Preview
Ghana v Czech RepublicWith the Czech Republic missing two key strikers, Ghana hopes it has gained an advantage for its first-round World Cup match today.
However, advantages come in all sizes, and even without Jan Koller and Milan Baros, Black Stars coach Ratomir Dujkovic acknowledges the Czechs have plenty in reserve.
"The Czechs have quality, they like to win and they always have a strategy to beat any team," Dujkovic said heading in to today's Group E match in Cologne. "But I believe the Ghana Black Stars ... this time will score and get a better result than against Italy."
Koller scored in the Czechs' stylish 3-0 opening victory against the US, while midfielder Tomas Rosicky added the other two.
Ghana is trying to invigorate its attack, after losing 2-0 to Italy and producing few chances.
The Black Stars are likely to again rely heavily on the midfield skills of captain Stephen Appiah, Michael Essien of Chelsea, and Udinese's Suli Muntari, but lack the depth to consider major changes.
Instead, Dujkovic hinted at tactical changes, requiring midfielders to provide greater attacking support to Ghana's striking duo -- likely to remain Matthew Amoah and Asamoah Gyan.
Midfielders also are important for Czech coach Karel Bruckner.
They include Arsenal's new signing Rosicky, Juventus' Pavel Nedved, fellow-veteran Karel Poborsky and captain Tomas Galasek of Ajax Amsterdam.
Nedved came out of international retirement to help the Czechs reach the World Cup with playoff wins against Norway.
"We will mark [Nedved] in the danger zone ... but Nedved is not the only dangerous player in this team," Dujkovic said.
In attack, Salzburg's Vratislav Lokvenc could replace Koller, having already come in for him in the Czech's game against the US.
"Our opponent's a tough one. We'll have to be uncompromising in defense and score the first goal," Lokvenc said.
The striker could cause problems for the west Africans who have few tall players.
Both countries are making their first appearance in the World Cup appearance in Germany, but the Czechs reached the tournament eight times as part of Czechoslovakia, and were semifinalists in the 2004 European Championship before losing to winner Greece.
They are currently ranked second by FIFA, 46 places higher than Ghana.
But Ghana captain Appiah said he still thinks Ghana can reach the second round. All four African newcomers -- Ghana, Angola, Togo and Ivory Coast -- lost their opening matches.
"We lost our first game but we're not out of the tournament," he said. "We've learned from our mistakes and we will fight till the end."
Ghana play the Czech Republic at midnight tonight Taiwan time.
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