Kane extends World Cup goal drought but equals Beckham feat

England’s Callum Wilson comes on as a substitute to replace Harry Kane during their FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 — Group B – match against Wales at Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium, Al Rayyan, on Wednesday. (Reuters)
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Updated 30 November 2022
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Kane extends World Cup goal drought but equals Beckham feat

  • Against a Wales team broken by goals from Marcus Rashford and Phil Foden, Kane was looking to finally get off the mark in Qatar
  • Rashford added a third of the match and his third of the tournament

DOHA: For Harry Kane, the wait for a first goal at this World Cup goes on.
Substituted after 58 minutes of England’s 3-0 win against Wales on Tuesday, he embraced his replacement Callum Wilson and made his way to the bench to watch the remainder of the game.
England coach Gareth Southgate clearly thought the job was done and qualification to the knockout stage secured.
Kane, despite shaking hands with his coach, might not have shared that view.
For a man who is famously reluctant to sit out any opportunity to add to his scoring record, it was likely a frustrating watch from the sidelines at Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium.
Against a Wales team broken by goals from Marcus Rashford and Phil Foden, Kane was looking to finally get off the mark in Qatar. Instead, Rashford added a third of the match and his third of the tournament.
“He’s enjoying his football, but for any forward you want to be scoring goals,” Rashford said.
England scored nine goals as they topped Group B, but none came from their most prolific forward.
Yet Kane, who was the Golden Boot winner at the World Cup in Russia four years ago and is two short of Wayne Rooney’s all-time England record of 53 goals, has still made a notable contribution.
Providing the cross for Foden’s second-half strike, he became England’s first player to register three assists at a World Cup since David Beckham in 2002. He can add to that total when England play Senegal in the round of 16 on Sunday.
“You need goals from all areas, and it is a problem for opposition teams if the threat is coming from other areas of the pitch,” Southgate said. “Across the three games pretty much all of our forward line has got off the mark — if not with goals then with important, quality assists and that’s a good place for the forward to be. They want to have that confidence.”
England’s captain has always been a creator as well as a finisher and his assist statistics in his opening three games — also setting up goals for Raheem Sterling and Rashford against Iran — is evidence of just how complete a forward he is.
It also underlines his enduring importance to England.
Kane hurt his ankle and foot in the opening match against Iran, but Southgate has started the 29-year-old striker in all three matches.
“It is competition for places, which is what we need and people have to deliver,” Southgate said.
Goals aren’t a particular concern for England, with Rashford, Bukayo Saka (two), Sterling, Jack Grealish and Jude Bellingham all scoring so far.
Rashford, who missed a penalty in England’s shootout loss to Italy in the European Championship final last year, is the tournament’s co-leading scorer alongside Kylian Mbappé, Cody Gakpo and Enner Valencia.
“In a long career, you’re always going to have ups and you always will have downs and it’s all about how you bounce back from them,” Manchester United and England teammate Harry Maguire said after the Wales match. “I can’t speak highly enough about Marcus. He’s a wonderful man and he’s a great player and I think tonight again he’s shown that he belongs on this stage.”


Argentina shakes off chaos of Morocco game beating Iraq 3-1, Spain reaches Olympic quarterfinals

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Argentina shakes off chaos of Morocco game beating Iraq 3-1, Spain reaches Olympic quarterfinals

