■ARGENTINA
Buonanotte hurt in car crash
River Plate’s sought-after forward Diego Buonanotte broke his collar bone and damaged a lung in a car crash in which three friends were killed in the early hours of Saturday, police said. The 21-year-old Buonanotte, a member of Argentina’s Olympic gold medal squad last year, and his friends were returning in pouring rain from a night out dancing near his home town of Teodolina when their car hit a tree. The diminutive attacking midfielder was spending the end of year holidays in Teodolina, Santa Fe Province, and was due to return to his club in Buenos Aires for pre-championship training on Friday. European and Mexican clubs have shown interest in Buonanotte, but the new River Plate chairman, former captain and coach Daniel Passarella, who was elected earlier this month, has urged him to stay to help the team out of one of their worst-ever slumps.
■ENGLAND
Replace throw-ins: Wenger
Soccer could be speeded up by replacing throw-ins with kick-ins, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said on Saturday. The Frenchman believes some clubs gain an unfair advantage simply because they have a player who can propel the ball long distances from throw-ins. “For example at Stoke, for Rory Delap it is like kicking the ball,” the Gunners manager told the club’s official Web site. “It is a little bit of an unfair advantage. He is using a strength that is usually not a strength in football. So [the rule I would change would be] maybe to play throw-ins by foot. Why not? I think it would make the game quicker.”
■PORTUGAL
Former Red joins Sporting
Former Liverpool striker Florent Sinama-Pongolle has agreed to move from struggling Spanish side Atletico Madrid to Sporting, the Portuguese team announced on Saturday. “An agreement in principle has been reached with Atletico Madrid and Florent Sinama-Pongolle in view to a transfer on Jan. 1,” a Sporting statement said. The Diario de Noticias newspaper reported that French international Sinama-Pongolle would cost Sporting, who are fifth in the table and 12 points behind leaders Sporting Braga and Benfica, about 6 million euros (US$8.6 million). Sinama-Pongolle, 25, started his career at Le Havre before spending three years at Liverpool between 2003 and 2006. After two years at Recreativo in Spain, he moved to Atletico Madrid last year, but struggled to hold down a first-team place in the face of competition from Uruguay striker Diego Forlan and Argentina striker Sergio “Kun” Aguero.
■AUSTRALIA
Culina to miss Kuwait trip
Midfielder Jason Culina has been ruled out of Australia’s Asian Cup qualifying clash with Kuwait on Jan. 6 because of a knee injury. Culina sustained the injury during Gold Coast United’s 5-1 win over Brisbane Roar in the Australian A-League on Saturday. Medics say the injury is not severe, with the former PSV Eindhoven player expected to be out of action for only two weeks. Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek has called up Central Coast Mariners player Dean Heffernan as Culina’s replacement for the trip to Kuwait City. Kuwait and Australia are joint leaders of Group B, with both sides needing one more victory to book their place in next year’s tournament, which is being held in Qatar.
Former world No. 2 Paula Badosa has withdrawn from this week’s Wuhan Open, organizers said on Tuesday, amid a racism row over an online photograph. Tournament organizers said the Spaniard had pulled out of the WTA 1000 tournament, citing a gastrointestinal illness, hours before her first-round match against Australian Ajla Tomljanovic. News outlets including Britain’s the Telegraph earlier reported that Badosa had posted a photo on Instagram in which she appeared to imitate a Chinese face by placing chopsticks on the corners of her eyes. The photo was taken last week in a restaurant in Beijing, where she reached the semi-finals of the
Shin Oebori coaches the Fukagawa Hawks youth baseball team in Tokyo, and he is very aware how Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani touches his players. “With Ohtani, the kids think everything is possible,” Oebori said, wrapping up practice yesterday on an all-dirt field set alongside a local Buddhist temple, below an elevated highway, and in the shadow of tall apartment blocks in central Tokyo. “Nothing is impossible with him. A dream is not a dream,” Oebori said, stepping out of the fenced practice field that keeps balls from landing on the temple grounds. None of the players hitting sponge-soft baseball has reached
CRICKET Azhar’s 59 leads Stallions Aashir Azhar’s blazing half-century guided the Taipei Stallions to victory over Taipei Super 11 in the Taiwan Premier League’s Group A at the Yingfeng Cricket Ground in Taipei yesterday. The Stallions were 102-3 and into the 12th over of 20 when Azhar came to the crease. He hit seven sixes and two fours in the 25 deliveries he faced to push his side to 171-5. Gokul Kumar was the star with the ball for Super 11, taking 3-17. In the reply, Deepak Vishnu outscored Azhar with 77 from 50 balls, but nobody else got past 20 as
‘GLOBAL PRESSURE’: LA’s Dave Roberts said that it was difficult to appreciate the ‘pressure on a global scale’ his starter was under ‘pitching for his country’ The Los Angeles Dodgers shelled out US$1 billion for Japanese talent in the off-season and it is paying off in the MLB playoffs. Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Friday outdueled Yu Darvish in a historic post-season matchup of Japanese-born starters, while the Dodgers got home runs from Kike Hernandez and Teoscar Hernandez to beat the San Diego Padres 2-0 and advance to the National League Championship Series. “It’s pretty sweet,” a smiling Freddie Freeman said. Yamamoto allowed two hits over five innings for the win, getting pulled after 63 pitches in a decisive Game 5 between heated NL West rivals who were meeting in a
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