Ambitious San Marino champions Murata suffered a reality check when they lost 5-0 at home to IFK Gothenburg in their Champions League first qualifying round first leg on Tuesday.
Murata, who boasted 42-year-old Brazilian World Cup-winning defender Aldair in their ranks, had failed in attempts to get Romario and Michael Schumacher to play in the match.
The Swedes, semi-finalists in 1986, raced into a 3-0 first-half lead thanks to Robin Soder, Ragnar Sigurdsson and Pontus Wernblom with Hjalmar Jonsson and Stefan Selakovic also scoring.
Slovakian champions Artmedia Bratislava, who made the group stage in 2005, won 2-0 against Valletta in Malta and Slovenian club Domzale grabbed a 1-0 victory at Luxembourg’s Dudelange.
Less than two months after Manchester United lifted the trophy in Moscow after beating Chelsea on penalties, Tampere United forward Jari Niemi scored the first goal of this season’s tournament.
His strike midway through the first half helped the Finns take a 2-1 first leg advantage over Montenegro’s Champions League newcomers Buducnost Podgorica in an early kick off.
Cyprus champions Anorthosis Famagusta beat Armenia’s Pyunik Yerevan 1-0 in a match which was switched from Larnaca to the GSP Stadium in Nicosia after a drought sapped water reserves.
Belarus side BATE Borisov edged toward the second round with a 2-0 home win over Iceland’s Valur Reykjavik while Azerbaijan champions FC Baku drew 0-0 with Macedonia’s Rabotnicki.
Welsh champions Llanelli beat Latvia’s Ventspils 1-0 at home while Baltic rivals Kaunas of Lithuania triumphed 4-1 at Andorra’s Santa Coloma. Bosnian champions Modrica were also away winners, beating Dinamo Tirana 2-0.
Dinamo Zagreb were due to start their bid to reach next May’s final in Rome with a trip to Linfield yesterday, when the three other remaining first round first leg matches were also to be played.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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