■ ENGLAND
Juve down the Gunners
A first-half David Trezeguet goal gave Juventus a 1-0 victory over hosts Arsenal in the pre-season Emirates Cup tournament in London on Saturday. French forward Trezeguet struck from what looked like an offside position after 38 minutes, stretching out a leg to deflect Vincenzo Iaquinta’s free-kick past Arsenal goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski. Real Madrid defeated Hamburg SV 2-1 earlier in the day thanks to a late goal from teenager Daniel Parejo. Parejo, a Spanish under-19 international, headed the winner five minutes from time after Hamburg’s Egyptian forward Mohamed Zidan had earlier canceled out Ruud van Nistelrooy’s first-half goal with a fine dipping shot nine minutes after the break. Hamburg’s Dutch midfielder Rafael van der Vaart did not appear amid media speculation he was on the verge of a transfer to the Spanish champions.
■ GERMANY
Stuttgart reject Gomez offer
VfB Stuttgart confirmed on Saturday that they had turned down a Bundesliga-record 25 million euro (US$40 million) transfer bid from Bayern Munich to sign Germany striker Mario Gomez. That would have been the most expensive transfer between two Bundesliga sides and matched the record for signing a player outside the German league. Bayern paid that amount last year to French club Marseille for Franck Ribery, as did Borussia Dortmund to Serie A team Parma for Marcio Amoroso in 2001. Bayern manager Uli Hoeness said the club would make another offer for Gomez next year. “We didn’t want any team’s money,” Stuttgart manager Horst Heldt said. “We wanted to keep Germany’s player of the year.”
■ FRANCE
Bordeaux win Trophy
French league runners-up Bordeaux on Saturday ousted champions Lyon to win the Champions Trophy traditional curtain-raiser 5-4 on penalties after a goalless draw over 90 minutes. Souleymane Diawara converted the winning spot kick at Bordeaux’s Stade Chaban-Delmas venue to thrill a 30,000 home crowd after Brazilian Cris had missed for Lyon, who this season will target an eighth straight league title. Normally, the champions and French Cup winners compete for the Trophy, but the French league invited Bordeaux to face Lyon as the latter won both the championship and the Cup last season.
■ MALAYSIA
Foreigners get the boot
Foreign players are to be booted out out of the domestic league next season to save cash and develop Malaysia’s flagging national game. Soccer federation chiefs meeting at the weekend unanimously agreed that clubs’ reliance on highly paid foreign imports was shutting out local talent and weakening the national team. “We are not at the status of English Premier League, our league is not matured yet, therefore some drastic measures must be taken to improve it,” federation deputy president Khairy Jamaluddin told local reporters.
■ GREECE
Seven injured after violence
At least seven people were injured on Saturday when violence erupted in the stands during a pre-season friendly between Panserraikos and PAOK, forcing the match to be abandoned in the 15th minute. The clashes began when fans of both teams found themselves seated on the same terraces and spread as downtown businesses were damaged. None of the injuries were serious, with two people requiring hospital treatment, police said.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later