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Maxi fires Argentina into last eight
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A dream team of first-round exits
Cafu set to break record
Dutch clinch title, India finish 3rd
Sharath storms into semis
Jeev finishes tied sixth
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Beckham bends it for England
Stuttgart, June 25 Victory means Sven-Goran Eriksson’s men now play either the Netherlands or Portugal in a quarter-final on Saturday at Gelsenkirchen. Beckham, whose free kick against Paraguay in their Group B opener was turned into his own net by captain Carlos Gamarra for a 1-0 win, became England's first player to score in three World Cups. England were playing in a 4-5-1 formation with Wayne Rooney as a lone striker and Michael Carrick making his competitive England debut as a holding midfielder. With Michael Owen out of the finals with a knee injury, the theory was to allow Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard to get forward in support of Rooney. The practice was that England failed to create a single goalscoring opportunity in a scrappy first half and were lucky not to go in at the break a goal down. John Terry’s poor headed interception after 11 minutes fell to Carlos Tenorio and the Ecuador striker had only keeper Paul
Robinson to beat. But Tenorio took a second too long and his deflected shot, under a challenge by Ashley Cole, hit the bar and flew over. Ecuador, who reverted to the side which beat Costa Rica 3-0 to reach the last 16, looked sharper with strike pair Agustin
Delgado and Tenorio back in the side. Edison Mendez was the next to give Robinson a fright with a fizzing free kick that ricocheted just wide of the post off
Delgado. England’s passing, which was often poor before the break, failed to improve afterwards, though Ecuador were no more incisive. Sven-Goran Eriksson’s men, who seemed intent on boring the South Americans into submission, finally got the breakthrough when Beckham’s free kick flashed past keeper Cristian Mora, grazing the inside of
the post. It brought the game to life and England were only let down by the final pass in their attempts to add a second on the break in the closing stages as Ecuador pushed forward.
— Reuters |
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Maxi fires Argentina into last eight
Leipzig, June 25 Regulation time had finished 1-1 after two goals in an action-packed first quarter of the game, but it was a moment’s brilliance from Rodriguez that ensured Mexico would not make their third ever World Cup quarterfinal. The Atletico Madrid midfielder chested down an innocuous Juan Sorin pass on the edge of the area, swivelled and fired a looping left-footed volley into the far top corner beyond the reach of diving goalkeeper Osvaldo Sanchez. “That was incredible,” said Rodriguez. “It was a really tough game, with Mexico making it very difficult for us but we came through in the end,” said Rodriguez, who raced ecstatically to his bench to be engulfed. “Now we are confident we can go further and beat anyone.” To do so they will now have to knock out the hosts. The early pressure of an enthralling match, however, had been all Mexican as the Argentinian midfield struggled with the pace of the game and it paid off in the sixth minute. Captain Rafael Marquez lost Gabriel Heinze to come rushing in to the far post unopposed to drive home a Pavel Pardo free-kick that had been headed superbly on by Mario Mendez from the near post. Argentina responded immediately, pressure from Hernan Crespo forcing Jared Borgetti, who was returning after missing the last two games through injury, to head Juan Riquelme’s swirling corner into his own net in the 10th minute. Lacking the incisive passing and running of Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez, both benched by coach Jose Pekerman despite their outstanding display in the goalless draw against the Netherlands, Argentina looked one-dimensional against the more dynamic Mexican side. Borgetti, who scored 14 goals in Mexico’s qualifying run, was a constant threat to Argentina, whose strikers were continually thwarted by the stout defending of the outstanding Marquez, Carlos Salcido, Ricardio Osario and Andres Guardado. Last-ditch defence by West Ham defender Lionel Scaloni deflected Borgetti’s header in the opening minutes, Heinze was forced into a sliding block on a vicious shot after 14 minutes, and goalkeeper Roberto Abbondanzieri then tipped a blistering 25-yard shot over the bar. Marquez was on hand in the 18th minute of a gripping game to parry a shot by Crespo after a slicing through ball from Esteban Cambiasso. Crespo was almost on the scoresheet five minutes later, the Chelsea striker’s lob off a delicate Cambiasso chip beating goalkeeper Oswaldo Sanchez but also the far post. The first-half ended in controversy when Heinze, who put in for him a rare sloppy performance in the first-half, miscontrolled a simple pass from Abbondanzieri and gifted the ball to Francisco Fonseca before hacking down the striker. Swiss referee Massimo Busacca doled out a yellow card for the Manchester United defender but it could easily been red. Fonseca had a clear chance in the 54th minute, failing to control a ball with just the Argentine keeper in front of him. Straight up the other end, Sanchez beat away a shot from Rodriguez, largely outmuscled until then. And Sanchez made the save of the match a minute later, showing great reflexes to parry a well-driven Javier Saviola shot around the post. — AFP
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Once banned, women are here to stay
Hanover, June 25 It’s a long way from the days when soccer was strictly men’s business, when female spectators were an oddity. The German soccer federation only lifted a ban on women in the sport in 1970. Three years later, the nation’s first female TV sports anchor was booed off the national stage by predominantly male viewers for getting the name of a Bundesliga team wrong. The decades-long exclusion of female fans and players bred a backslapping, violence-prone male soccer culture that put off even more women, said psychologist Ursula Kessels of the Freie Universitaet Berlin. But once the dam was breached, the women came to the sport in huge numbers. Germany’s national women’s team is No 1 in the world, ahead of the United States. The Germans won the 2003 World Cup and are six-time European champions. A women’s Bundesliga was formed in 1991. Today, 12 per cent of the 6.3 million members in Germany’s soccer clubs are women. Soccer has become the No 1 team sport for girls. One of the young players, 15-year-old Johanna Friebel, helped start her own team with three close friends in the central German village of Schlangen. She attends all home games of the nearby FC Paderborn, a second division club. One high-profile fan is normally subdued Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has attended every Germany game and has been captured in TV closeups raising her arms in joy over a goal. Yet in an interview earlier this year with Germany’s largest tabloid, she had to prove her soccer credentials. Asked by Bildzeitung if she knew the offside rules, she said she had expected such a question, then drew some diagrams for the journalists, passing the test. A TV commentator wondered out loud about the absence of Merkel’s husband, who stays out of the limelight and, according to the chancellor, doesn’t care much about soccer. Such role reversals would have been unlikely in the first two decades after World War II, when Germany rebuilt its shattered economy, but also was steeped in social conservatism. Until 1970, the national soccer federation (DFB) banned female teams. Federation chiefs argued that the sport was too aggressive for women. During the ban, a secret soccer culture flourished, with women organising teams and even holding unofficial international games, said Juergen Nendza, co-curator of an exhibit on women in soccer. In 1957, when the city of Munich provided a soccer field for such a tournament, it received an angry letter from the federation that it had “undermined the federation’s fight against ladies’ soccer,” according to the researcher. Yet, by the late 1960s, fuelled by the women’s and students’ movements, more than 40,000 women played soccer in Germany, he said. Under growing popular pressure, the federation lifted the ban. Today, several female reporters hold top sports jobs, including as TV anchor. Barnhofer, the federation spokesman, said the DFB supports women's soccer wholeheartedly. Yet women’s soccer is far from drawing level with the men’s game. On average, a women’s Bundesliga game draws just a few hundred spectators, compared with tens of thousands for the men.
— AP
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A dream team of first-round exits
Berlin, June 25 The trio feature in a ‘dream team’ of those players who left the tournament at the end of the initial phase, named by the fifaworldcup.com, the official website of the championship. The Czech Republic, which made an unexpected exit after finishing third in Group E, has four of their players in the team — goalkeeper Petr Cech, midfielders Pavel Nedved and Rosicky as also forward Milan Baros among the reserves. Didier Drogba of Ivory Coast finds a place in the dream eleven “for the skill, effort and leadership he has demonstrated.” The other striker is Mateja Kezman of Serbia and Montenegro.
— PTI
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Cafu set to break record
Bergisch Gladbach, June 25 The 36-year-old fullback will make his 19th appearance for Brazil in a World Cup finals, a national record, when he leads out the team and should they prevail over the classy African outfit break the record number of victories with 16. “To play 19 matches at the World Cup finals is a fabulous thing,” said Cafu, who would be appearing in his fourth successive final were Brazil to make it to the July 9 climax. “And 16 wins. I will be proud of this record,” added Cafu, who stands to become the first player to captain a side to two titles.
— AFP
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Dutch clinch title, India finish 3rd
Kuala Lumpur, June 25 In a shocking reversal of form, the Dutch, who had struggled right through the tournament, turned on the heat and scored at regular intervals to puncture the Aussie bubble. Attacking with great pace, power and precision, the Dutch scored through Roderick Weushtof (6th, 47th, 66th), Taeke Taekema (22nd), Teun de Nooijer (42nd) and Ronald Brouwer (52nd). Earlier in the day, India beat New Zealand 3-2 to finish third in the eight-nation tourney. Hari Prasad (8th, 35th) scored a brace while Sandeep Singh (43) also chipped in to star in India’s win. For New Zealand, Simon Child (7th) and Hayden Shaw (39th) netted the goals. It was India’s first podium finish since 2000 when they finished third behind Pakistan and Korea. Special prizes: Pakistan (Fair Play); Roderick Weushtof (The Netherlands, Player of the Tournament and Top scorer, 4 goals); Teun de Nooijer (The Netherlands, Man of the Match).
— PTI
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India on the backfoot
St Kitts, June 25 In this capital town, known as “Sugar City”, Laxman timed the ball with utmost sweetness. His driving in front of the wicket was sheer poetry in motion. If a bowler strayed on leg and middle stump, he dismissively worked it away to square leg as if with ball bearing on his wrists. Indeed, he admirably knuckled down to batting with the lower order after the specialist batsmen had deserted him. First, Mahendra Dhoni, adding 61 runs for the 6th wicket, and then Anil Kumble, realising another 77 for the 7th, resisted with him. But the tail was then exposed to a barrage of short-pitched deliveries. Brian Lara explained the slow rate of West Indies before lunch on the third day as deliberate tactics to ensure only the home side could win this test. That having been established, they were off to a dream start on the fourth morning, with Taylor, working up a lively pace, striking thrice in his first two overs of the morning as India tumbled from 157 for two to 159 for five. The biggest blow for the visitors was, of course, the dismissal of Rahul Dravid leg before wicket to an in-coming delivery. Then, Yuvraj Singh, distinctly out of sorts in this series, snicked to the wicket-keeper, before Mohammed Kaif was also adjudged lbw. Umpire Brian Jerling, the new man on the block in the International Cricket Council's elite panel, had shown himself to be stubbornly a not outer in the West Indian innings, refusing to uphold any of the appeals for lbw, including a couple of legitimate ones from Anil Kumble. In a visible volte face, he had became compulsively trigger happy in the Indian innings, consenting twice in as many overs. In the first instance, Dravid was, admittedly, palpably in front. But there was adequate doubt in Kaif's case even with the naked eye - for it was high and perhaps missing the leg stump - to award him the benefit. And the dreaded finger shot up again, as Mahendra Dhoni, too, was sent packing. It, again, looked doubtful and "hawk-eye", the technology used by television, confirmed the ball would have missed