Cameroon's Samuel Eto'o fired an 87th-minute winner to earn FC Barcelona a 2-1 win over Levante and stretch his team's lead in the Spanish league to 12 points on Tuesday in its last match of 2004.
The 13th goal of the season by Eto'o, the league's leading scorer, came after Barcelona had struggled in the 17th-round game at the Camp Nou against Levante, which hasn't won in its last seven matches.
PHOTO: AP
Defender Alexis Suarez gave Barcelona the lead with a 29th-minute own goal, and Levante midfielder Mateu Jofre leveled on the hour.
Barcelona's win ensured it will finish as ``winter champion,'' the unofficial title given the league leader at the season's halfway mark of 19 games.
Before kickoff, Barcelona's Ronaldinho displayed the FIFA World Player of the Year trophy he won the previous day, and made a speech in which he expressed his desire to share the award with his teammates and the team's supporters.
"This match wasn't our best night but I look to the future with optimism. I think if we show this mentality we can withstand the pressure," said Barcelona coach Frank Rijkaard, whose team hasn't lost at home in the league throughout 2004.
Also on Tuesday, Spain winger Joaquin Sanchez scored in what was reportedly his last game before his transfer to Chelsea, to give Real Betis a 1-0 win over Atletico Madrid.
World soccer's governing body Tuesday fined Spain's national federation SF100,000 (US$87,000, 65,000 euros) for racist taunting by its fans during matches against England.
FIFA spokesman Andreas Herren said the Spanish federation also was warned against a repeat of such fan behavior at future games. Spanish soccer has been hit by a string of racist incidents.
According to Spain's Efe news agency, a Spanish soccer official said the federation would honor the fine and had no plans to appeal the sanction.
GERMAN BEER
Legions of proud German soccer fans were happy to find out on Tuesday they won't be forced to drink American beer in their own stadiums at the 2006 World Cup.
Germans reacted with dismay when the news broke several months ago that only beers from Anheuser-Busch, whose "Budweiser" is the most famous of its brands, could be poured in stadiums during the World Cup in Germany.
But the giant US brewery, a World Cup global sponsor, agreed to also let German brewery Bitburger pour its beer in the arenas.
Bitburger said it didn't strike the deal just because of deep German pride in its national drink, or even the anger of German fans.
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
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
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier