Bayern held at home to Frankfurt after Kolo Muani goal

Bayern held at home to Frankfurt after Kolo Muani goal
Bayern Munich’s Alphonso Davies in action with Eintracht Frankfurt’s Sebastian Rode during their Bundesliga match at the Allianz Arena, Munich, on Jan. 28, 2023 (Reuters)
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Updated 28 January 2023

Bayern held at home to Frankfurt after Kolo Muani goal

Bayern held at home to Frankfurt after Kolo Muani goal
  • The result was Bayern's third consecutive 1-1 draw, with the reigning German champions still looking for their first win of 2023
  • Union Berlin's 2-0 derby win over city rivals Hertha earlier on Saturday meant Bayern's three-point cushion on top of the table had been erased by kick-off

BERLIN: Bayern Munich saw their lead in the Bundesliga cut to just one point on Saturday after Randal Kolo Muani’s equalizer held the German champions to a 1-1 draw with Eintracht Frankfurt.
The result was Bayern’s third consecutive 1-1 draw, with the reigning German champions still looking for their first win of 2023.
Union Berlin’s 2-0 derby win over city rivals Hertha earlier on Saturday meant Bayern’s three-point cushion on top of the table had been erased by kick-off.
Bayern lacked fluency early in a testy opening half, which saw both center-back Matthijs de Ligt and goalkeeper Yann Sommer pick up yellow cards.
With 34 minutes gone, former Man City forward Leroy Sane settled his team’s nerves by hammering a cross from veteran forward Thomas Mueller past the outstretched hand of Frankfurt ‘keeper Kevin Trapp.
After the goal, Bayern rekindled their early season form and produced their best spell of the match, with France defender Dayot Upamecano going close to doubling their lead just three minutes later.
Bayern continued to push for a second goal after the break but Frankfurt, who had only lost once in their previous 11 games in all competitions dating back to early October, looked dangerous on the break.
Eintracht coach Oliver Glasner brought on Japan international Daichi Kamada just past the hour and the change had an almost immediate impact, Kamada exchanging passes with Kolo Muani before the latter struck the ball past Sommer and into the net.
Earlier on Saturday, Union took the lead away to Hertha late in the first half through Dutch defender Danilho Doekhi, who headed in a free-kick from captain Christopher Trimmel.
Union doubled their lead halfway through the second half through midfielder Paul Seguin to run out victors over a spirited but toothless Hertha.
Visiting fans began singing “city champions” with 10 minutes remaining, celebrating their fifth consecutive derby win.
Union’s win deepened the woes of Hertha, who are second bottom having won just three games all season.
After the match, Union coach Urs Fischer sought to play down expectations, telling AFP’s sports subsidiary SID that his side “did not look like a top team.”
“It was a hard-fought derby. It was close over 90 minutes. In the end, we were lucky winners. We were efficient,” he said.
Elsewhere, Freiburg beat Augsburg 3-1 at home to move into fourth place.
First-half goals by towering Austrian striker Michael Gregoritsch and fellow forward Lucas Hoeler put Freiburg in the driving seat.
A 29th-minute penalty from Mergim Berisha gave the visitors hope, but Freiburg sealed their first win of 2023 through an 85th-minute strike from Philipp Lienhart.
In Bremen, Germany striker Niclas Fuellkrug scored both his side’s goals in a 2-1 win over Wolfsburg, overtaking RB Leipzig forward Christopher Nkunku to top the Bundesliga scoring charts with 13 goals this season.
Promoted Bremen, who had lost six of their past eight matches came up against an in-form Wolfsburg who were unbeaten in 11 games under former Bayern coach Niko Kovac.
Borussia Moenchengladbach compounded Hoffenheim’s misery with a 4-1 away win.
Two first-half goals and a second-half assist for captain Lars Stindl from midfielder Jonas Hofmann, Gladbach’s only representative in Germany’s 2022 World Cup squad, gave the visitors a comfortable victory.
Hoffenheim suffered their sixth defeat in their last eight games, leaving them just three points clear of the relegation playoff spot.
Mainz overcame the disappointment of Wednesday’s last-gasp loss to Borussia Dortmund, thrashing Bochum 5-2 at home, their first win in seven league matches dating back to October.
A hat-trick from Austrian forward Karim Onisiwo, plus goals by Lee Jae-sung and Silvan Widmer lifted Mainz into 11th ahead of a midweek German Cup meeting at home with Bayern.


