England coach Gareth Southgate said his players “made our stand as a team” after they were booed by some Hungary supporters when taking the knee in protest against racial injustice in Budapest on Saturday.
Hungary earned a shock 1-0 win in the UEFA Nations League match, their first over England in 60 years, but the match began with boos ringing round the stadium.
The fixture was supposed to be behind closed doors, after Hungary were disciplined by FIFA and UEFA for repeated racist fan behavior, but children, accompanied by an adult, were allowed to attend due to a loophole in the rules.
Photo: Reuters
“The first thing about that [taking a knee] is why we do it, to try to educate people around the world,” Southgate told Channel 4.
“I have no idea why people would choose to boo the gesture. The young people can’t know why they are doing it, so they are being influenced by older adults,” Southgate said.
“The UEFA decision is for other people to decide. We have made our stand as a team, everyone knows what we believe in and stand for,” he added. “It is a night where I need to focus on the football.”
Photo: AFP
UEFA declined to comment on the incident.
Southgate’s side never really got going, something the England coach could understand given when the Nations League fixture took place.
“It has been a long season,” he said. “The heat was a factor and took a lot out of the players and we tried to refresh the team earlier than normal. The balance of finding out about new things and the consistency of the regular team, I have to look at whether I got that right.”
“We have to accept that we did not do enough to win the game, a draw would have been the fair outcome,” he added.
The youthful crowd of about 40,000 was treated to a fine display by their team, with a second-half penalty from Dominik Szoboszlai enough to earn Hungary that first win against England since the 1962 FIFA World Cup in Chile.
The goal came in the 66th minute, with Szoboszlai beating Jordan Pickford from the spot after England substitute Reece James was adjudged to have fouled Zsolt Nagy.
Also on Saturday, Germany had to come from behind to draw 1-1 with an inexperienced Italy team.
AS Roma captain Lorenzo Pellegrini gave a much-changed Italy team the lead 20 minutes from time when he turned in a superb cross from teenage debutant Wilfried Gnonto.
Gnonto, 18, had just been sent on after impressing in FC Zurich’s run to this season’s Swiss Super League title.
However, Germany needed just three minutes to draw level as the home defense failed to clear Jonas Hofmann’s ball into the middle and Joshua Kimmich fired in.
Germany play England in Munich tomorrow, while European champions Italy — looking to move on following their failure to qualify for the FIFA World Cup — are to host Hungary before traveling to face Southgate’s side in Wolverhampton next weekend.
Elsewhere, the Republic of Ireland slumped to a first defeat in nine games as they experienced a surprise 1-0 loss away in Armenia.
Eduard Spertsyan scored the only goal in the second half in Yerevan in the League B, Group 1 opener.
Armenia now travel to play Scotland on Wednesday, while Ireland host Ukraine the same night before facing Scotland in Dublin on Sunday.
There were also Nations League wins on Saturday for Montenegro, Luxembourg and Turkey, while Finland were held 1-1 at home by Bosnia and Herzegovina after taking the lead through a Teemu Pukki penalty.
The winners of each of the four groups in League A are to go through to the final stages in June next year, with promotion and relegation between the other leagues and the chance to earn places in UEFA Euro 2024 qualifying playoffs for teams who fail to qualify via the usual route.
Additional reporting by AFP
Former world No. 2 Paula Badosa has withdrawn from this week’s Wuhan Open, organizers said on Tuesday, amid a racism row over an online photograph. Tournament organizers said the Spaniard had pulled out of the WTA 1000 tournament, citing a gastrointestinal illness, hours before her first-round match against Australian Ajla Tomljanovic. News outlets including Britain’s the Telegraph earlier reported that Badosa had posted a photo on Instagram in which she appeared to imitate a Chinese face by placing chopsticks on the corners of her eyes. The photo was taken last week in a restaurant in Beijing, where she reached the semi-finals of the
Shin Oebori coaches the Fukagawa Hawks youth baseball team in Tokyo, and he is very aware how Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani touches his players. “With Ohtani, the kids think everything is possible,” Oebori said, wrapping up practice yesterday on an all-dirt field set alongside a local Buddhist temple, below an elevated highway, and in the shadow of tall apartment blocks in central Tokyo. “Nothing is impossible with him. A dream is not a dream,” Oebori said, stepping out of the fenced practice field that keeps balls from landing on the temple grounds. None of the players hitting sponge-soft baseball has reached
CRICKET Azhar’s 59 leads Stallions Aashir Azhar’s blazing half-century guided the Taipei Stallions to victory over Taipei Super 11 in the Taiwan Premier League’s Group A at the Yingfeng Cricket Ground in Taipei yesterday. The Stallions were 102-3 and into the 12th over of 20 when Azhar came to the crease. He hit seven sixes and two fours in the 25 deliveries he faced to push his side to 171-5. Gokul Kumar was the star with the ball for Super 11, taking 3-17. In the reply, Deepak Vishnu outscored Azhar with 77 from 50 balls, but nobody else got past 20 as
‘GLOBAL PRESSURE’: LA’s Dave Roberts said that it was difficult to appreciate the ‘pressure on a global scale’ his starter was under ‘pitching for his country’ The Los Angeles Dodgers shelled out US$1 billion for Japanese talent in the off-season and it is paying off in the MLB playoffs. Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Friday outdueled Yu Darvish in a historic post-season matchup of Japanese-born starters, while the Dodgers got home runs from Kike Hernandez and Teoscar Hernandez to beat the San Diego Padres 2-0 and advance to the National League Championship Series. “It’s pretty sweet,” a smiling Freddie Freeman said. Yamamoto allowed two hits over five innings for the win, getting pulled after 63 pitches in a decisive Game 5 between heated NL West rivals who were meeting in a
RSS