Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) have shown the team do not need star power to win trophies and with the French Ligue 1 title won with six games to spare, the French champions would look to finish the season without losing, manager Luis Enrique said on Saturday.
A 1-0 victory over Angers SCO at the Parc des Princes helped PSG win their fourth straight Ligue 1 title and a record-extending 13th overall.
PSG can still break Nantes’ 30-year-old record of 32 games unbeaten. Although Nantes lost one game en route to the title, no French club has ever gone an entire league campaign without losing.
Photo: Reuters
“Celebrating a title in early April shows that we’ve reached a very high level this season. We’ve achieved this target, but we have more games to play,” Luis Enrique told reporters.
“We are motivated to try and finish this season unbeaten,” he said. “Nobody has done that in France before, so that’s something that we want to achieve. That would help us in the [UEFA] Champions League and the Coupe de France.”
LA LIGA
Photo: Reuters
AFP, MADRID
Barcelona failed to break down a frantic Real Betis defense as they were held to a 1-1 draw in Spanish La Liga on Saturday, but still gained ground on Real Madrid who earlier conceded deep into added time to lose 2-1 at home to Valencia.
Barcelona moved four points ahead of Real Madrid atop La Liga. Both teams face UEFA Champions League first-leg ties this week, Real visit Arsenal tomorrow and Barcelona play in Borussia Dortmund the following evening.
Barcelona cut open Betis in the seventh minute and Gavi slid the ball past goalkeeper Adrian from inside the six-yard box.
However, the hosts were unable to turn a series of lively attacks into goals. Instead, the visitors hit back after 16 minutes when center back Natan Souza escaped the clutches of his defender to head home a Giovani Lo Celso corner.
Barcelona besieged the Betis goal in the second half, but were denied by a combination of dogged defending, strong goalkeeping from Adrian and some agonizing near misses.
“La Liga is more complicated, but we have to fight until the last game,” Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti said.
“They didn’t need to do much to score two goals,” he said. “We took risks at the end and found ourselves hit on the counter-attack.
“We’ve had deserved defeats this season, but I don’t think we lacked attitude today,” he added. “It’s not a deserved defeat. We created lots of chances, but lacked a little effectiveness.”
The victory lifted Valencia to 15th, seven points clear of the bottom three.
PREMIER LEAGUE
AFP, LONDON
Arsenal’s faint hopes of catching Premier League leaders Liverpool are almost over after their 1-1 draw at Everton, while Wolverhampton Wanderers pushed Ipswich Town closer to relegation with a 2-1 win on Saturday.
Leandro Trossard’s opener for the Gunners was canceled out by Iliman Ndiaye’s penalty to leave Arsenal trailing 11 points behind Liverpool.
With just two wins in their last six league matches, Arsenal have tamely surrendered in the title race and are destined to go another year without their first English crown since 2004.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta had said the best preparation for his side’s UEFA Champions League quarter-final first leg against Real Madrid would be to win at Goodison Park.
However, the Spaniard showed he had one eye on the visit of the European champions with his team selection.
Bukayo Saka was forced to wait for his first start since December last year as the England international was left on the bench alongside Martin Odegaard, Gabriel Martinelli, Jurrien Timber and Thomas Partey.
Wolves effectively sealed their survival and left Ipswich on the brink of relegation with a 2-1 win at Portman Road.
Vitor Pereira’s side trailed to Liam Delap’s 16th-minute goal as the striker swept in Dara O’Shea’s knockdown.
However, Pablo Sarabia drilled into the bottom corner to haul Wolves level in the 72nd minute, before Jorgen Strand Larsen prodded home on 84 minutes for his fourth goal in his last three games.
Crystal Palace beat Brighton & Hove Albion 2-1 despite finishing with nine men in a bruising battle featuring three red cards at Selhurst Park.
Evanilson scored twice as AFC Bournemouth drew 2-2 with West Ham United at the London Stadium.
Aston Villa defeated Nottingham Forest 2-1 in Saturday’s late game.
TITLE CAMPAIGN: The victory sent the Monkeys to the Taiwan Series for the third time in the past four seasons as they seek their first championship since 2019 The stage is set for the Taiwan Series after the Rakuten Monkeys on Monday beat the Uni-President Lions 4-3 in Game 5 of the CPBL Challenger Series in Kaohsiung. The Monkeys, who entered the top of the ninth scoreless, tied the game with a three-run blast by Lin Chih-ping and scored the winning run in the 10th on an RBI single by Lin Li, a three-time batting champion in the CPBL. Both players entered the game as pinch hitters. “The coach told me to stay prepared as a pinch hitter in the later part of the game. My teammates had
The Ministry of Sports on Wednesday night called for the Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA) to address issues in Taiwanese soccer after national manager Huang Che-ming on Tuesday resigned following Taiwan’s elimination in AFC Asian Cup qualifiers. Taiwan on Tuesday were thrashed 6-1 by Thailand in their Group D tie at Taipei Municipal Stadium. Taiwan finished with no points, after losing all four of their matches, eliminating them from qualifying for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup. Huang made his surprise resignation at a post-match news conference, following three losses since he took over the team from English coach Gary White in August. Huang
HIT AND RUN: Toronto manager John Schneider got his wish that his team ‘find some slug in the air out here,’ as the Blue Jays combined to total 611m of homers Tired in Toronto, the Blue Jays slugged in Seattle. Vladimir Guerrero Jr and George Springer on Wednesday woke up the Jays, as Toronto hit five home runs to rebound from an early deficit, routing the Mariners 13-4 and closing to 2-1 in the American League Championship Series (ALCS). Toronto had 18 hits — all within the first three pitches of each at-bat. “If they give us a first pitch, the pitch that we’re looking for, we’re going to attack and we’re going to be aggressive,” Guerrero said. Seattle starter George Kirby gave up eight of the hits. “I wasn’t really executing when they got
For a second straight day, protests by La Liga players against staging a regular-season game in Miami, Florida, in December were censored or not fully broadcast for television audiences. The television feed of Barcelona’s home game against Girona switched right before kickoff to an exterior view of the stadium, which only showed part of the field from a distance. That impeded home audiences from seeing the teams’ players standing still for the first 15 seconds in opposition to La Liga’s plan to hold the Barcelona-Villarreal game across the Atlantic on Dec. 20. The broadcasts of the initial moments after kickoff of the
RSS