Two late goals by Abdoul Yoda gave Getafe a 2-1 win at Real Sociedad in La Liga on Monday.
Sociedad opened the scoring in the 83rd minute when Pablo Hervas tapped in after Carlos Vela controlled Sergio Canales’ back-heel and looked up to find his teammate waiting at the far post.
Yoda equalized when he controlled the ball, spun around to face the goal and sent a rolling shot inside the far post in the 90th minute.
Photo: EPA
Five minutes into stoppage-time Yoda scored again from Jorge Sammir’s well-timed pass.
“They were two genuinely heavy blows,” Hervas said of Yoda’s goals. “The truth is that after we scored we fell back too far and as they are very quick, they caught us out.”
Getafe forward Pablo Sarabia came close in the 27th minute when he slammed a shot against the post from a pinpoint pass by forward Sammir that had stranded goalkeeper Enaut Zubikarai.
Sociedad defender Yuri Berchiche rattled goalkeeper Vicente Guaita’s woodwork with a well-struck shot three minutes later.
Guaita palmed away a stinging close-range shot by Iceland striker Alfred Finnbogason in the 52nd minute.
Barcelona lead the standings on 22 points from eight matches, with Sevilla second on 19 and Real Madrid third on 18. Getafe are in 10th place on 10 points and Sociedad are 16th on five.
Meanwhile, former Barcelona and Spain defender Albert Ferrer was sacked by La Liga’s bottom club, Cordoba, and replaced by former Valencia boss Miroslav Djukic.
Ferrer, 44, had led the Andalusians to the Spanish top flight for the first time in 42 years via the playoffs last season, but Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at home to Malaga left them bottom of the table with just four points from their opening eight games back in the top flight.
“Albert Ferrer has this afternoon been relieved of his role as coach of Cordoba Football Club,” the club said in a statement released on their Web site. “The coach was informed of the decision taken after a meeting at the club’s headquarters. Cordoba would like to thank Albert for the work he has carried out during his time in charge, remembering that his name will forever live in the memory of the club having achieved promotion to the first division after a 42-year wait.”
Djukic has been out of a job since being sacked by Valencia in December last year.
The Serbian, who won La Liga with Valencia as a player, takes charge until the end of the season.
GENOA 1, EMPOLI 1
AP, GENOA, Italy
Genoa were held to a controversial draw by visiting Empoli in Serie A on Monday in the first match since the port city was hit by devastating floods.
Genoa went ahead with a goal from Andrea Bertolacci 14 minutes in and Lorenzo Tonelli equalized with his arm in the 77th minute following a deflection.
“It was a handball by Tonelli. That was clear,” Genoa coach Gian Piero Gasperini said. “It cost us two points.”
The draw left both sides in the bottom half of table, with Genoa 11th and Empoli 14th.
Before kickoff, a minute’s silence was observed for a victim of the flooding, caused when two rivers burst their banks, sending a torrent of water and mud down Genoa’s streets.
Residents have been left without electricity and schools have been closed.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with