How Saudi’s elite clubs can avoid mistakes of Chinese Super League

How Saudi’s elite clubs can avoid mistakes of Chinese Super League
Updated 10 sec ago

How Saudi’s elite clubs can avoid mistakes of Chinese Super League

How Saudi’s elite clubs can avoid mistakes of Chinese Super League
  • Fleeting success of Guangzhou Evergrande, Tianjin Quanjian, Jiangsu Suning and others because spending was unsustainable
  • Source of investment in Kingdom’s league more secure than China’s individual-based backing

As rumors swirl linking a host of footballing superstars with a move to the Saudi professional league, including arguably the greatest player of all time, Lionel Messi, fans of Asian football would be forgiven for feeling a sense of deja vu.

While the names are different, the sudden splurge from a nation looking to develop both its football, and standing within it, is eerily similar to what we saw from China less than a decade ago as it tried to upend the sport’s established order.

And for a period it did; the likes of Oscar, Jackson Martinez, Hulk, Paulinho, Renato Augusto, not to mention coaches including Marcello Lippi, Fabio Capelli and Manuel Pellegrini, were all tempted east as the Chinese Super League threatened to take over Asian football and become a big player on the global stage.

Guangzhou Evergrande led the charge, twice winning the AFC Champions League, while upstarts such as Shanghai SIPG, now Shanghai Port, Hebei CFFC, Tianjin Quanjian and Jiangsu Suning took the league by storm.

With China’s President Xi Jinping making it a national priority for the country to become a force in world football, countless businesses, mostly real estate developers, took the opportunity to invest in football, not just at home but around the world, in an attempt to curry favor with the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

By this time in their revolution, China was expected to be a powerhouse within Asia, but their reality serves as a warning for Saudi Arabian football as it embarks on its own journey for international prominence.

Less than a decade after China really started its extravagance, local football is arguably in a worse position than before it all started. The CSL has mostly been shed of all its star names, while the national team will likely struggle to qualify for the World Cup despite Asia’s allocation doubling from four to eight.

That is to say nothing of the country’s top football officials being detained on suspicion of fraud and bribery.

This is not how it was meant to be.

The once-mighty Guangzhou Evergrande, more recently renamed Guangzhou FC, has been relegated to China League One and are winless after eight games, placing them at risk of a second consecutive relegation. This is a long way from when they dominated the ACL with titles in 2013 and 2015.

Meanwhile, once-burgeoning outfits like Jiangsu, Hebei and Tianjin have all gone bust and no longer exist – standing as monuments of failure and a permanent reminder of just how quickly things can change.

“You need a vision, and then you need a strategy, and then you need to be able to put that strategy into action,” Prof. Simon Chadwick, an expert in sport and geopolitics, told Arab News.

“You need to have checks and balances within the system, that if the strategy is not working in the most appropriate way, then those checks and balances can be enacted, to keep you on the right path towards your vision.

“These are things that I sense a little more in Saudi Arabia that didn’t necessarily exist in China.”

With further details emerging this week of Saudi Arabia’s roadmap toward success, including the privatization of the country’s four biggest clubs – Al-Hilal, Al-Ittihad, Al-Nassr and Al-Ahli – and a forecasted quadrupling of annual revenues, the Saudi experiment is already looking vastly different to that of China’s.