PARIS: Argentina got its Olympic men’s soccer campaign back on track by beating Iraq 3-1 on Saturday in Lyon.
Argentina, one of the pre-tournament favorites, suffered a shock 2-1 loss to Morocco in its Group B opening game marred by a pitch invasion from Moroccan fans and a two-hour delay.
While Iraq threatened to pull off another surprise when Aymen Hussein leveled the game in first-half stoppage time, goals from Luciano Gondou and Ignacio Fernandez sealed victory for Argentina.
Thiago Almada, who Argentina coach Javier Mascherano said had a watch stolen when the team’s training base was robbed earlier this week, opened the scoring with a volley in the 14th minute at Stade de Lyon.
But Hussein’s header in the fifth minute of first half-time added time evened the game before the break.
Gondou’s far-post header in the 62nd restored Argentina’s lead and Fernandez curled in a long-range shot from the edge of the box in the 85th.
The win leaves Argentina level with Iraq and Morocco on three points. Morocco was playing Ukraine in a later kick off.
Spain advancesSpain reached the quarterfinals with a 3-1 win over the Dominican Republic in Bordeaux.
Goals from Fermín Lopez, Alex Baena and Miguel Gutierrez made it two wins from two for Spain in Group C.
Lopez — one of Barcelona’s rising stars — scored in the 24th, but Angel Montes de Oca evened the game in the 38th.
Baena restored Spain’s lead in the 55th and Gutierrez sealed it in the 70th.
Spain’s men are aiming to add to a golden period for its nation’s soccer teams after the women’s team won the World Cup last year and the men won the European Championship earlier this month.

Iga Swiatek starts the 2024 Olympics tennis event with a win at the site of her French Open triumphs

Updated 27 July 2024
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Iga Swiatek starts the 2024 Olympics tennis event with a win at the site of her French Open triumphs

  • Swiatek got broken in that same stadium to trail 5-3 in the second set before getting back to her usual clay-court expertise
  • Italy’s Jasmine Paolini was the first tennis player to win a match at these Summer Games, eliminating Romania’s Ana Bogdan 7-5, 6-3 at Lenglen

PARIS: Iga Swiatek shook off a bit of a dip in the first round of the Paris Olympics tennis competition and grabbed the last four games to beat Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu 6-2, 7-5 on Saturday under a closed roof at Roland Garros, the site of the No. 1-ranked Polish player’s four French Open titles.
Swiatek, who won a third consecutive championship at Court Philippe Chatrier just seven weeks ago, got broken in that same stadium to trail 5-3 in the second set before getting back to her usual clay-court expertise. She wrapped up the victory by breaking at love when Begu double-faulted on the last point.
Day 1 of tennis began with showers that might have contributed to slow lines for umbrella-toting spectators at the facility’s security checks near entrances and postponed by hours the start of matches at the 10 courts without retractable roofs.
It’s a good thing the French tennis federation built a pair of covers recently: 15,000-capacity Chatrier added one in 2020, and the second-largest arena, 10,000-capacity Court Suzanne Lenglen, has one as of this year.
Italy’s Jasmine Paolini, who was the runner-up to Swiatek at the French Open in June and to Barbora Krejcikova at Wimbledon two weeks ago, was the first tennis player to win a match at these Summer Games, eliminating Romania’s Ana Bogdan 7-5, 6-3 at Lenglen.
Among the other big names from the sport scheduled to play later Saturday were reigning French Open and Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz — facing Lebanon’s Hady Habib in singles in the afternoon and pairing with Spanish teammate Rafael Nadal in doubles at night — along with 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic of Serbia and four-time major champion Naomi Osaka.
Nadal has won a record 14 of his 22 Slam titles at Roland Garros and owns Olympic gold medals in singles and doubles. He carried the torch and rode on a boat in the Seine River with retired tennis star Serena Williams during the drenched opening ceremony Friday night.
Coco Gauff, the female flag bearer for the United States on Friday, was slated to make her Olympic debut Saturday with Jessica Pegula in doubles. Gauff won the French Open doubles title with Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic last month and the US Open singles trophy last September.
Three years ago, Gauff missed the Tokyo Games after testing positive for COVID-19 right before she was supposed to fly to Japan.


Palestinian Olympian wore shirt showing bombed children at opening ceremony

Updated 27 July 2024
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Palestinian Olympian wore shirt showing bombed children at opening ceremony

  • His white shirt had embroidered images of warplanes dropping missiles over children playing sport
  • Poses test for organizers who have strict rules on political statements

