Real Madrid’s back-to-back victories over Barcelona have given them fresh momentum ahead of the second leg of their Champions League round-of-16 tie at Manchester United today.
Prior to the 1-1 draw between the teams three weeks ago, the season had appeared to be ebbing away from the Spanish champions, with Barca having assembled a seemingly unassailable 16-point lead in La Liga.
Madrid’s chances of catching their sworn enemies remain slim, but the two victories over Barca in the Copa del Rey and the league have injected belief that Jose Mourinho’s side can go to Old Trafford and win.
“It’s clear that these victories are great for the confidence of the group, because now we face a difficult match in the Champions League,” centerback Sergio Ramos said.
“After the two Clasicos we are going to Manchester convinced that we can win, although with a lot of respect for the opponents, who are a great team,” Ramos said.
Aside from goalkeeper Iker Casillas, who has a broken hand, Mourinho has a full complement of players to choose from. United’s squad has also largely been spared injury, although there are doubts over the fitness of Phil Jones.
United boss Sir Alex Ferguson is looking forward to today’s encounter.
“It will be a fantastic night,” he said. “You are talking about two of the greatest clubs in the world. Emotions will be high and I am sure it will be a tremendous match.”
“If we can get a blank against us on Tuesday, we would go through, but I think both teams will score. I just hope we get more than them,” the Scot said.
United’s fans seem certain to witness Ryan Giggs’ 1,000th appearance in senior soccer after he was rested at the weekend.
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