the leg stump. It was alien territory for Dhoni, who needed to curb his natural, aggressive instincts, as 382, the destination for India to avoid a follow on, was as not exactly on the horizon. He looked uncomfortable in this unfamiliar role, undecided as to whether he should attack or defend. He square drove twice for four. Later he punished a full toss from Dwayne Bravo for equal purchase. But in between, he edged through the slips; a couple of times he danced down to Bravo, but decided discretion was the better part of valour. The West Indian quicks operated with unusual discipline, maintaining an unwavering line just outside off-stump, as a thickly populated slip cordon waited in anticipation. It demanded day long concentration. Laxman was substantially but not wholly equal to this. Scoreboard West Indies (1st innings) Gayle b Patel 83 Ganga b Patel 135 Sarwan lbw Sreesanth 116 Lara lbw Patel 10 Chanderpaul not out 97 Bravo c Dhoni Samuels c Harbhajan Ramdin c Jaffer Taylor c Yuvraj Collins c Dravid Collymore b Harbhajan 0 Extras
(lb-14, w-1, nb-11) 26 Total (all out, 170 overs) 581 Fall of wickets:
1-143, 2-346, 3-356, 4-371, 5-406, 6-562, 7-570, 8-576, 9-581. Bowling:
Patel 32-4-134-3, Sreesanth 31-8-99-1, Kumble 47-8-140-0, Harbhajan 44-6-147-5, Sehwag 16-3-47-1. India (1st innings) Jaffer c Lara b Bravo 60 Sehwag c Lara Laxman not out 68 Dravid lbw Taylor 22 Yuvraj c Ramdin b Taylor 0 Kaif lbw Taylor 0 Dhoni lbw b Collymore 29 Kumble c Collins b Collymore 43 Harbhajan not out 20 Sreesanth c Lara b Collins 0 Patel not out 11 Extras
(b-4, lb-5, nb-13) 22 Total (9 wkts; 100 overs) 338 Fall of wickets:
1-61, 2-124, 3-157, 4-159, 5-159, 6-220, 7-297, 8-311, 9-315. Bowling:
Taylor 25-3-101-3, Collins 29-4-117-2, Collymore 25-4-63-3, Bravo 15-4-38-1, Gayle 2-0-3-0, Samuels 4-0-7-0.
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Sharath storms into semis
New Delhi, June 25 Sharath scored a convincing 4-1 victory over Christophe Bertin, packing off the Frenchman 11-8, 7-11, 11-9,12-10, 11-3 to book his maiden semis appearance in the pro-tour circuit. In the battle for a berth in the final, Sharath meets another first-timer Korean Lee Jin Kwon, who beat Canada’s Zhang Peng 12-10, 11-9, 11-8, 8-11, 14-12. The 23-year-old lanky paddler from Chennai, who had bagged both the singles and team event gold at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in March, thus achieved a new high in his career. “My attack was strong today, I was powerful,” said Sharath, ranked 124, after the match. “The fourth game was crucial in the match. I was leading by two games to one but Christophe was ahead 10-7. I won the next five points and that turned the match in my favour,” he said. Bertin had caused an upset in the second round, beating third seed Bojan Tokic of Slovenia. But the Indian, who is aiming to break into the top 50 this year, had read the Frenchman’s game well and made him play his weak forehand by pushing him backwards. Table Tennis Federation of India Secretary Mool Chand Chowhan termed Sharath’s achievement as a proud moment for Indian table tennis.
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Jeev finishes tied sixth
Tokyo, June 25 Korea’s S K Ho was a comfortable winner as he carded a final round of 71 and a total of 14-under 274 to win by three shots over Japan’s Tatsu Ichihara (69) and David Smail (71). Wayne Perske (66) and Kiyoshi Maita (71) were tied fourth at 10-under 278. Jeev was in the bunch for tied sixth at eight-under 280 along with Thai Thammannoon Srirot (70) and two Japanese players — Tomhiro Kondo (70) and Tohsinori Muto (70). “That was disappointing,” said Jeev, who earlier this year missed out on a spot by one place at the International Qualifiers in Singapore.
— PTI
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