PARIS: Palestinian boxer Waseem Abu Sal wore a shirt depicting children being bombed for the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics in a test for organizers who have strict rules on political statements.
Abu Sal was one of two flag-bearers for the Palestinian delegation during the rain-soaked river parade along the Seine on Friday.
His white shirt had embroidered images of warplanes dropping missiles over children playing sport.
“This shirt represents the current image in Palestine,” Abu Sal told AFP on Saturday.
“The children who are martyred and die under the rubble, children whose parents are martyred and are left alone without food or water.”
At least 39,258 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched a military campaign in retaliation for the October 7 attacks by Hamas militants, according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry.
The October attack that began the war resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Jibril Rajoub, president of the Palestine Olympic Committee, told AFP they had checked with the local organizing committee of the Paris Olympics to see if Abu Sal’s shirt contravened Olympic regulations.
“It’s a message of peace. It’s a message to attract attention,” he said. “This is anti-war, against killing. This abides with the Olympic Charter.”
“We presented it, they approved it,” he added.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) bans political statements on the field of play during sports events and during the opening and closing ceremonies, but athletes are free to express themselves in press conferences and on social media.
The Palestine Olympic Committee wrote to the IOC last week asking for a ban on Israeli athletes at the Paris Olympics, which has been rejected.
Rajoub said the Palestinian team intended to use the Paris Olympics to draw attention to the suffering of civilians in Gaza.
Abu Sal, 20, received a wildcard for the Olympics boxing.
He lives in the West Bank and is unable to train with his Cairo-based coach — a Gazan who cannot travel to him due to Israeli restrictions.


Verstappen fastest in final practice for Belgian GP, while Stroll crashes as rain keeps cars in garages

Updated 27 July 2024
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Verstappen fastest in final practice for Belgian GP, while Stroll crashes as rain keeps cars in garages

  • Lance Stroll caused a red flag after he spun his Aston Martin off and smacked into the barriers
  • Verstappen put in the fastest time, with water spray lingering in the air behind his path

SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium: Max Verstappen clocked the fastest time in a final practice session at the Belgian Grand Prix that was largely washed out by heavy rain on Saturday.
Lance Stroll caused a red flag after he spun his Aston Martin off and smacked into the barriers, bending his front left wheel.
Before that accident Verstappen put in the fastest time, with water spray lingering in the air behind his path. Oscar Piastri, in his McLaren, had the second best lap.
Stroll’s crash came with more than half the hour-long session remaining. But with puddles forming on the track, the cars stayed in the garages.
Drivers and engineers watched the drops fall before the cars ventured out with around two minutes remaining. No driver got in more than seven laps.
More rain is forecast for qualifying later, although it appears Sunday’s race will be held under dry conditions.
Lando Norris put in the fastest time in his McLaren during Friday’s practice, on a dry track.
Verstappen holds a relatively comfortable 76-point lead over Norris in the overall standings despite having gone three races without a win for the first time since 2021.
Verstappen has won here for the last three years on the long seven-kilometer track set in the forested hills of the Ardennes. But not only is he facing fast rivals, the three-time champion will start Sunday’s race with a 10-place grid penalty after Red Bull exceeded the number of engines for his car.


Sevilla beat Al-Ittihad 1-0 to take Antonio Puerta Trophy

Updated 27 July 2024
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Sevilla beat Al-Ittihad 1-0 to take Antonio Puerta Trophy

  • La Liga club host annual match in honor of former player who died aged 22 in 2007
  • Match is latest pre-season friendly for both clubs ahead of the start of their domestic leagues in August

DUBAI: La Liga club Sevilla FC defeated Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ittihad 1-0 to claim the Antonio Puerta Trophy at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium in Seville on Friday night.

Lucas Ocampos  scored the only goal of the game from the penalty spot after 42 minutes.

The annual friendly has been hosted by the Andalusian club since 2008 in honor of former player Antonio Puerta who died from heart disease in 2007 at the age of 22.

This was the 13th hosting of the match, which was not contested in 2015, 2018, 2020 or 2021. Sevilla now have won won the trophy 11 times.  

The match was also the latest outing for both clubs ahead of start of their respective domestic campaigns.

Al-Ittihad will play two more friendlies against Real Betis (Aug. 3) and Inter Milan (Aug. 7) before kicking off their Saudi Pro League season with a match against Al-Kholood on Aug. 24.

Sevilla will launch their La Liga campaign on Aug. 16 at Las Palmas.