Jermain Defoe believes his partnership with Wayne Rooney has put England back on track after the strike duo tormented Bulgaria in Friday's 4-0 victory at Wembley.

Defoe gave a masterclass in the art of lethal finishing as the Tottenham striker became the first England player to score a hat-trick since Theo Walcott's treble against Croatia two years.

But Defoe was happy to give most of the credit for his goal-spree to Rooney, who finally cast off the lethargy that dogged him at the World Cup to play a decisive role in all four England goals in their opening Euro 2012 qualifier.

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Ireland are taking a long trip into unknown territory when they start their Euro 2012 campaign against Armenia in their opening Group B fixture here on Friday. The showdown at Yerevan will not only be the two nations' first ever meeting but also Ireland's first competitive fixture since the Thierry Henry's handball trick knocked them out of the World Cup play-off.

Armenia won only one 2010 World Cup qualifier on their home turf, a 2-1 victory over Belgium, recording also one draw and three defeats, while Ireland were unbeaten in away matches, winning twice in six matches including a 1-1 play-off draw in France.

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Big Ten Splits Up Michigan And Ohio State: Any Michigan man will tell you, there is nothing quite like beating Ohio State. Every Buckeye agrees, a win over that team from up North is priority No. 1. Well, now Michigan and Ohio State could get two chances in a season to beat their fiercest rival. What would Woody and Bo have thought of that? A rematch!

The Big Ten announced its divisional breakdown for football Wednesday night, and Ohio State and Michigan will be in different six-team divisions when the league expands to 12 members in 2011.

Neither division has been named, but they break down like this: Michigan, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan State, Minnesota and Northwestern in one; Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Illinois, Purdue and Indiana in the other.

Commissioner Jim Delany said creating football divisions with competitive balance was the top priority and No. 2 was maintaining a cross-division rivalry game for each team. "We felt like we could do equal competition and tradition with this move," Delany said.

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US Soccer Coach Gears Up For Another Run Up To A W.Cup: Bob Bradley says he is looking forward to the challenge of coaching in another World Cup and part of that process includes getting to know his players better. "If you don't watch yourself, given your different responsibilities, you can so easily get out there and kind of be in your own little world," he said. "If you let that part get away from you, then your players see that quickly.

"That is the challenge on the job. But that is the challenge whether you've been on the job four years or four days."

Bradley was speaking Tuesday just one day after US Soccer announced it was bringing him back as head coach of the men's team through the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

US Soccer announced Monday it had agreed to a four-year contract extension with Bradley. Bradley's current contract was to expire in four months.

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Robinho, Santa Cruz Could Leave City, Says Mancini: Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini admitted after his side's 1-0 defeat at Sunderland that unhappy forwards Robinho and Roque Santa Cruz could be on the move before the transfer window closes on Tuesday.

Mancini hopes to hang on to Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Shay Given who is wanted by Fulham manager Mark Hughes. But Brazil's Robinho, loaned to Santos in his native country last season, is seeking an escape route and has been linked with Barcelona and clubs in Turkey, while Santa Cruz is another Fulham target. Mancini confirmed: "I would prefer Shay to stay, but I spoke with Roque and he has two or three situations, and Robinho is the same.

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Free-Scoring Chelsea Happy To Win Ugly, Says Mikel: Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel insists the free-scoring Premier League champions will be happy to win ugly against Stoke on Saturday.

Carlo Ancelotti's side have made an astonishing start to their title defence after following their 6-0 rout of West Brom on the opening day with another 6-0 victory at Wigan last weekend.

The Blues, who scored a Premier League record 103 goals last season, have picked up where they left off in May, when an 8-0 win against Wigan clinched the title.

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Late Schweinsteiger Goal Sees Bayern Slay Wolves: Bayern Munich's Bastian Schweinsteiger scored an injury-time winner on Friday night as the German champions beat Wolfsburg 2-1 in the opening match of the new Bundesliga season. Ex-England manager Steve McClaren and his Wolves side were denied a point as Germany's vice-captain latched onto Franck Ribery's cross for the winner with seconds remaining. "It is not my main task to score goals in games and I don't manage it very often, but it was nice to get the winner," beamed Schweinsteiger.

Bayern made the perfect start as Germany's Thomas Mueller -- the top-scorer at last month's World Cup -- scored the opening goal after just nine minutes, only for Edin Dzeko to equalise after the break. "It is a big relief to get the win," said Mueller. "If you play as badly as we did in the first ten minutes of the second half, you don't really deserve to win. We had to fix a few things. We tried everything again and again, and it worked.

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Babel Earns Liverpool Slender Advantage: Liverpool will take a slender 1-0 lead to Turkey after a Ryan Babel goal earned Roy Hodgson's  side a narrow victory over Trabzonspor in the Europa League play-off first leg at Anfield on Thursday. But it could have been so much better for the hosts as Joe Cole suffered another moment to forget for his new club. Former Chelsea midfielder Cole followed up his red card against Arsenal last Sunday with a glaring second half miss from the penalty spot.

With Liverpool leading 1-0, Cole was presented with a golden chance to open his goal account for his new club after Brazilian Lucas had been fouled by Serkan Balci.

But the England international looked on in horror after blasting his 52nd minute spot kick straight at keeper Onur Kivrak.

Fortunately, Babel, starting ahead of Fernando Torres and David Ngog, had already given the hosts the lead on the stroke of half time.

Hodgson rested Steven Gerrard and Christian Poulsen started ahead of want-away midfielder Javier Mascherano.

It was defender Sotiris Kyrgiakos who almost broke the deadlock in the fifth minute. Only a flying save by Kivrak prevented the Greek international from marking his first anniversary at Anfield with his second goal for the club after he rose to meet Maxi Rodriguez's corner.

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Chris Smalling (Fulham, £10m), Bebe (Vitoria Guimaraes, £7.4m), Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez (Chivas de Guadalajara, £6m), Marnick Vermijl (Standard Liege, U). Out: Ben Foster (Birmingham, £6m), Craig Cathcart (Blackpool, £500,000), Zoran Tosic (CSKA Moscow, U), David Gray (Preston), Tom Heaton (Cardiff), Ron-Robert Zieler (Hannover)

Mame Biram Diouf (Blackburn, SL), Danny Drinkwater (Cardiff, SL), Matthew James (Preston, SL), Danny Wellbeck (Sunderland, SL), James Chester (Carlisle, 6ML), Josh King (Preston, 6ML), Cameron Stewart (Yeovil, 6ML). Released: Febian Brandy, Sam Hewson, Scott Moffatt.

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David Healy will start on the bench when Northern Ireland face Montenegro in a warm-up match ahead of the Euro 2012 qualifiers. Despite being the record scorer for his country, Healy is no longer an automatic choice as he is on the fringes of the squad at Sunderland. Instead manager Nigel Worthington will employ Kyle Lafferty as a lone striker, with Martin Paterson and Chris Brunt on the flanks.

Worthington chose to make his team public on Wednesday morning and Stephen Craigan will lead them out as Aaron Hughes is injured. Maik Taylor will be in goal while Craigan will be partnered by Jonny Evans in central defence.

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