Manchester City rallied from 3-0 and one man down to beat Tottenham 4-3 in an FA Cup replay Wednesday to set up a fifth round match against Manchester United.
Tottenham led 3-0 at White Hart Lane at halftime with goals from Ledley King, Robbie Keane and Christian Ziege. City's Joey Barton was dismissed at the end of the first half for picking up a second yellow card.
City then rallied to one of the greatest comebacks in FA Cup history to score four goals through Sylvain Distin, Paul Bosvelt, Shaun Wright-Phillips and an injury-time winner from Jon Macken.
"We went for it with our hearts, for the club and for the fans and just happened to pull it off," said Wright-Phillips.
"The gaffer [manager Kevin Keegan] said 'it might take a miracle to do it' -- but we believed in ourselves."
Macken was substituted for Nicolas Anelka, who picked up groin injury after 27 minutes.
"Games like this make football so exciting. It was a fantastic game -- credit to all the players," he said.
The two sides had drawn 1-1 in Manchester on Jan. 25.
At Loftus Road, Steed Malbranque scored in extra time to give Fulham a 2-1 win over Everton in another fourth round replay.
Everton's Francis Jeffers scored a 90th-minute equalizer after Fulham's Japanese striker Junichi Inamoto opened the scoring in the 57th minute.
Everton had also rallied for a 1-1 draw against Fulham on Jan. 25.
Fulham will host first division West Ham in the next round, to be held on Feb. 14-15.
Copa del Rey
Santiago Solari and Raul Gonzalez scored second-half goals as Real Madrid beat Sevilla 2-0 at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in the first-leg of the Copa del Rey semi-finals.
Madrid's victory gave it a comfortable advantage to take into next Wednesday's second leg in Seville and boosted its hopes of lifting the trophy for the first time since 1993.
Today, second-division team Alaves hosts Zaragoza in the other semifinal. The final is scheduled for March 17.
Sevilla, which trounced Madrid in the Spanish league 4-1 in November, gave the powerhouse another tough game and deserved a better result from an intense encounter.
``We have the benefit of home advantage. It's going to be difficult for us to advance but it's certainly not impossible,'' Sevilla coach Joaquin Caparros said.
Madrid coach Carlos Queiroz said his team's victory had resulted from its patient approach.
``The spectators in the stadium recognized this and toward the end of the second half we were all united and the team got a good result,'' Queiroz said.
Madrid suffered a major blow just before kick off when ace striker Ronaldo, the Spanish league's leading scorer with 18 goals, was forced to pull out with a high temperature.
Queiroz reacted by drafting Solari into midfield and left Spanish international Raul alone to spearhead the Madrid attack.
Raul was presented with the first chance of the game in the seventh minute but wasted it by ballooning his shot over the crossbar.
For the rest of the first half, Sevilla defended in depth and threatened to catch Madrid on the counterattack with Uruguayan international Dario Silva leading his team's attack with panache.
Madrid was hit by the withdrawal of a second star player, Portuguese midfielder Luis Figo, who after a promising start was replaced by Javier Portillo in the 33rd minute.
Sevilla was eventually pushed back in the final minutes of the first half when goalkeeper Esteban Suarez kept out Zinedine Zidane's stinging shot and then tipped Portillo's header over the bar.
The visitors picked up again early in the second half until Solari fired Madrid into the lead in the 56th minute with a rising shot from an extremely narrow angle.
The goal didn't shake Sevilla as it surged forward in search of an equalizer, with Brazilian midfielders David Alves and Julio Baptista playing prominent roles.
Aided by Zidane's consummate skills, Madrid also strove to extend its lead and the game entered an exciting stage of cut and thrust.
Raul doubled Madrid's lead in the 76th minute with a low, curling shot from the edge of the area which caught Esteban unaware.
french league
Striker Didier Drogba scored his 13th league goal this season as Marseille overcame Montpellier 1-0 in the French first division on Wednesday.
With the win, Marseille climbs to sixth place in the league with 37 points, 11 points behind division leader Monaco, and three points behind fifth-placed archrivals Paris Saint-Germain.
Montpellier, with six defeats and one draw in their last seven games, stay 16th, three points above the relegation zone with 22 points.
Drogba, Marseille's shining light in a largely disappointing season for the south coast giants, scored the only goal of the game, scoring for the away side with a wonderful 65th minute right foot half-volley.
German Cup
Second-division Alemannia Aachen scored a late goal to oust defending champion Bayern Munich from the German Cup with a 2-1 victory in their quarterfinal match Wednesday.
Striker Eric Meijer rose above the Bayern defense to head in the winner in the 81st minute to lead his team into the semifinals. Meijer used all the experience he collected over the years playing for various Bundesliga teams.
Aachen wasted several excellent opportunities before Stefan Blank beat Oliver Kahn with a long-distance left-footed shot in the 33rd minute.
The second division side dominated the match but Michael Ballack got the equalizer against the run of play with an unchallenged header in injury time of the first half.
Bayern is now without a win in two matches this year, following the six-week winter break. It drew 1-1 at lowly Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga on Saturday.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
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Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB