Carlos Tevez refused to celebrate as his double-strike inspired Manchester City’s 3-1 win over his former club West Ham on Monday.
While Tevez won’t win any popularity contests at Manchester United after his acrimonious switch to City, he is fondly regarded at West Ham after almost single-handedly keeping them in the Premier League during a loan spell three years ago.
The Argentina striker acknowledged that the Hammers still have a place in his heart as well as he waved an apology to West Ham’s traveling supporters after opening the scoring at Eastlands.
Carlton Cole equalized for Gianfranco Zola’s team, but Martin Petrov restored City’s lead before half-time and Tevez nailed his second goal after half-time.
Again, he hardly acknowledged the goal that left West Ham stuck in the bottom three and lifted Mark Hughes’s side, who have won five of their six league matches, into fifth place.
After only five minutes, Petrov was played in down the left wing and his low cross found Tevez in acres of space four yards from goal. Tevez easily converted the chance to claim his first league goal for City, but there was no celebration in front of the West Ham fans at that end of the stadium.
Unlike his teammate Emmanuel Adebayor, who had raced the length of the pitch to taunt Arsenal’s fans when he scored against his old club earlier this month, Tevez held out his arms in apology to the Hammers supporters and they responded by clapping their former idol.
Remarkably, just as a second City goal seemed inevitable, West Ham punished slack defending from the hosts to snatch an equalizer.
Alessandro Diamanti’s free-kick was only cleared to Radoslav Kovac and his shot was deftly flicked in by England striker Cole with his back to goal.
Parity for Zola’s team was short-lived however as Petrov marked his return to action with a clever strike eight minutes later.
Luis Jimenez fouled Nigel de Jong and Petrov stepped up to drive a free-kick around the West Ham wall and past Robert Green.
But Tevev put the result beyond doubt in the 61st minute. Craig Bellamy, another former Hammer, curled over a free-kick and Kovac played Tevez onside, allowing the Argentina star to head past Green.
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