CHELSEA
Luis to return to Atletico
Chelsea’s Brazil defender Filipe Luis is poised to return to Atletico Madrid after one season at Chelsea,where he failed to hold down a regular first-team place, Atletico president Enrique Cerezo said on Tuesday. The 29-year-old made 26 appearances in all competitions in 2014-2015, with Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho preferring to use Spain international Cesar Azpilicueta. Mourinho on Tuesday said: “I think we are selling Filipe Luis now or tomorrow.”
MANCHESTER CITY
Pellegrini praises Sterling
Manchester City coach Manuel Pellegrini said he is pleased with the start Raheem Sterling has made with his new club. Sterling gave a glimpse of his searing pace and link play with Spanish star David Silva in a penalty shootout win over Italy’s AS Roma in Melbourne, Australia, on Tuesday. Sterling, the most expensive English soccer player in history, took just 2 minutes, 17 seconds to open his account for City in the International Champions Cup at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. It was the 20-year-old Jamaica-born Londoner’s first game for City since his move from Liverpool last week in a five-year deal worth an initial ￡44 million (US$68.75 million), which could rise to ￡49 million. “I am very happy with him and I am very happy that we have bought him,” Pellegrini said.
MLS
Mourinho backs Drogba
Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho has backed Didier Drogba to make a success of a move to Major League Soccer after reports linking the Blues legend to a career swansong in North America. Several MLS teams are reportedly in the hunt for Drogba, with the Montreal Impact and the Chicago Fire the front-runners after opening talks with the 37-year-old Ivory Coast striker. Drogba has been a free agent since his contract with the English Premier League champions expired at the end of last season following a second stint at the club. “I think he is the perfect choice. If I owned a club — I do not and I never would — I would immediately think about a player like him, a man like him, to be the center of the club universe,” Mourinho said. Mourinho added that Drogba had turned down the chance to work at Chelsea as a coach after his playing career comes to a close.
FIFA
Superclassic match canceled
A friendly between Brazil and Argentina, scheduled to take place in the US in September, has been canceled as part of the fallout from the investigation into alleged corruption involving FIFA. The head of the company handling logistics for Argentina’s national soccer team on Tuesday said that the match has been called off as the two Argentine businessmen who own Full Play, a sports marketing company which had rights for the friendly, remain under house arrest in Argentina after being indicted in May by the US Department of Justice. This year’s edition of the Superclassic of the Americas was originally scheduled to be played in San Francisco on Sept. 5. “It is public knowledge — all the problems involving Full Play right now,” World Eleven chief executive officer Guillermo Tofoni said, adding that there is still a chance the South American rivals will play, but not with Full Play’s involvement. “We are still trying to make sure the game happens between the two teams somewhere in the United States. It just would not be called the Superclassic, because that belongs to Full Play,” he said.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
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