Emmanuel Adebayor came off the bench to score on his home debut for Real Madrid and seal a 3-0 aggregate King’s Cup win over holders Sevilla that set up a final against Barcelona.
After Karim Benzema had scored the only goal in Seville in last week’s semi-final first leg, Jose Mourinho’s side had to deal with some tireless chasing and crunching tackles from a fired up Sevilla before their two German internationals combined to make the vital breakthrough in the 82nd minute.
Sami Khedira’s superb pass from central midfield sent Mesut Ozil clear and he rounded goalkeeper Javi Varas to score.
Sevilla defender Sergio Sanchez was dismissed for a second yellow card in the 85th after a late tackle on new loan signing Adebayor, making his debut at the huge arena in central Madrid after joining from Manchester City last month.
The Togolese international had been on the pitch for around 10 minutes when he controlled a Lassana Diarra center on his chest in added time and volleyed powerfully past Varas from close range to make it 2-0.
A second-string Barca had earlier completed a crushing 8-0 aggregate victory over Almeria, with Adriano, Thiago Alcantara and Ibrahim Afellay scoring in a 3-0 win on the night.
Barca coach Pep Guardiola left Lionel Messi and five Spanish World Cup winners out of his starting 11 at Almeria’s Juegos Mediterraneos stadium.
The hosts came close to scoring just before the half hour when French midfielder Sofiane Feghouli smashed a low shot in off the post.
But the Andalusian club then conceded a soft goal to Adriano in the 35th minute to effectively end any faint comeback hopes.
Teenage midfielder Thiago underlined his potential with a fine header to make it 2-0 in the 56th before Ibrahim Afellay netted his first goal for the club since joining last month from PSV Eindhoven.
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