you will be transported to the stage with ATAC buses, escorted by the police. 

The plan has been developed states that are fed there and those traveling by train, by plane, or by car. For cars there is an interchange at Saxa Rubra, where supporters can leave German vehicles and where they will be then taken by bus to the square of the Canestre, waiting to be escorted to the Olympic Stadium. Same thing for the bus that will stop the service area Feronia and for those who come by train to Termini. It will be made ??available to the visiting fans a brochure in German Police in Rome that contains the information on the reception measures taken.