Fulham will look to shake off their dismal domestic form by following up a spectacular victory over Juventus and knocking out Germany’s Wolfsburg in the quarter-finals of the Europa League.
Fulham’s 4-1 second-leg victory over Juventus came after the Italian club scored early at Craven Cottage to lead 4-1 overall. The English team, which has never won a major domestic title, hit back to win 5-4 on aggregate to capture a place in the last eight.
That victory over Juve, however, is Fulham’s only win in a nine-game run that contains five defeats, including Saturday’s 2-0 loss at relegation-threatened Hull.
“The next game is always the most important one but Thursday’s match is a big one, not just for us, but for the club and the fans,” said Hungary midfielder Zoltan Gera, whose team also knocked out last year’s UEFA Cup winners Shakhtar Donetsk. “It’s already a big achievement to have reached the last eight of the Europa League but we’re still hungry.”
“Wolfsburg are a good attacking team that score a lot of goals,” he said.
“We need to be very careful against them because they have some top strikers and attacking midfielders,” Gera said. “We need to defend well but they do concede, so hopefully we can score some goals. It’s very important to keep a clean sheet in these types of games.’’
In today’s other quarter-finals, Valencia and Atletico Madrid clash in an all-Spanish match, Liverpool go to Benfica in a meeting of two former European champions and Hamburg welcome Standard Liege.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB