Atletico Madrid’s revival under new coach Diego Simeone continued on Monday as Diego Godin fired the winner in a battling 1-0 victory at CA Osasuna that lifted them to seventh in La Liga.
The Uruguay defender bundled in from close range at a corner just before the break, while forwards Adrian and Radamel Falcao missed gilt-edged chances to extend the lead.
Belgian goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, on loan from Chelsea, kept the visitors in the game in the closing minutes with string of excellent saves as los Rojillos piled forward in search of an equalizer.
Photo: EPA
Under former Argentina captain Simeone, a huge fan favorite at the Vicente Calderon where he won a league and cup double as a player in 1996, Atletico have drawn once and won three on the trot without conceding a goal.
They climbed above Osasuna with 29 points from 20 games and they are two points off a Champions League place. Osasuna are 10th with 27 points.
Atletico are 23 points behind city rivals and leaders Real Madrid. Jose Mourinho’s side have opened up a seven-point lead over Barcelona.
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