The Red Lions on Sunday avoided slipping into the second division when they won Taiwan’s first relegation playoff match against Inter Taoyuan on penalties.
The two sides fielded strong sides at National Taiwan Sport University in Taoyuan, both creating good chances, while Inter’s Harding Lau was the busier of the two goalkeepers, especially in the second half.
Lau had to be sharp with the Red Lions threatening from corners and set-pieces, although Inter also created several good chances, only to be denied by Red Lions goalkeeper Lee Kuan-pei.
Photo: Jason Pan, Taipei Times
After both sides failed to make the breakthrough in 90 minutes and 30 minutes of extra-time it went to penalties, with Inter replacing Lau late in extra-time for Turkish goalkeeper Baslar Burak.
Lee was the hero for the Red Lions after he saved one penalty and another was blazed over the bar, while his teammates put all four of their penalties past Burak for a 4-2 victory.
The Red Lions finished the Taiwan Football Premier League season in seventh place on nine points, just ahead of Ming Chuan University on eight, who were relegated to the Taiwan Challenge League and replaced by the second-tier champions CPC Corp.
“This year is the dawning of a new era. We have for the first time in Taiwanese soccer history established first-tier and second-tier leagues. This playoff for promotion and relegation is a first for Taiwan,” CTFA secretary-general Fang Ching-jen told reporters.
“We were busy in the past two years laying the groundwork, building the foundations and requirements for the healthy development of soccer in Taiwan, with promotion and relegation between the top two tiers,” Fang said. “Taiwan is making progress to sustain the game for a long time, to catch up with other more advanced soccer nations by hosting professional clubs and an having an organized league structure.”
Red Lions manager Chang Wu-yeh praised Inter after the match.
“Their players had a very good attitude, very vocal and really getting into the game to cheer their team on. They have excellent players to build upon and I told my team to learn from them in today’s match,” Chang said. “Many of our team were playing in university cup tournaments and other amateur competitions in the past few days, and they took this match too lightly. They were a bit slow and did not have much time to think when on the ball, as the Inter Taoyuan players pressed us throughout this match.”
“It’s very unfortunate that we made several good runs in offense, but just failed to capitalize on them to score. If we got one goal up, it would not have been so tense later in the match, when we were too eager to push up and attack, which pulled our defenders out of position and opened up chances for the opposition,” Inter captain Hsu Hung-chih said.
“All our players gave 120 percent today. Despite losing out in the end, it was collectively an outstanding effort from us. Everyone can see our team’s fighting spirit and determination to win,” Hsu said.
“I don’t remember the moment, but ever since I was a kid, that’s the first thing I loved,” two-time NBA All-Star Isaiah Thomas said of his lifelong romance with basketball. However, that journey unfolded against the limitations of his size in a game where height often dictates opportunity — a reality he confronted throughout his career. At 175cm, Thomas is less than 2cm taller than the average Taiwanese adult male, while NBA players during his career stood at about 200cm on average. Compared with the NBA’s average career length of less than five years, Thomas’ 13-season career stands out as
Dakar and Rabat have longstanding ties, but relations have been strained since the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final, which Senegal won in mid-January before being stripped of the title, which was transferred to Morocco. Now, the AFCON trophy is something of a thorn in the two countries’ sides. On Rue Mohamed V, the street where Moroccan vendors are based in the Senegalese capital, a police van is parked. “The police have been on high alert since the Confederation of African Football [CAF] decided to award the title to Morocco, but there have been no incidents,” a local resident said.
Top seeded Jessica Pegula on Friday once again fought back from a set down to reach the WTA Charleston Open semi-finals with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 win against Russia’s Diana Shnaider. Defending champion Pegula has lost the first set in all three of her matches at the tournament so far, but again dug deep to maintain her hopes of retaining the title. The world No. 5 from the US took 2 hours, 10 minutes to defeat 19th-ranked Shnaider, relying on a formidable service game that included eight aces. Shnaider battled well in the first two sets and broke early for a 2-0 lead
Cambridge on Saturday made it four wins in a row as they comprehensively defeated Oxford in the 171st University Boat Race on London’s River Thames. It was Cambridge’s seventh win in the past eight years of a rowing race between England’s two oldest universities first staged in 1829. A world-class Cambridge crew were heavy favorites for victory. However, four minutes into the race, the crews came close to a clash of oars which could have caused severe disruption, with Oxford repeatedly warned as both team chased faster conditions in the middle of the river. For the first time in the
RSS