Whereas the largesse in China had the support of the ruling CCP party, it was more often than not financed by private individuals, albeit ones with links to the ruling communist party, using their own wealth accumulated through years of unsustainable growth in the real estate sector. By the time the heat came out of the real estate market, and the CCP tinkered to try and save clubs from themselves, it was too late.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, the investment is coming directly from the state via its sovereign wealth fund, known as the Public Investment Fund, the same source of funding for LIV Golf and Newcastle United. That alone makes this feel more secure and less at risk of an embarrassing collapse as was witnessed in China.

Chadwick also explained that the Kingdom needs to find its own uniqueness and not simply try to copy what is successful in Europe.

“One of the interesting things about both Saudi Arabia and China, I think, is a lot of people from outside the country advise and give guidance,” he said.

“(But) they don’t necessarily give the best advice or the best guidance, because what might work in Europe, for example, doesn’t necessarily work in Asia.

“So I think it’s really important, and I don’t think China did this, that Saudi Arabia needs to develop its own identity and its own system of governance, its own culture and its own way of working and not be overly preoccupied by replicating the experiences of what has happened in Europe.”


West Ham, Fiorentina aim to end long European trophy droughts in Europa Conference League final

West Ham, Fiorentina aim to end long European trophy droughts in Europa Conference League final
Updated 07 June 2023

West Ham, Fiorentina aim to end long European trophy droughts in Europa Conference League final

West Ham, Fiorentina aim to end long European trophy droughts in Europa Conference League final
  • West Ham earned their lone European title in 1965, the old European Cup Winners’ Cup
  • The reward for the winner of the final is not just a trophy but also a berth in the Europa League next season

PRAGUE: West Ham and Fiorentina haven’t won a European trophy for more than 50 years.

The drought will end for one of them when they play out the Europa Conference League final on Wednesday in Prague.

“This will be the biggest match that the club has had in so long, so it’s going to be an honor to be part of and hopefully we can create some history on the night for the fans to cheer about,” said West Ham captain Declan Rice, who is widely expected to leave the club after the season.

West Ham earned their lone European title in 1965, the old European Cup Winners’ Cup. Alan Sealey scored twice to beat 1860 Munich 2-0 at Wembley Stadium. The Hammers reached the final again in 1976.

Forward Jarrod Bowen scored four goals in helping West Ham reach its third European final and said it will be “certainly be the biggest game of my career.”

“I’ve played for England, but I think achieving this with your teammates who you’ve been with together to get to a final and you have the opportunity to win a trophy together, it will be a massive moment,” Bowen said. “We’re mentally ready, physically ready for a massive game tomorrow night.”

Fiorentina’s only European trophy was also the Cup Winners’ Cup, the first one back in 1961 when it defeated Rangers in a two-leg final 4-1 on aggregate.

By reaching the second final of the Europa Conference League, Fiorentina have become the first club to contest a final in four major continental competitions.

Fiorentina were defeated by Real Madrid for the 1957 European Cup (the forerunner of the Champions League), and by Juventus in the 1990 UEFA Cup final. They also failed to win the Cup Winners’ Cup back to back, losing the 1962 final to Atletico Madrid.

Fiorentina have had a good buildup. They played the Italian Cup final two weeks ago and were beaten by Inter Milan 2-1. That’s the only loss for the Florence-based club in their  last six matches. The last warmup for the Conference final was beating Sassuolo 3-1 last Friday for an eighth-place finish in Serie A.

“We needed this victory,” Fiorentina coach Vincenzo Italiano said after the match. “Now we have a mountain to climb but we will be aiming for the summit in Prague.”

Despite struggling to a 14th-place finish in the English Premier League, West Ham have been a European title contender for a second straight year under manager David Moyes.

Following a campaign to the Europa League semifinals a year ago, West Ham marched to Prague as the only undefeated team in the third-tier Europa Conference League. West Ham won 13 games including qualifying, and were held by Gent to 1-1 in the first leg of their quarterfinal. The Hammers were the first club to win all six group stage encounters.

“They’re a team that has a lot of ability, they’ve got some top level players, they have got strength all over the pitch,” Italiano said about West Ham in Prague on Tuesday. “But if we’ve made it to the final, then we clearly have some strength as well.”

At Eden Arena in the Czech capital, West Ham will face a team that scored the most goals in the campaign, 36, led by forward Arthur Cabral’s seven.

“I’ve been hugely impressed by Fiorentina,” Moyes said. “A difficult opponent, an Italian opponent is always difficult and we respect that.”

The reward for the winner of the final is not just a trophy but also a berth in the Europa League next season.

The first Conference final was won by Jose Mourinho’s Roma against Feyenoord 1-0 in Tirana, Albania a year ago.


Juventus plan to leave Super League project after season of legal turmoil

Juventus plan to leave Super League project after season of legal turmoil
Updated 06 June 2023

Juventus plan to leave Super League project after season of legal turmoil

Juventus plan to leave Super League project after season of legal turmoil
  • Juventus responded to reports they already left the Super League by explaining they contacted the two Spanish clubs “to initiate a discussion period” about their exit
  • It has been a tough season for Juventus’ owners, players and lawyers with no trophies won, legal cases lost and mass resignations among the board of directors

TURIN, Italy: Juventus plan to leave the Super League project still being pursued by Real Madrid and Barcelona, though the club denied Tuesday they had been threatened with a European ban by UEFA.
The three storied clubs are awaiting a ruling expected within weeks from the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg into their legal challenge against what they claimed is UEFA’s monopoly control of European club competitions.
But Juventus responded to reports they already left the Super League by explaining they contacted the two Spanish clubs “to initiate a discussion period” about their exit.
The three clubs were holdouts after the other nine Italian, Spanish and English clubs who joined them to launch the breakaway Super League in April 2021 renounced it within weeks of its quick failure.
UEFA was a clear winner when the Luxembourg court gave a first, non-binding opinion in the Super League case in December that went against the clubs.
It has been a tough season for Juventus’ owners, players and lawyers with no trophies won, legal cases lost and mass resignations among the board of directors.
A 10-point deduction in Serie A was finally confirmed last month in a false accounting case that dropped Juventus to finish seventh instead of qualifying for the next Champions League. That entry would have been worth tens of millions of euros (dollars) to the financially troubled club.
However, even the two-time European champion’s place in the third-tier Europa Conference League are at risk from a separate UEFA investigation of the false accounting allegations.
Juventus appear likely to have broken UEFA’s financial fair play rules that can lead to bans imposed by a UEFA-appointed panel. A final verdict, potentially on appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, is needed before the Europa Conference League qualifying playoffs round in August.
Long-time club president Andrea Agnelli resigned in November in fallout from the case. He had been a UEFA executive committee member and chairman of the influential European Club Association before giving up those positions of power in 2021 to help launch the Super League.


Al-Ittihad sign former Real Madrid star Karim Benzema

Al-Ittihad sign former Real Madrid star Karim Benzema
Updated 06 June 2023

Al-Ittihad sign former Real Madrid star Karim Benzema

Al-Ittihad sign former Real Madrid star Karim Benzema
  • The current Ballon d’Or holder will join on an initial three-year contract

JEDDAH: Saudi Pro League champions Al-Ittihad have agreed terms to sign Karim Benzema, it was announced on Tuesday. 

The Ballon d’Or holder, regarded as one of the finest strikers of the modern era, will join on an initial three-year contract, the club said.

The French superstar underwent a medical in Madrid and is set to be unveiled by the Jeddah giants later this week.

Benzema won 24 trophies with Real Madrid, including four La Liga titles, three Copa del Reys and five UEFA Champions League titles, and is the club’s second-highest goal scorer behind Cristiano Ronaldo.

The 97-cap French international is also the current UEFA Player of the Year. He last played in Saudi Arabia at the start of the year, for Real Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup final.

“I am excited to experience a new football league in a different country. Al-Ittihad has an amazing history, incredibly passionate fans and big ambitions in football to be a force in Asia after winning the league. I have been fortunate to achieve amazing things in my career and achieve everything I can in Spain and Europe,” he said. 

“It now feels the time is right for a new challenge and project. Every time I’ve visited Saudi Arabia I’ve always felt such warmth and love from the fans and people.

“I am looking forward to joining my new teammates and, together with them, help take this amazing club and the game in Saudi Arabia to new levels,” he added.

In his first interview as an Al-Ittihad player, which will be published on the club’s social channels, he said: “It’s a new challenge for me, a new life and I can't wait to start training. I will do everything to win trophies, to score, to show my talent, to satisfy the fans, the club, the president – everyone. 

”It’s a good league and there are many good players. Cristiano Ronaldo is already there, a friend, which shows Saudi Arabia is starting to further progress its level. I am here to win, like I did in Europe.  I am excited to see you in Jeddah.”

This season saw Al-Ittihad, managed by Nuno Espirito Santo, secure a ninth overall title in the SPL – their first championship since 2009. The title qualifies them for December’s FIFA Club World Cup.

Al-Ittihad Club President Anmar Bin Abdullah Alhailae, said: “To sign the current Ballon d’Or holder from Real Madrid is another historic milestone for this special club. 

“Karim is a global football icon, he’s box office and very much at the top of his powers. He joins a club and hugely competitive league – in a country with big ambitions both on and off the pitch. 

“We know all eyes will be on him and can’t wait to see him in the number 9 shirt of Al-Ittihad Club next season as we face an incredibly exciting challenge to defend our title, compete in Asia and play on the global stage of the FIFA Club World Cup.

“When you start winning championships, you attract fans and admirers, especially from the younger generations. Having a player like Karim Benzema will have a sporting effect and presence on the streets.

He said the fans would “start wearing Karim’s shirt, they will try to move like he does on the pitch. I assure you, these will be very beautiful and historic moments. Welcome Karim!”


Benzema bids farewell to Real Madrid as he heads to Saudi Arabia

Benzema bids farewell to Real Madrid as he heads to Saudi Arabia
Updated 06 June 2023

Benzema bids farewell to Real Madrid as he heads to Saudi Arabia

Benzema bids farewell to Real Madrid as he heads to Saudi Arabia
  • The French striker, 35, will leave as a free agent in the close season
  • He is set to move to Saudi Arabian side Al Ittihad, signing a two-year deal estimated by media reports to be worth more than 100 million euros

MADRID: Ballon d’Or winner Karim Benzema said farewell to Real Madrid in a small, private ceremony closed to fans and media on Tuesday following a trophy-laden 14-year stay with the LaLiga club.
The French striker, 35, will leave as a free agent in the close season and is set to move to Saudi Arabian side Al-Ittihad, signing a two-year deal estimated by media reports to be worth more than 100 million euros ($106.93 million).
There were no tears in a ceremony that lasted less than 20 minutes and in which only players, family and close friends were allowed to attend.
“I will never forget Real Madrid. It’s impossible, it’s the best club in history. But I think today is the time to leave and to get to know another story,” Benzema told the small audience at Real’s training facilities.
“It’s difficult to talk with so many feelings, but I wanted to thank Real Madrid and my team mates. It was a good path in my life. I have been lucky enough to fulfil my childhood dream.”
Having joined Real in 2009 from Olympique Lyonnais, Benzema became the spearhead of the club’s attack and their main goal-scoring threat after Cristiano Ronaldo left for Juventus in 2018.
Benzema scored 354 goals for Real to sit second on the club’s all-time scoring list behind Ronaldo.
He had his best season in the 2021-22 campaign when he scored 44 times in all competitions to lead the side to a record-extending 14th European title as well as the LaLiga crown.
His pivotal role earned him the Ballon d’Or award, making him the first French player to win the trophy since Zinedine Zidane in 1998 and the fifth Frenchman overall.
Real Madrid president Florentino Perez praised Benzema for all he had done at the club.
“Karim, you have been an example of behavior and professionalism in our club,” Perez said.
“You have earned the right to decide your destiny. A future that only belongs to you and we must respect it.”