Neymar made his latest comeback from injury for Paris Saint-Germain on Friday as first-half goals by Mauro Icardi and Angel di Maria saw the Ligue 1 leaders ease to a 2-0 win over Lille OSC at the Parc des Princes.
The in-form Icardi opened the scoring from close range in the 17th minute with his 10th goal in PSG’s past nine games and Di Maria doubled their lead just after the half-hour mark.
Despite not being near their best, Thomas Tuchel’s side were too strong for the team who finished runners-up behind them last season.
Photo: EPA-EFE
After just 14 games, PSG are 11 points clear of second-placed Olympique de Marseille, who are to play today.
Neymar had not played for his club since Oct. 5, having sustained a hamstring injury playing for Brazil against Nigeria a week later.
It was just the latest spell on the sidelines for the world’s most expensive player, who has featured in barely half of PSG’s matches since signing from Barcelona in 2017.
His decision to fly to Madrid to take in the Davis Cup tennis this week did not go down well with Tuchel, but the German coach still handed Neymar a start.
On just his sixth appearance of the campaign, Neymar lasted 65 minutes before being replaced by Kylian Mbappe, who had been struggling with illness in recent days.
“I didn’t expect too much from him because he has been out for six weeks. He lacked precision and his usual sense of timing, but that is how it is,” Tuchel said of Neymar.
The Brazilian only produced brief glimpses of his class and headed straight to the dressing room after being taken off, with some supporters jeering the 27-year-old as he departed.
“It’s normal, lots of players do that,” Tuchel said. “Others go to the bench, but I didn’t see it because I was focused on making changes on the field. There is no need to make a big thing about it.”
The main reason for Neymar’s withdrawal was probably to keep him fresh for Tuesday’s trip to play Real Madrid, when he will hope to make his first Champions League appearance this season.
BUNDESLIGA
Borussia Dortmund captain Marco Reus apologized to angry fans and criticized what he called a “shameful” first-half performance from his side on Friday.
Reus scored late in the game to salvage a 3-3 draw against last-placed SC Paderborn 07, but it was not enough to stop irate supporters raging against the players.
“I have no explanation for the first half. No idea what we did there. It was shameful. We must never, ever play like that again,” Reus told broadcaster DAZN.
LA LIGA
Levante UD on Friday defeated RCD Mallorca 2-1 for their third win in four La Liga matches.
Roger Marti put Levante ahead in the 52nd minute and Ruben Rochina scored the winner with a long-shot in the 73rd after Mallorca equalized through Dani Rodriguez in the 65th.
PREMIER LEAGUE
The head of English Premier League refereeing came clean when he faced club executives over the imperfections of using video assistant referees (VAR).
Far from new technology completely eradicating mistakes, Mike Riley told them that four key decisions across four games were incorrectly overturned by the on-field referees relying on the judgement of VARs watching replays from afar.
“We’re far from perfect,” Riley said a week on from the meeting of clubs. “We’ve got improve the way that we do things.”
Teething problems were anticipated by Riley after conferring with Howard Webb, the former Premier League referee who helped to introduce VAR into Major League Soccer in the US in 2017.
“The worst outcome is when the refereeing team on the field of play made the right decision, the VAR intervenes to make the wrong decisions,” Riley said, citing Webb.
“There will be times we don’t intervene when everyone thinks we should,” Riley said.
The four mistakes by VARs came across two matchdays in the past month when the league lowered the high bar previously applied for the referees’ decisions to be overturned:
‧ Daniel James earning a penalty for Manchester United after a collision with Ben Godfrey at Norwich City.
‧ Everton defender Michael Keane accidentally catching Aaron Connolly, leading to a Brighton & Hove Albion penalty.
‧ Chelsea midfielder Jorginho’s slight contact with Gerard Deulofeu getting Watford a penalty.
‧ Sokratis Papastathopoulos having a winner for Arsenal against Crystal Palace ruled out because teammate Calum Chambers was wrongly adjudged to have committed a foul in the buildup.
“There are significant things we can do to improve,” Riley said at a briefing.
“We can get better consistency of decisionmaking as VARs,” he said.
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