Alan Shearer scored three goals in the first 35 minutes for Newcastle, while Inter Milan snapped FC Barcelona's 11-match European winning streak on Wednesday in the Champions League.
Shearer scored in the fifth, 11th and 35th minutes as Newcastle beat Bayer Leverkusen 3-1 in the fourth rotation of the second phase. Inter held Barca 0-0 at the San Siro but kept its place at the top of the Group A standings.
PHOTO: AP
Barca looks set to qualify for the quarterfinals with 10 points, leaving Inter (seven points) and Newcastle (six points) to battle it out for the remaining spot.
``We needed a victory to keep up our hopes of staying in the competition and it was a good night for us,'' Shearer said. ``Who knows? But we certainly will not give it up -- that's for sure.''
Leverkusen -- last season's runner-up to Real Madrid -- is out of the competition after failing to score a point.
In Group B, Francesco Totti netted twice as AS Roma stunned Valencia 3-0 to give itself a glimmer of hope of reaching the next stage.
Totti netted in the 24th and 30th minutes, with Brazilian midfielder Emerson adding Roma's third goal in the 36th, as the Italian team gained its first points of the second phase in dramatic fashion.
Ajax drew 0-0 with Arsenal in the other group match.
After four games, Roma remains in last place but now has three points and Valencia stays third with five points. Arsenal and Ajax both have six points.
Coming off a 3-0 home win over Roma last week, Barca played cautiously, concentrating on defense rather than on attack. It still had the best first-half scoring chances through Fabio Rochemback and Gabri.
Christian Vieri, the Italian league leading scorer with 21 goals, squandered the best chance for the home team in the 48th, heading a perfect cross from Giovanni Pasquale just wide.
While striking in almost every Serie A match, Vieri has not scored in European competitions since 2001.
In Newcastle, Shearer's opening goal was a diving header after he collected a Gary Speed chip. It was his first Champions League goal in open play.
In the 11th minute, Shola Ameobi, who scored two goals in Newcastle's 3-0 first leg win in Leverkusen, turned provider for Shearer's second.
Leverkusen wasted a chance to pull a goal back in the 19th minute when Oliver Neuville's penalty was saved by Newcastle goalkeeper Shay Given.
But Shearer didn't miss his 35th minute penalty, awarded after Kieron Dyer was pulled back by Leverkusen's Thomas Kleine.
In the 73rd minute, Marko Babic pulled a goal back for Leverkusen, collecting a pass from Yildiray Basturk and chipping the ball on a half-volley over Given.
In Amsterdam, Ajax and Arsenal drew as Ronald Koeman's youngsters again frustrated the English champions.
Thierry Henry, Robert Pires and Sylvain Wiltord missed chances for the Gunners, while Arsenal defender Ashley Cole headed away a driving free kick from Ajax captain Christian Chivu in the 38th.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but