With a mazy 90m run and a clinical finish, Tottenham Hotspur’s Micky van de Ven on Tuesday might have already scored the goal of the season in their 4-0 win against Copenhagen in the UEFA Champions League.
The defender collected the ball on the edge of his own area and set off on a dazzling run that saw him burst through two Copenhagen players, go round another near the halfway line, then surge into the area before curling a left-footed shot inside the near post.
The 64th-minute solo goal made it 3-0 to Tottenham and was Van de Ven’s sixth goal this season.
Photo: AFP
Not bad for a centerback.
“To be honest, I saw a little gap in front of me, so I was like: ‘OK, I start dribbling now and see if they catch up,’” the Netherlands international said. “I saw the space every time, more and more, and I felt like I’m through now and I go for goal.”
“I just felt I could keep going and going. And I did,” he said.
Photo: Reuters
Tottenham manager Thomas Frank was fulsome with his praise.
“That could be goal of the season, definitely,” Frank said. “It was like Lionel Messi transformed into a centerback.”
Elsewhere, Bayern Munich won a blockbuster matchup, making it 16 straight victories in all competitions with a 2-1 win against defending champions Paris Saint-Germain to underline the German side’s status as perhaps the new leading force in European soccer.
Photo: EPA
Bayern oozed quality in the first half before showing resilience in the second half to hold on with 10 men at the Parc des Princes on a night of mixed fortunes for Luis Diaz.
The former Liverpool winger produced clinical finishes in the fourth and 32nd minutes to power the Bundesliga champions into a 2-0 lead, only to mar his display with a reckless lunge from behind on PSG rightback Achraf Hakimi in first-half stoppage-time.
Diaz was sent off after a video review and Hakimi hobbled out of the game with an injured left ankle.
PSG, who had already seen Ballon d’Or winner Ousmane Dembele come off hurt, reduced the deficit through substitute Joao Neves and Bayern endured some nervy moments before clinching yet another win.
Midway through the fourth round of league-stage games, only Bayern and Arsenal are on a maximum 12 points.
Arsenal swept to a 3-0 win against Slavia Prague, bringing 15-year-old Max Dowman off the bench to make him the youngest player in Champions League history.
It was quite the night for Arsenal in Prague. It was their eighth straight clean sheet, tying a 122-year record, and their fourth straight win.
Bukayo Saka converted a penalty and Mikel Merino added two second-half goals.
Arsenal are yet to concede a goal in the Champions League and have matched their best-ever streak for shutouts, which was recorded in 1903 when they were in the second tier of English soccer.
Dowman, aged 15 years and 308 days, entered as a second-half substitute for the Premier League leaders for his latest record-setting salvo.
Juventus are still waiting for their first win of the league stage after coming from behind to draw 1-1 with Sporting in Luciano Spalletti’s first Champions League game since taking over as coach.
The former Italy and SSC Napoli coach watched the team’s poor start as Maximiliano Araujo fired in off the far post in the 12th minute.
Francisco Trincao struck the crossbar just afterward, leaving Spalletti with his arms outstretched on the sideline.
Dusan Vlahovic equalized in the 34th minute.
Julian Alvarez, Conor Gallagher and Marcos Llorente scored a goal each as Atletico Madrid defeated Union Saint-Gilloise 3-1 at home.
It was Atletico’s second win.
AS Monaco won 1-0 against Bodo/Glimt thanks to US international Folarin Balogun’s first-half strike, their first victory of the campaign.
Goals were expected, but none arrived in a 0-0 draw between Napoli and visiting Eintracht Frankfurt.
Napoli were coming off a 6-2 loss to PSV Eindhoven two weeks ago, but were without their most creative player in Kevin de Bruyne, who has undergone surgery on his right hamstring.
It marked an end to Frankfurt’s remarkable run of three 5-1 results in this season’s competition, with the German team having been on the receiving end of two of them.
In the night’s other match, US striker Ricardo Pepi scored in the third minute of stoppage-time for PSV to salvage a 1-1 draw against Olympiakos.
Wilyer Abreu watched the ball leave the park and tossed his bat high in the air. His Venezuela teammates streamed out of the dugout in celebration. The comeback was on and the win over the reigning World Baseball Classic (WBC) champion Japan was within reach. Japan, their 11-game WBC winning streak on the line, held a 5-4 lead in the sixth inning of Saturday’s thrilling quarter-final matchup when Abreu put his team ahead with the biggest swing of the game: a three-run shot off Hiromi Itoh that sent the loanDepot Park crowd into a passionate roar and helped seize Venezuela’s 8-5
A BREATHLESS BATTLE: France clinched the championship in a vicious back-and-forth match with England, denying Ireland the title by just a few points France won back-to-back Six Nations titles after beating England 48-46 on a last-second penalty-kick by Thomas Ramos in a thriller for the ages on Saturday. England scored their seventh try in the 77th minute and converted for 46-45. If the score held for a few more minutes, Ireland would have been crowned the champion. But France pressed yet again with 14 men, lost possession, regained it, and earned two simultaneous penalties after the fulltime siren. Captain Antoine Dupont debated with referee Nika Amashukeli where the penalty spots were. Ramos, who did not miss a goal-kick all night, finally lined up his seventh
Home runs are greeted with a celebratory shot of espresso and the donning of an Armani jacket. Victories are marked with bottles of red wine while the soaring voice of opera singer Andrea Bocelli echoes through the locker room. Welcome to baseball, Italian-style. Written off as 80-1 underdogs before the World Baseball Classic started, Italy’s fairytale tournament has carried them all the way to today’s (Taipei time) semi-finals in Miami against Venezuela. On Saturday, Italy — who scored a stunning upset of a star-studded US lineup during the pool phase — kept their unbeaten campaign alive with a nail-biting 8-6
Kimi Antonelli became Formula 1’s second-youngest race winner with a composed drive to victory for Mercedes in an eventful Chinese Grand Prix yesterday. The 19-year-old Italian was the youngest pole position starter and briefly lost the lead to Lewis Hamilton of Ferrari at the start, but retook it soon after and was in control after that. “We did it! We did it!” Antonelli shouted to his team on the radio amid laughs and whoops. It was another 1-2 finish for Mercedes to start the season as Antonelli’s teammate George Russell came through a battle with both Ferraris to finish second. Lewis Hamilton was
RSS