HELSINKI: This time, there were only two goals.
David Alaba and Karim Benzema scored in each half for Real Madrid to win the UEFA Super Cup with a 2-0 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt on Wednesday.
Alaba prodded the opener home from close range in the 37th minute when Casemiro cushioned Benzema’s header back after a corner. The French star then sealed Madrid’s record-equaling fifth Super Cup title in the 65th thanks to an assist from the lively Vinícius Júnior.
It was Benzema’s 324th goal for Madrid, overtaking club legend Raúl. Only Cristiano Ronaldo has more after scoring 450 goals for the club between 2009-18.
But the game between the Champions League winners, Madrid, and Europa League champions, Frankfurt, failed to match the spectacle of their previous meeting.
Their only other competitive game was the 1960 European Cup final, when Alfredo Di Stéfano scored three goals and Ferenc Puskás chipped in with four to give Madrid a 7-3 win and fifth consecutive European crown.
Frankfurt goal-scorer Erwin Stein and teammate Dieter Stinka were in Helsinki for the rematch 62 years later, but it was the 93-year-old José Santamaria — the only remaining Madrid player from that final in Glasgow — who celebrated another win. The three veterans embraced warmly when they met before kickoff.
Real Madrid beats Eintracht Frankfurt 2-0 for UEFA Super Cup
https://arab.news/2wg84
Real Madrid beats Eintracht Frankfurt 2-0 for UEFA Super Cup
Turkiye orders arrest of 29 footballers in betting scandal
- Among the players, 27 are suspected of having bet on matches involving their own teams, prosecutors said
- One was Metehan Baltaci, who plays for reigning Turkish champions Galatasaray
ISTANBUL: Istanbul prosecutors on Friday ordered the arrest of 46 people, among them 29 football players, as part of a sprawling investigation into illegal betting on Turkish matches.
Among the players, 27 are suspected of having bet on matches involving their own teams, the public prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
One was Metehan Baltaci, who plays for reigning Turkish champions Galatasaray, it said. Earlier this month, he had been suspended for nine months over the betting scandal.
The investigation has rocked Turkish football, with six referees placed in pre-trial detention on November 10, along with the president of Eyupspor, a club in Turkiye’s top Super Lig division.
Prosecutors did not identify the other 26 players suspected of bets involving their own teams, but said Mert Hakan Yandas, who plays for Fenerbahce, another major Istanbul club, had placed bets through someone else’s account.
The prosecutor’s office said police had so far detained 35 of the 46 people named in the arrest order. Five were known to be currently abroad, it said.
- Zero goal attempts -
Two club presidents were among those targeted by the order for “attempting to influence the outcome” of a match between their two third-division teams in the 2023-2024 season, the statement said.
The match had caught the attention of investigators because neither side had even made one attempt to score a goal, Turkish media reported, with several newspapers saying that was where the entire investigation began.
Six other suspects, one of them a player, are accused of conspiring to influence the result of a second-division clash between Umraniyespor and Giresunspor in December 2023.
A first-division referee, the ex-president of second-division side Adana Demirspor, and a well-known football commentator and his wife were also targeted for “suspect financial transactions” in their bank accounts.
So far, the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) — which has said it wants to “clean up” the beautiful game in Turkiye — has suspended more than 1,000 players, 25 of them from the Super Lig, with the sanctions ranging from 45 days to 12 months.
Only one was a foreign national — Konyaspor’s Senegalese winger Alassane Ndao, who was suspended for 12 months.
In October, the TFF suspended nearly 150 referees for betting on matches, all of whom have since been dismissed.
