English giants Manchester City will be looking to take a stranglehold on second place in their UEFA Champions League group by winning their second successive away match in this season’s competition at out-of-form CSKA Moscow today.
The 2011-2012 Premier League champions and runners-up last season to Manchester United only won one of their six away matches in their previous two campaigns, but got off to a winning start this term at Viktoria Plzen.
A subsequent defeat to group leaders and Champions League holders Bayern Munich — who also beat CSKA — in Manchester reflected how far Manuel Pelligrini’s side has to go to be viable challengers.
However, even reaching the knockout stage would represent a marked improvement on their two campaigns under former boss Roberto Mancini, when both times they failed to reach the second round.
They go into the game against a CSKA side who are goalless and winless in their past five league matches, boosted also by their first away win in the Premier League this season after a comprehensive 3-1 win at West Ham United.
Argentina international striker Sergio Aguero scored either side of halftime, while also setting up a late goal for David Silva which put them just three points off leaders Arsenal.
“Now we play four games in a row away, so it is the best moment, first to win away against West Ham and then to repeat the triumph we had against Plzen in the Champions League,” Pellegrini said.
Pelligrini, who was hoping captain and central defender Vincent Kompany would be fit to play, is more concerned about the state of the pitch in Moscow, which saw their first home game having to be played in St Petersburg because their pitch was deemed unplayable.
“We don’t know what the conditions of the pitch will be,” Pellegrini said.
However, the recent report of a UEFA delegate, who has inspected the condition of the pitch, said that it is now good enough to play on.
As if CSKA did not have enough of a task ahead of them, they will have to confront City without several key players, Brazilian defender Mario Fernandez, Latvian midfielder Aleksandrs Cauna and Russia playmaker Alan Dzagoev are all injured.
Meanwhile, striker Seydou Doumbia, who came on as a late substitute in Friday’s 2-0 defeat to Zenit St-Petersburg, is still not at his best having just recovered from a back injury. Goalkeeper Igor Akinfeyev missed the league match because of a swollen knee, but CSKA manager Leonid Slutsky said he was hoping he would be able to play today.
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