“I am in love with VAR [video assistant referee],” Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino said jokingly on Saturday after his side escaped with a 2-2 draw at Manchester City thanks to Gabriel Jesus’ late winner for the Premier League champions being ruled out on review.
City might bemoan their lack of luck and uninspired defending that allowed Erik Lamela and Lucas Moura to cancel out goals from Raheem Sterling and Sergio Aguero — with Spurs’ only two efforts on target — but there was no evidence of slipping standards since winning the first domestic treble of trophies that English soccer had ever seen last season.
“People say: ‘You can do better’ — better than this, I don’t know if it is possible,” City manager Pep Guardiola said. “We played incredible. The best game we have played in our time together, it was so good. We played good, but we could not win. If we continue to play in that way, we won’t have regrets.”
City were pushed all the way last season by a Liverpool side who recorded the third-highest points tally — with 97 — in English soccer history and, yet, still could not topple Guardiola’s side for the title.
The European champions have started the Premier League season with two wins to take an early two-point lead over the champions and are the most likely challengers to prevent City a hat-trick of titles.
However, if anything, Guardiola’s side look stronger than last season, with Kevin de Bruyne restored to full fitness, while Spanish international Rodri was slotted seamlessly into midfield.
“We have to be proud because to play at this level against a team like Tottenham is really good for the rest of the season,” said De Bruyne, who set up both City goals. “It’s always more difficult in a big game, but we almost totally dominated them.”
VAR might have ridden to Spurs’ rescue for now, but they face a long season ahead if they are to keep up with the relentless pace set by City and Liverpool.
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