LOS ANGELES. July 6 (AFP): Wednesday’s World Cup diary:

PRAYER POWER

Italy's astonishing extra-time victory over Nigeria was a good advert for the Catholic church. Before setting out for Boston the Italian squad, led by their devout coach Arrigo Sacchi, attended a specially arranged mass in their New Jersey hotel.

With Nigeria leading until two minutes from the end and Italy reduced to ten men. Sacchi's faith was tested to the limit, but finally his prayers were answered. It won't have escaped non-believers' notice, however, that Itaiys salvation was delivered by Roberto Baggio-* the country's most famous Buddhist. t

EVERYTHING UP IN THE AIR

Brazilian. coach Carlos Alberto Parreira warned his team Holland would be tough quarter-final opponents.

They have such a good aerial game," Parreira said. "We like to keep the ball on the ground, so they will not suit our style.”

NOAPPLAUSE

Brazil may have beaten the United States, but forward Romarlo says they should not expect any applause for style.

The team won with poor soccer. We were bad technically. With the players we have, we need to be much better if we don't want to go through the kind of suffocation we went through against the United States. The only reason we won was guts." Romarlo said.

I WANT TO BE ON TV

Nigerian fans were outnumbered by Italians tn Boston on Tuesday, but they were obviously wise to the ways of getting on US television.

One group of green-clad fans held up a home-made sign that read "E xcellent S-occer P-rogram in N-igerla." with the initials ESPN highlighted.

The ESPN cable channel cameras covering the game made sure to include it In their crowd shots.

LESSONS FROM GERMANY

Brazil manager Carlos Alberto Parreira thinks his team can make it to the World Cup final on July 17.

He has no doubts that Germany can.

They play now the same way they have played for the last eight years, and they've had nothing but success." he said. "Watching them is like going to soccer school."

NOT JUST A GAME

For fans who don't want to shell out upwards of 20 dollars for an officially licensed World Cup T-shirt; there’s another solution — they make their own.

Beat slogan spotted at the Rose Bowl: "Soccer is life the rest is ^Jwt details.