Spanish champions Real Madrid's hopes of a treble this season were shattered on Wednesday as Real Mallorca gained a shock 1-0 win at the Bernabeu to secure a 3-1 win on aggregate in their last 16 King's Cup clash and inflict the hosts' first home defeat of the season.
An 83rd minute goal by Mallorca's 31-year-old Argentinian playmaker Angel Miguel Ibagaza on the counter-attack was enough to see the Balearic Island side through as like Ibagaza, in his second spell at the club, they seek to add a second King's Cup title in five years.
Real Madrid, who had hoped to land the King's Cup along with the Primera Liga title and the Champions League, had plenty of chances to progress to the last eight even without the services of talismanic captain Raul, who was rested for the match along with 'keeper Iker Casillas.
PHOTO: AFP
However, despite going close on seven occasions, two of those opportunities falling to Argentinian Javier Saviola and the final one to his half-time replacement Ruud van Nistelrooy they were unable to crack the Mallorca defense and will have to wait another season to see if they can end their drought in the competition which goes back to 1993.
Barcelona 0, Sevilla 0
On Tuesday, Barcelona ended Sevilla's reign as King's Cup holders as a dull 0-0 draw was sufficient to see the Catalan giants through.
Barcelona progressed thanks to the away goal rule as the first leg had finished 1-1.
With both sides missing several key players as they had either been called away on African Nations Cup duty or were suspended and injured, the quality of the game naturally slipped a notch or two from their previous encounters.
It was the hosts who came closest to scoring in the first-half as first Thierry Henry shot over the bar in the 32nd minute and then two minutes later another former Premiership player Eidur Gudjohnsen had his shot stopped twice by the Sevilla 'keeper.
The second half saw Barcelona easily counter any resistance, which was slight, that Sevilla could offer, though, they did give the hosts a moment of concern as highly-rated fullback Daniel Alves rattled the bar with a freekick seven minutes from time.
Defeat leaves Sevilla effectively with just the Champions League to play for this season, as they are 10 points adrift of Real Madrid in the title race.
Barcelona will face Villarreal in the last eight after the latter edged Huelva 2-1 on aggregate, 2-0 on the night, but only after extra-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