Michael Owen’s chances of playing in the World Cup finals suffered another blow on Sunday when England coach Fabio Capello snubbed the striker for next month’s qualifier with Croatia.
The 29-year-old Manchester United player, who scored his first competitive goal for the English champions in last week’s Premier League defeat of Wigan Athletic, is his country’s fourth-highest goalscorer, but Capello was not convinced enough by the striker’s form to include him in the squad that faces Slovenia in a friendly at Wembley on Saturday and the Group 6 qualifier with Croatia on Sept. 9 where victory would guarantee England’s place in the finals in South Africa.
Capello has instead decided to keep faith with Tottenham Hotspur star Jermain Defoe, who has been in fine form this season.
Keeper David James misses out for the third squad running after being forced to sit out Portsmouth’s home defeat to Manchester City on Sunday, leaving West Ham United’s Robert Green as likely first-choice.
Manchester United keeper Ben Foster had been ear-marked by Capello has the main understudy to James, but some nervous displays for the Premier League champions, including failing to keep out Arsenal midfielder Andrey Arshavin’s goal at Old Trafford on Saturday, may have damaged his chances.
In defense, the absence of Rio Ferdinand with a thigh strain has provided Manchester United teammate Wes Brown with a surprise return.
Brown produced a dominant display in central defense as United overcame Arsenal at Old Trafford, however, and Capello can also use him as cover for Glen Johnson at fullback.
The selection of Aaron Lennon was widely expected after Capello spoke glowingly about the Spurs winger this week.
Lennon replaces injured Arsenal winger Theo Walcott, who has not played this season because of a back injury Gunners boss Arsene Wenger believes is a direct result of his young star playing for both England’s senior side and the under-21s during the close-season.
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