Spain on Monday opened their UEFA Euro 2020 campaign with a goalless draw against Sweden in Seville, Spain, after their preparations were badly affected by COVID-19, while Patrik Schick scored one of the championship’s great goals in the Czech Republic’s 2-0 win over Scotland.
Elsewhere on day four of the tournament, Slovakia edged out 10-man Poland 2-1 in Saint Petersburg.
They lead the early Group E table ahead of Spain and Sweden, after the Scandinavians held on for a point at Estadio La Cartuja, with Alvaro Morata wasting the hosts’ best opportunity.
Photo: Reuters
“There are no doubts about a striker like Morata,” Aymeric Laporte said of his teammate. “We know what he can do, it didn’t go in for him today it’s true, but in the next game he can score three and shut everyone’s mouth.”
Jordi Alba captained Spain in the absence of Sergio Busquets, who is still self-isolating at home after testing positive for COVIS-19.
Defender Diego Llorente was only allowed to rejoin the group on Saturday after giving a fourth consecutive negative test and was an unused substitute.
The squad was forced to train individually and their last friendly against Lithuania was passed over to the under-21s.
The Scots, absent from major tournament finals since the 1998 World Cup, were sunk by Bayer Leverkusen striker Schick in front of 12,000 fans at Hampden Park in England.
The home side started the Group D contest brightly in Glasgow, but fell behind shortly before half-time as Schick headed home a cross from Vladimir Coufal.
There was even better to come from the 25-year-old Schick, as he struck a high, curling shot from just inside the Scotland half over the head of back-pedalling Scottish goalkeeper David Marshall and into the net.
“The ball bounced back, the goalkeeper was quite high, I took a look, I saw he was out there so I slammed it in,” Schick said.
Czech Republic moved to the top of Group D ahead of their game with Croatia at Hampden on Friday.
“We want to advance, we are now facing the two favorites, sometimes you can get there on three points, but I think we’ll have to clinch one more to be sure,” Czech Republic coach Jaroslav Silhavy said.
CHRISTIAN ERIKSEN
AFP, COPENHAGEN
Christian Eriksen, the Danish soccer player who collapsed on the pitch in his country’s opening Euro 2020 game, said that he was doing “fine” in an Instagram post from hospital yesterday.
“I’m fine — under the circumstances, I still have to go through some examinations at the hospital, but I feel okay,” he wrote in a post with a photograph of him smiling and giving a thumbs-up in bed.
The 29-year-old Inter Milan midfielder on Saturday collapsed on the field in the 43rd minute of Denmark’s Group B game against Finland. He was later confirmed to have had cardiac arrest.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier