Fernandes gives Man United 1-0 win over Southampton in EPL

Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes celebrates scoring their first goal with teammates during their Premier League match against Southampton at St. Mary’s Stadium, Southampton, on Saturday. (Reuters)

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Updated 27 August 2022

August 27, 2022 17:12

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Fernandes gives Man United 1-0 win over Southampton in EPL

United have now won consecutive league matches for the first time since February
It was also the team’s first clean sheet of the season

Updated 27 August 2022

August 27, 2022 17:12

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SOUTHAMPTON, England: Manchester United’s stand-in captain Bruno Fernandes made their back-to-back wins for Erik ten Hag’s team by scoring the only goal in a 1-0 victory over Southampton in the Premier League on Saturday.
Wearing the captain’s armband in place of the still-benched Harry Maguire, Fernandes steered in a cross from Diogo Dalot in the 55th minute as United followed up Monday’s win over Liverpool with another morale-boosting performance.
Having started the season with two straight losses — including a 4-0 drubbing at Brentford — United have now won consecutive league matches for the first time since February.
It was also the team’s first clean sheet of the season, thanks in part to David de Gea’s reflex save to keep out a header from Joe Aribo in the 66th.
It’s a result that will give a bit more breathing space to Ten Hag, the Dutch manager who faced a torrent of criticism and skepticism after the team’s dismal start to the campaign.
Ten Hag’s decisions to leave Maguire and star forward Cristiano Ronaldo on the bench were vindicated once again, with center-back pairing Lisandro Martinez and Raphael Varane looking solid in defense.
United did struggle to create quality chances in the first half, although Ten Hag was shaking his head in disbelief that his team didn’t go ahead in the 20th minute when they had three shots on goal from close range in the span of a few seconds.
Anthony Elanga’s effort from a tight angle was saved by goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu before Fernandes and Christian Eriksen both had their follow-up shots blocked by diving defenders.
Southampton had their best first-half chance on the half-hour mark when a corner fell to Armel Bella-Kotchap at the back post, but he lifted it over the crossbar.
United started stronger in the second half and got the goal after a well-worked move down the right flank. Dalot lifted a cross into the area and Fernandes was on hand to sidefoot it inside the far post.
Ronaldo and United’s new signing Casemiro — the Portugal star’s former teammate at Real Madrid — both came on in the second half.
Substitute Sekou Mara had two chances to equalize for Southampton in injury time, but his spectacular overhead kick was blocked by Dalot and he sidefooted another effort wide of the post a minute later.

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Tough night for Green Falcons in Venezuela friendly defeat

Updated 41 min 29 sec ago

John Duerden

March 25, 2023 00:27

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Tough night for Green Falcons in Venezuela friendly defeat

Plenty of energy and effort from the hosts but they struggled to create clear and meaningful chances

Updated 41 min 29 sec ago

John Duerden

March 25, 2023 00:27

JEDDAH: The last time Saudi Arabia met South American opposition, the West Asian powerhouse shocked billions by coming from behind to defeat eventual champions Argentina at the World Cup in November.

On Friday, however, there was no such comeback as the Green Falcons were brought down to earth with a bump as they lost 2-1 to Venezuela in Jeddah.

Much of the damage was done in the first half as the visitors, who defeated Herve Renard’s men 1-0 last June in the build up to the Qatar tournament, gave the hosts a lesson in clinical finishing.

It meant that this homecoming after the World Cup was not quite what anyone had in mind. There was plenty of energy and effort from the hosts but they struggled to create clear and meaningful chances against a determined opponent though, in the end, they came close to equalizing.

The first goal came 26 minutes from Josef Martinez. Salomon Rondon floated a ball over from the left and Martinez, at full stretch, volleyed home with a low shot from the edge of the area.

Just eight minutes later, Rondon, now playing his club football for River Plate in Argentina after leaving the English Premier League, made it two.

The former Everton star received the ball 18 yards out, and then turned smartly to fire a low shot into the bottom corner. It could have been worse for Saudi Arabia as, three minutes before the break, Martinez’s second goal was ruled out by VAR.

For the hosts in the first half, Haroune Camara came closest to getting the home fans on their feet but the shot from the Al-Ittihad forward was saved by Alain Baroja in the Venezuelan goal.

As the second half progressed coach Renard, who has been linked recently with the vacant France women’s national team position, threw on a number of substitutes.

Just after the hour as Abdullah Al-Khaibari, who scored his first goal for Al-Nassr recently in a 3-1 win over Abha, replacing Hussein Al-Qahtani and Camara came off for his Al-Ittihad club colleague Abdulaziz Al-Bishi

Almost immediately, Saudi Arabia thought that they had a penalty as Samuel Sosa barged over Saleh Al-Shehri in the area. After VAR took a look, the appeal was waved away.

Then, with 17 minutes remaining, Salem Al-Dawsari pulled a goal back in style. The 30 year-old, who scored the winning goal against Argentina, received the ball with his back to goal just inside the area and then turned quickly to curl a lovely shot into the corner to get the fans in Jeddah cheering and believing.

Now there was a new sense of urgency from the players in green and soon after, Baroja was diving to save a twisting header from Abdullah Al-Hamdan.

The goalkeeper was busy again three minutes from the end, palming away a powerful header from Al-Shehri. As much as the two-time Asian champions tried, however, they could not get the all important second goal.

Despite all their efforts, it wasn’t quite enough. With the Asian Cup taking place next January, the result was not the most important aspect of this game but Saudi Arabia will look to get back to winning ways against Bolivia on Tuesday.

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Topics: football soccer Saudi Arabia Saudi National Team Venezuela

Jabeur crashes out to Gracheva in Miami

Updated 24 March 2023

AFP

March 24, 2023 22:17

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Jabeur crashes out to Gracheva in Miami

Tunisian Jabeur, beaten finalist at Wimbledon and the US Open last year, has been working her way back from injury
Jabeur underwent surgery after suffering a knee injury at the Australian Open

Updated 24 March 2023

AFP

March 24, 2023 22:17

MIAMI GARDENS, United States: Fourth seed Ons Jabeur crashed out of the Miami Open on Friday, losing her opening match to Russian qualifier Varvara Gracheva 6-2, 6-2.
Tunisian Jabeur, beaten finalist at Wimbledon and the US Open last year, has been working her way back from injury and on her return earlier this month went out in the third round at Indian Wells.
Jabeur underwent surgery after suffering a knee injury at the Australian Open, and subsequently missed the WTA Tour’s Middle East swing.
She looked well short of her best against the 22-year-old Gracheva and had two medical visits during the one hour 11 minute match.
The win was the biggest scalp yet for Gracheva, who earlier this month reached her first WTA final, losing in Austin to Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk.
“The plan was, of course like all matches, to be as stable as possible, to try to make her work as much points as possible, and of course wait for comfortable ones to attack,” Gracheva said after her third career win over a top ten opponent.
“I’ve just probably caught this wave where I’m stable, where I always have a chance to play my game, be aggressive, cause troubles for the others by the game style. I’ve just got to try to keep rolling on this way,” she added.
Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic advanced with a 6-2, 6-4 win over China’s Wang Xinyu and her compatriot Barbora Krejcikova also enjoyed a straight sets win, 6-3, 6-2 against Belarusian Aliaksandra Sasnovic.

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Topics: Ons Jabeur Miami Open

Thomas Tuchel: brilliant tactician with ‘challenging’ streak

Updated 24 March 2023

AFP

March 24, 2023 21:34

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Thomas Tuchel: brilliant tactician with ‘challenging’ streak

The 49-year-old former Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain coach has a reputation as a brilliant tactician who is not afraid to overhaul his side constantly
Yet Tuchel's turbulent CV has also shown that he has the capacity to bounce back to lead subsequent top flight clubs

Updated 24 March 2023

AFP

March 24, 2023 21:34

MUNICH, Germany: Welcomed with fanfare by Chelsea but then sacked just over a year later, Thomas Tuchel, who is returning to Germany as Bayern Munich’s new coach, is one of Europe’s most sought-after bosses but is not without controversy.
The 49-year-old former Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain coach has a reputation as a brilliant tactician who is not afraid to overhaul his side constantly.
But he also has a streak of sackings behind him — with a bad-tempered exit at Borussia Dortmund in 2017 followed by an acrimonious parting from PSG in December 2020, and most recently in September, a tumultous departure from Chelsea.
Yet Tuchel’s turbulent CV has also shown that he has the capacity to bounce back to lead subsequent top flight clubs.
The announcement Friday that he is taking over the reins at Bayern, Germany’s most successful club, from Julian Nagelsmann is yet another testimony to Tuchel’s employability.
“Tuchel is not interested in marketing, in his image. He is interested by his work, he just wants to be judged by his work and only that,” said Daniel Meuren, who wrote a biography on the German coach.
On the field, the verdict so far is unanimous — every club that Tuchel has handled has obtained results and play attractive football.
He led Chelsea to Champions League glory, won two French titles with PSG and lifted the German Cup with Dortmund.
At once charismatic and prickly, Tuchel, by his own admission, can be a challenging personality.
“I wasn’t easy to deal with as a player,” he admitted in a 2009 interview.
A knee injury cut short Tuchel’s playing career as a defender at third-division Ulm in 1998 and he turned his hand to coaching.
He cut his coaching teeth in the youth academies at VfB Stuttgart and Augsburg but his career took off at Mainz where he was promoted from Under-19s boss to first-team head coach two days before the start of the 2009-2010 season despite having no Bundesliga experience.
Like his role model, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola, Tuchel is not afraid to switch formation or tactics two or three times during a game, making it impossible for opposing coaches to second-guess him.
But he is also not shy about picking fights with club management.
After a pipe bomb attack that rocked Dortmund’s team bus ahead of a Champions League quarter-final match against Monaco in 2017, Tuchel lashed out at the club’s bosses for agreeing to play the game a day later rather than give players more time to recover from the shock.
At Qatar-owned PSG, the central issue for Tuchel was his relationship with sporting director Leonardo, with whom he did not see eye-to-eye and who was eager to bring in his own man.
Tuchel was eventually pushed out, despite having won the Ligue 1 title in his first season and then, in 2019/20, he secured a clean sweep of domestic honors before reaching the Champions League final in Lisbon, where PSG lost narrowly to Bayern Munich.
Given his record, his relationship with Bayern’s sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic and outspoken chairman and former Germany goalkeeper Oliver Kahn will be closely scrutinized.
After all, it was also Salihamidzic and Hansi Flick’s tense relationship that eventually led the former coach to leave Bayern to become Germany’s national coach in the summer of 2021.

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Topics: Bayern Munich Thomas Tuchel Julian Nagelsmann Bundesliga

FIFA ranking is start of something special for Saudi women’s football, says federation chief

Saudi women’s national team were officially recognized by FIFA in their world rankings for the first time. (Supplied/SAFF)

Updated 24 March 2023

Paul Williams

March 24, 2023 18:40

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FIFA ranking is start of something special for Saudi women’s football, says federation chief

The Green Falcons enter the rankings for the first time at No. 171 after nine international matches over the last year

Updated 24 March 2023

Paul Williams

March 24, 2023 18:40

JEDDAH: “This is just the start of something very special.”

Those were the words of Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) president and FIFA council member Yasser Al-Misehal after the Saudi women’s national team were officially recognized by FIFA in their world rankings for the first time.

With 188 nations now included in the list of FIFA’s women’s world rankings, Saudi Arabia have made their debut at 171; a respectable placement considering their relative lack of experience, highlighting the significant development that has taken place in women’s football in the Kingdom since 2019 when the SAFF first developed the Women’s Football Department, headed by Lamia Bahaian.

“Our national team made history when it was established 18 months ago and since then their journey has inspired millions across Saudi Arabia and the region,” said Bahaian, the supervisor of the Women’s Football Department and SAFF board member.

“Entering the FIFA rankings (is what) we’ve been building towards, and signals just the beginning of what we want to achieve with these girls. They can write their own history now.

“We are also already in active collaborations with many global bodies and federations and invite the world to join in our women’s football movement as we strive to give it the platform it truly deserves.”

The official recognition continues the rapid development of the women’s game within the Kingdom, which has seen unprecedented growth in the past two years. It also means the team can now enter both FIFA- and AFC-sanctioned events.

“What these girls achieved in just a year and a half has been nothing short of incredible,” said a very proud Al-Misehal. “Since 2019 we have managed to successfully establish a national team, a premier league, a first division, a school league — with 50,000 girls signing up, and an under-17 national team.

“In just two years, we have nearly doubled the number of registered players, clubs, referees and staff and seen an 800 percent growth in the number of coaches. (These are) statistics all of football can be proud of and it just shows what is possible when you love the game.”

Most significantly, at a time when many national associations are at war with their players over equal pay and treatment, including a number that will compete at this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, Al-Misehal says the SAFF is determined to ensure their female players are treated the same as their male counterparts.

“We are fully committed to offering equal opportunities for boys and girls, in sport and beyond,” he said.

“For instance, our national teams get equal daily allowances while representing their country, regardless of gender. They share the same training pitches, stay in the same quality accommodation, and have access to the same equipment and resources.”

To get to this point, it has been an 18-month journey that began with the formation of the team in September 2021, after more than 700 players took part in nationwide tryouts in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam.

Assessing each of those players was Monika Staab, the veteran German manager and ex-player, who took on the Herculean task of starting the national team from scratch, ultimately giving 28 players the honor of being the first to be selected for the national team’s first training camp in Riyadh in November of that year.

It wasn’t until a few months later that they played their first official matches in a three-team tournament with the Maldives and Seychelles, winning both of their fixtures 2-0.

Since then there have been a further seven official matches and Saudi Arabia also hosted (and won) its inaugural women’s football tournament against Pakistan, Comoros and Mauritius earlier this year. Staab has now moved into the technical director’s role with Finland’s Rosa Lappi-Seppälä becoming coach.

“Each player has their own story, but what we all share is a love of football and a desire to compete,” national team captain Sarah Khalid said.

“To be FIFA ranked makes us part of world football and that means everything. We recognize that we have a huge responsibility to inspire the youth and pave the way for the future generations who will represent Saudi Arabia.”

Having achieved official recognition, the focus now turns to the future and building a sustainable women’s football program.

To that end, the under-17 national team was recently formed, playing their first matches earlier this month against Kuwait. The next fixtures for the senior team are currently being arranged as they look to improve on their inaugural ranking.

The focus remains on Saudi Arabia’s bid to host the 2026 AFC Women’s Asian Cup, aiming to become just the second West Asian nation to host the tournament and fast-tracking the growth of women’s football within the Kingdom.

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Topics: football soccer Saudi Arabia Saudi women football players Women's Football

NEOM McLaren Extreme E Team looking to build on Season 3 opener

Updated 24 March 2023

Arab News

March 24, 2023 12:02

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NEOM McLaren Extreme E Team looking to build on Season 3 opener

Emma Gilmour, Tanner Foust finished Saudi Desert X Prix with 14 points in 7th place

Updated 24 March 2023

Arab News

March 24, 2023 12:02

RIYADH: As the championship’s 10 teams got behind the wheel at the Season 3 opener, NEOM McLaren Extreme E looked to pick up where they left off with a podium finish at the Season 2 finale in Uruguay.

The 3.4-kilometer course of the 2023 Desert X Prix in NEOM provided the first of the challenges in what promises to be the most tightly fought season to date.

A hectic Qualifying 1 on Saturday saw McLaren’s Emma Gilmour and Tanner Foust experience a frustrating start to their Season 3 campaign. Albeit running in P3 in Qualifying 1, the driver pairing ultimately finished fifth in the first session, suffering a Switch Zone penalty as they also adjusted to the course.

Bouncing back with a stronger performance in qualifying, the NEOM McLaren Extreme E Team finished their heat in third place. It was not enough to escape the Redemption Race, however, as the team finished sixth in the overall qualifying standings – one spot short of a place in the grand final.

Having won the Crazy Race in spectacular fashion at last year’s Desert X Prix, Foust and Gilmour were no strangers to battling it out against the best of the rest in NEOM.

Foust enjoyed a great start to the series’ first ever Redemption Race, but multiple incidents including Nasser Al-Attiyah’s ABT CUPRA XE car rolling over the top of Foust’s ODYSSEY 21, saw the race red flagged.

In the chaos, Heikki Kovalainen had taken the lead for JBXE, but as the race resumed Gilmour used her ENOWA Hyperdrive to close the gap on Hedda Hosas and overtake the JBXE driver as NEOM McLaren Extreme E Team won the Redemption Race and secured valuable championship points.

Foust said: “We certainly didn’t disappoint on the extreme side. We started off with some pretty aggressive set-up changes due to the lack of track time we have in this series. We unfortunately lost a bit of time in the process in Qualifying 1, but then showed good pace for the rest of the day.

“The team were fantastic, repairing the car, enabling us to improve, and we won the Redemption Race making us the best of the rest.”

Round 2 offered a chance to use the momentum from that race win for a better qualifying stint, with plenty of racing and points opportunities still on the table in NEOM.

Sunday was another challenging day for the NEOM McLaren Extreme E Team, with fourth and third-place finishes in their respective qualifying heats meaning the team narrowly missed out on Round 2’s grand final.

Running in second and fighting for points once again in the Redemption Race, Foust and Gilmour nearly gained an all-important two championship points from the Continental Traction Challenge as they pushed hard for another Redemption Race win.

Closing out their weekend with second place in Round 2’s Redemption Race saw the NEOM McLaren Extreme E Team come away from Saudi Arabia having accrued a total of 14 points and in seventh place in the championship standings.

Gilmour said: “It was a slightly frustrating day and it’s a shame that we have not come away from this Desert X Prix with more points.

“In motorsport though, you can always have worse weekends. Considering where we were at the start of the weekend, and the progress we had to make, I think we did well.”

The Neom McLaren Extreme E Team will be looking to hit the ground running at the next Extreme E round in Scotland on May 13 and 14.

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Topics: NEOM McLaren Electric Racing Saudi Arabia

Fernandes gives Man United 1-0 win over Southampton in EPL

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Fernandes gives Man United 1-0 win over Southampton in EPL

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