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should you score the night before?
• It's a question that prompts coaches to set rules, players to seek understanding from wives and lovers, and fans everywhere to debate fervently, with many adamantly believing that abstaining from sex improves performance on the field.
• The age-old argument has been triggered anew by Mexico's coach Miguel Herrera, who told the newspaper Reforma last month that he expects his players to refrain from any horizontal samba during their stay in Brazil, where the monthlong tournament opens next week. The remark sparked a lively debate in the media, prompting Herrera to clarify that he wasn't banning sex outright, just urging his players to behave prudently -- along the lines proposed by his Brazilian counterpart, Luis Felipe Scolari, who has cautioned against attempting any bedroom "acrobatics."
• Not everyone is so reserved. Colombian star Carlos "El Pibe" Valderrama lived up to his candid nature by declaring that the teams he captained in the 1990s would have advanced further in World Cup play had the players been freed from chastity.
• Theories linking sex to athletic performance date to at least the ancient Greeks, who believed safeguarding a man's sperm was important for spurring aggression needed to perform well in the arena. There's little scientific evidence, however, to support abstinence as a performance enhancer.
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• The Associated Press
• Today is Wednesday, June 4, the 155th day of 2014. There are 210 days left in the year.
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• Today's Highlights in History:
• On June 4, 1944, during World War II, U-505, a German submarine, was captured by a U.S. Navy task group in the south Atlantic; it was the first such capture of an enemy vessel at sea by the U.S. Navy since the War of 1812. The U.S. Fifth Army began liberating Rome.
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• On this date:
• In 1783, the Montgolfier brothers first publicly demonstrated their hot-air balloon, which did not carry any passengers, over Annonay, France.
• In 1784, opera singer Elisabeth Thible became the first woman to make a nontethered flight aboard a Montgolfier hot-air balloon, over Lyon, France.

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