Julio Enciso’s stunning long-range strike on Wednesday secured Brighton & Hove Albion’s qualification for the Europa League in a 1-1 draw with Manchester City.
The Paraguay international unleashed an unstoppable effort from about 25m to even the score after Phil Foden had fired Premier League champions City ahead at the Amex Stadium.
A point means Brighton are guaranteed to finish sixth, their highest-ever final position in English soccer’s top flight.
Photo: AP
It marks an outstanding first season in charge for manager Roberto de Zerbi, who only took over from Graham Potter in September last year after the former Brighton boss left for Chelsea.
“It’s a fantastic goal, we achieved an incredible target,” De Zerbi said. “Man City is the best team in the world. For us it was a very tough game. We deserve the point. We deserve the Europa League.”
The club faced an uncertain future at the time, but have gone on to flourish under the Italian, who also led the team to the semi-finals of the FA Cup this season.
Sixth place beats Brighton’s previous highest finish of ninth, which they achieved under Potter last year.
“You never know in the early part of the season what may happen when you hire a new coach,” Brighton chairman Tony Bloom said. “Fortunately we hired the perfect man. The players have taken to him so magnificently. His motivational skills, tactical skills and getting the best out of our players has been absolutely superb.”
The draw ended City’s 12-game winning streak in the league, which had seen Pep Guardiola’s team overhaul long-time leaders Arsenal at the top and win a fifth title six years.
With a third league championship already wrapped up, City had little to play for other than improving their points total.
“The game we played, 48 hours after we drank all the alcohol in Manchester, 48 hours later we behaved and we showed why we were the champions against that team,” Guardiola joked in reference to City’s title celebrations on Sunday.
Having rested a number of his star players against Chelsea on Sunday, Guardiola recalled Erling Haaland and Kevin de Bruyne to his starting lineup, with John Stones, Rodri, Ilkay Gundogan and Bernardo Silva also back.
Haaland twice had chances to open the scoring before turning provider for Foden to put City ahead in the 25th minute.
At the other end, Danny Welbeck had already hit the crossbar with a free-kick.
The equalizer came from Enciso and it was a strike worthy of sending his team to the heights of the Europa League as he launched a right-footed shot into the top corner in the 38th minute.
Haaland thought he had scored his 53rd goal of the season with a late header, but it was ruled out by the video assistant referee after he was adjudged to have pulled Levi Colwill’s shirt beforehand.
LEGAL ACTION: The Suns said they were among the first teams approved for this season, but they had been asked to meet a stricter financial criterion afterward The Taichung Suns will not play in the T1 League’s 2023-2024 season after repeatedly failing to meet criteria regarding team finances, the professional basketball league said in a statement on Friday. The T1 League said that following the decision on the Suns, made at the league’s 22nd executive council meeting, it would postpone a planned news conference on Wednesday to discuss the upcoming season. A source familiar with the league’s operations told reporters that the Suns had been asked at two previous meetings of the T1 League’s executive council to provide evidence proving the franchise had the requisite finances. The announcement of the
‘NOTHING HAS CHANGED’: Jenni Hermoso said that the striking players had been ‘caught by surprise’ by the call-ups, saying it was a strategy to intimidate them Striking Spanish internationals called up to the women’s team on Monday reiterated their desire not to form part of the squad in a new blow for the shaken the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF). However, they were told by the government early yesterday that those who did not attend the team’s camps when called up would have to be punished. Spanish National Sports Council president Victor Francos said he would have to apply the country’s sports law. “If they don’t turn up, the government would have to apply the law, which is a pity for me, but the law is the
EARLY LOSSES: Some sports have already started at the Asian Games in Hangzhou ahead of the opening ceremony on Saturday, including volleyball, with a Taiwan loss South Korea’s bid for a third straight men’s gold medal in soccer at the Asian Games got off to the perfect start with a 9-0 thrashing of Kuwait on Tuesday, but coach Hwang Sun-hong is giving his players little time to enjoy it. With a more testing group match against Thailand today, Hwang is wary of complacency creeping in after his side ran riot against Kuwait in Jinhua, China, southwest of host city Hangzhou. “We’ll pretend this match never happened,” Hwang said after the Kuwait game, Yonhap news agency reported. “We have even more difficult matches coming up later, and we have
Hong Kong is one of the smaller Asian Games teams by population, but when it comes to fencing the territory is a regional heavyweight with ambitious medal hopes. Edgar Cheung won gold at the Tokyo Games two years ago — Hong Kong’s first Olympic fencing title and first Olympic gold in any sport in 25 years. It turned Cheung into a celebrity overnight and prompted parents across the territory to rush and sign their children up for fencing classes. Cheung’s historic win in the foil competition was a much-needed dose of good news for a territory mired in social unrest and COVID-19 gloom
RSS