Villarreal routed Real Betis Balompie 5-1 on Friday for their third win in four matches, moving them near the top of La Liga.
Karl Toko Ekambi scored twice, while Santi Cazorla, Gerard Moreno and Samuel Chukwueze added a goal each to give Villarreal the comfortable victory at home. Emerson scored for Real Betis at the Estadio de la Ceramica.
The victory moved Villarreal to fifth place with 11 points, three points behind leaders Real Madrid, who were yet to play yesterday.
Photo: EPA-EFE
BUNDESLIGA
Bas Dost and Andre Silva scored for Eintracht Frankfurt to claim a hard-fought 2-1 win against promoted Union Berlin in the Bundesliga on Friday.
The visitors withstood the home side’s early pressure and struck twice in the second half, making it clear to Union that it faces a long hard slog to stay up in its first season in the Bundesliga.
Photo: EFE
Union substitute Anthony Ujah scored in the 86th minute to set up an exciting finale, but Frankfurt weathered the home side’s late push.
“A point would have been deserved, but in the end Frankfurt were more efficient than we were,” Union coach Urs Fischer said.
BRAZIL
Photo: AFP
Four coaches in Brazil’s top flight have been fired in a 24-hour span due to bad results in recent weeks.
Fluminense’s Oswaldo de Oliveira was fired on Friday after insulting his club’s fans after a 1-1 draw with Santos at the Maracana Stadium. During that game on Thursday, Fluminense fans chanted the name of coach Cuca, who had left Sao Paulo hours earlier, apparently wanting him to replace Oliveira.
Sao Paulo hired Fernando Diniz as Cuca’s replacement, despite the club’s fans having called for Rogerio Ceni, who also lost his job at Cruzeiro on Thursday.
Ceni, who recently started a coaching career after spending two decades as Sao Paulo’s goalkeeper, is reportedly returning to Fortaleza, who fired coach Ze Ricardo on Thursday.
JAPAN
Japanese soccer star Keisuke Honda yesterday marketed himself to Manchester United in a Twitter plea as he hunts for a new club.
“Give me an offer,” the former AC Milan striker tweeted from his verified account, tagging United’s official twitter account.
“I don’t need money, but I need to play with great team and great team mate!” said the 33-year-old, one of the highest-profile names in Asian soccer.
Honda is trying to find a new club in Europe after leaving Australia’s Melbourne Victory in May.
He is aiming to continue playing international soccer after announcing his intention to compete at Tokyo Olympics as an over-age player.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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