Giuseppe Cardone maintained Italy's interest in the UEFA Cup with Parma's winner against Seville on Thursday but wound up flat on his back after being hit in the face by an opponent.
Cardone scored the only goal in all 180 minutes between the two sides but, with a minute to go, was struck by Seville defender Aitor Ocio after the two tangled in the Parma area. There was concern as he lay on the turf for several minutes and appeared to have problems breathing but he got to his feet.
The result means Parma, struggling in Serie A, goes into Friday's quarterfinal draw as Italy's lone representative. By contrast, AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus have all made it to the last eight of the Champions League.
PHOTO: AP
There was drama, too, as Austria Vienna survived the first-half ejection of goalkeeper Joseph Didulica and went through on the away goals rule after a 2-2 draw with Real Zaragoza.
The Austrians went to Zaragoza with the teams at 1-1, and raced into a 2-0 lead through Sasa Papac and Tosin Dosunmu in the first 10 minutes.
Didulica was sent off in the 30th minute for bringing down Zaragoza's Brazilian forward Savio Bortolini as he raced for goal, and Zaragoza hit back against the 10-men visitor with goals by David Villa and Luciano Galletti. But Austria held on to gain a place in the last eight.
A last-minute winner by Pedro Barbosa gave Sporting Lisbon a 1-0 victory over Middlesbrough, and a 4-2 aggregate triumph to keep alive Portuguese hopes of another European title. FC Porto won last season's Champions League a year after capturing the UEFA Cup, and Sporting is Portugal's last survivor in either competition.
Auxerre was held 0-0 at home by Lille in an all-French matchup, but advanced 1-0 having won the away leg. Lille's Milivoje Vitakic was sent off for violent conduct 16 minutes from the end.
Brazilian stars Daniel Carvalho and Vagner Love fired CSKA Moscow into the last eight in a 2-0 victory over Partizan Belgrade, which had two players sent off in the last seven minutes.
Partizan's Nenad Djordjevic was dismissed for a professional foul in the 83rd minute, and he was followed two minutes later by Ivan Tomic for foul and abusive language as the Serbian side went out 3-1 on aggregate.
In Wednesday's games, Newcastle romped to a 4-0 victory over Greek club Olympiakos to advance 7-1, and Dutch team AZ Alkmaar beat Ukraine's Shakhtar Donetsk 2-1 (5-2). In a first-leg game which had been postponed by heavy snow, Steaua Bucharest and Villarreal drew 0-0. They meet again on Sunday.
Swedish international Markus Rosenberg scored a dazzling goal in the 14th minute to give Malmo FF a 1-0 win over FC Copenhagen in a Group 1 match.
Some 170 fans from both sides clashed before the game, according to Swedish news agency TT. One supporter was injured, but not seriously. Police detained 45 fans, who were later released.
The win moved the Swedish champion within a point of group leader Rosenborg of Norway, which was idle. Rosenborg has four points, Malmo three, and last-placed Copenhagen one.
Rosenberg's shot into the top of the net was the young striker's fifth goal in seven Royal League games for the former two-time UEFA Cup champions.
Malmo had two other excellent scoring chances.
Niklas Skoog broke away all alone but fired wide late in the first half, and Peter Abelsson's header hit the crossbar in the second half.
Valerenga was forced to move its Group 2 game indoors against fellow Norwegian first-division side Brann of Bergen because of bad weather.
Morten Berre scored a late goal to salvage the draw for Valerenga, still unbeaten in RL play. Stefan Ishizaki also scored for Valerenga in the second half, after Martin Knudsen and Charlie Miller put Brann two up in the first half.
Valerenga and Brann each have one point, two behind leader IFK Goteborg of Sweden, which was idle.
German soccer authorities, stung by a game-rigging scandal involving a ring of high-stake gamblers, is thinking of setting up its own betting agency.
Theo Zwanziger, one of two co-presidents of the German soccer federation (DFB), said the idea was to prevent game-rigging and help amateur soccer with the earnings.
The market should not be left to companies that make big turnovers "with our shows."
"They are using our games and we don't get anything out of it," Zwanziger said.
Zwanziger said the DFB was planning such a move after the 2006 World Cup, in cooperation with the German league, which runs the Bundesliga championship.
Oddset, the state-run betting agency, is a national sponsor of the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
Zwanziger said the turnover of bookmakers on German matches was up to 3 million euros (US$3.9 million) a year, "and we want to get a cut, since we provide the foundation."
Germany has been rocked by a match-fixing scandal, after referee Robert Hoyzer admitted accepting bribes to rig matches for a ring of Croatian gamblers who made huge winnings by placing bets with Oddset on manipulated matches.
Berlin prosecutors are investigating 25 people suspected of involvement in the scheme, including 14 players and four referees.
One referee remains in custody, while Hoyzer has been released. The three Croatian brothers suspected of masterminding the scheme also have been in prison since January.
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