CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
Former England manager Steve McClaren saw his debut as a manager in the Champions League brought to an end on Tuesday in the cruelest fashion as Sporting Lisbon scored an injury-time goal to go through on the away goal rule with the tie with FC Twente finishing 1-1 on aggregate.
To make matters even harder to take for McClaren — who guided unfashionable Middlesbrough to the UEFA Cup final in 2006 where they lost to Sevilla — it was an own goal by Peter Wisgerhof, who deflected Sporting’s goalkeeper Rui Patricio’s header from a last ditch corner, which saw the visitors progress.
PHOTO: AP
Twente had held the lead virtually from the off with Brazilian defender Douglas giving them the lead in the second minute.
Kazakh side Aktobe were another side to suffer after taking the lead early on, but in their case they only had themselves to blame as they went 3-0 up after just 15 minutes away at Israeli outfit Maccabi Haifa.
Maccabi had reduced the deficit to 3-2 at half-time and then two second-half goals by Georgian international Vladimir Dvalishvili — who only arrived in the summer — saw the hosts to a remarkable 4-3 victory which was also the aggregate score.
Austrian side Salzburg also enjoyed a successful night away from home as they beat Croatian giants Dinamo Zagreb 2-1 to go through 3-2 on aggregate, while Greek heavyweights Panathinaikos overcame a 3-1 deficit from the first leg to beat Sparta Prague of the Czech Republic 3-0 and go through 4-3 on aggregate.
For Sparta it was a case of nightmares revisited as the same side had ousted them at the same stage of the competition last year and the writing was on the wall when Kostas Katsouranis made it 2-0 nine minutes into the second-half as it put the Greeks ahead on away goals.
However, they were only able to wrap up their place in the next round when Dimitris Salpingidis scored with a minute of the match remaining to give Dutch coach Henk ten Cate — a former Ajax manager and assistant manager at Chelsea — an important victory.
Yesterday’s action included the possibility of two of the better known clubs going out at what would be a disastrously early stage for them both.
Scottish giants Celtic were to try to overcome a 1-0 deficit in Moscow against Dynamo Moscow.
The former European Cup winners have never before overturned a first-leg deficit in European competition, but new manager Tony Mowbray is banking on them doing so as he said last week they need to progress in the competition if he is to have funds for new players.
Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk — their country’s first ever European trophy winners when they won the last ever UEFA Cup last season — also faced a tough task as they headed to unheralded Romanian side Timisoara with the hosts holding what could be an invaluable two away goals under their belt after a 2-2 draw in the first leg.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with