Libertad of Paraguay all but qualified for the knockout phase of the Libertadores Cup with a 1-0 away win over Peruvian champions San Martin on Tuesday.
Unbeaten Libertad lead Group One with 10 points from four matches and by far the best goal difference. San Martin have six points after two wins and two defeats.
San Martin defender Julio Cesar Moreyra handled a goal-bound shot in the 23rd minute and was sent off, with midfielder Sergio Aquino converting the penalty for the only goal.
San Martin’s Argentine striker Heber Arriola had a penalty saved eight minutes later, squandering a chance to equalize as the Peruvians failed to avenge their 5-1 defeat by Libertad in Asuncion last week.
Arriola’s spot-kick was parried by Libertad goalkeeper Tobias Vargas and midfielder Christian Cueva hit the post from the rebound.
“The wind made things difficult,” Vargas told reporters of the match played in the Lima port district of Callao. “It became very tough to play, thank God we had the chance of the penalty.”
The top two teams from each of the groups advance to the last 16, the first knockout round of the South American club championship.
Three time champions Nacional of Uruguay spoiled Argentinos Juniors’ hopes of putting a foot in the last 16 with a surprise 1-0 away win at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium in Buenos Aires in Group Three.
Nacional scored in the 34th minute when a punt by goalkeeper Leo Burian was headed on and striker Santiago Garcia hustled defender Santiago Gentiletti off the ball to shoot across the face of the goal into the net off the base of the far post.
Argentinos, South American champions in 1985, are still top of the group with seven points from four matches, one more point than Mexico’s America, who have played three.
Nacional are third with four points and Brazilian champions Fluminense, at home to America next week, have two points.
“We believed in ourselves and [that] the good results would come,” man of the match Garcia told Fox Sports.
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