Athletic Bilbao beat CA Osasuna 2-0 on Friday to stay perfect through two rounds of the Spanish league, while Angel Lafita scored one goal and earned a late penalty to help Getafe salvage a 2-2 draw at home against UD Almeria.
Bilbao’s victory came at Anoeta Stadium, the home of regional Basque rivals Real Sociedad, with Bilbao’s new San Mames Stadium still under construction.
Supported by thousands of fans who had made the trip, Bilbao almost got off to a perfect start when Aritz Aduriz hit the post in the opening minute.
Photo: EPA
Osasuna went closest in the 13th when Emiliano Armenteros nearly curled a corner-kick directly into the net, only for goalkeeper Iago Herrerin to react in time.
Bilbao went ahead in the 31st when Osasuna’s Alejandro Arribas knocked Markel Susaeta’s cross into his own net shortly after the defender had saved a goal-bound shot by Aduriz.
Bilbao took control of the ball in the second half, and substitute Oscar de Marcos sealed the win in the 82nd on the break with Osasuna pressing forward in search of an equalizer.
“This was an important win,” De Marcos said. “Next week we go to [Real Madrid’s Santiago] Bernabeu and it’s good to get this win at home. Even though this isn’t our home, it felt like it. Everyone would like to be in Bilbao, but the team is very grateful to our fans. Our fans never disappoint us.”
At Getafe, the promoted Almeria squandered a lead and a strong performance for the second consecutive match and will have to wait until round three for another chance at earning their first victory.
Almeria striker Rodrigo Rios scored his third goal of the season on the half-hour mark when he fired Jesus “Suso” Fernandez’s pass off the post and into the net.
Lafita leveled for Getafe with a well-placed header inside the far post two minutes later, but Fernando Soriano scored from a rebound in the 37th to restore the visitors’ advantage.
Goalkeeper Miguel Moya kept Getafe in the game before Diego Castro converted a spot-kick in the 85th after Rafael Ramos fouled Lafita in the area.
Almeria coach Francisco Rodriguez said that his team’s inexperience was costing them wins in their return to the topflight.
“The team is generating a ridiculous amount of scoring chances for the first division,” Rodriguez said. “We have strikers who are scoring, Rodri [Rios] has scored three goals and has to keep it up. At the end our inexperience is causing us to not take our opportunities. We will try again next weekend.”
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book