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.
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
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