Zico says Ancelotti just the man to take Brazil back to the top

Brazilian football legend and current technical director for Japanese club Kashima Antlers, Zico. (AFP)

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Updated 30 May 2025

AFP

May 30, 2025 06:36

Zico says Ancelotti just the man to take Brazil back to the top

Ancelotti has vowed to make five-time World Cup winners Brazil champions again
Zico is one of the best players ever to pull on Brazil’s iconic yellow shirt

Updated 30 May 2025

AFP

May 30, 2025 06:36

KASHIMA, Japan: Carlo Ancelotti’s track record of getting the most out of Brazilian players makes him the best man to take the national team back to the top, football legend Zico told AFP.
The Italian Ancelotti has vowed to make five-time World Cup winners Brazil champions again next year after becoming the first non-Brazilian to coach the side in six decades.
He nurtured Brazilians such as Vinicius Junior at Real Madrid, helping to turn the 24-year-old from a figure of fun because of his inconsistent end product into one of the Spanish league’s biggest stars.
Zico is one of the best players ever to pull on Brazil’s iconic yellow shirt and believes Ancelotti’s understanding and experience make him the ideal man for the job.
“Ancelotti played with Brazilian players, he has been a champion coach with Brazilian players at several teams and he’s always praised Brazilian players and put them in a position to help him,” Zico told AFP in Japan, where the 72-year-old is an adviser to J. League club Kashima Antlers.
“He has a great understanding, he loves football and his approach to football is very much in line with Brazilian thinking.
“So I think he can be successful for this reason, he can help Brazilian players thrive with his knowledge, his ability and his expertise.”
At 65, Ancelotti has five Champions League titles under his belt and has managed the cream of Europe’s clubs including Juventus, Real Madrid, AC Milan, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich.

Brazil's new national soccer team head coach Carlo Ancelotti. (AP)

He is taking the reins of a national team for the first time and becomes Brazil’s first foreign-born manager since 1965.
Zico says Brazilian coaches are no longer in vogue around the world, pointing to declining numbers of his compatriots in former hotspots like Africa, Saudi Arabia and Japan.
Zico, who has coached in several countries including Uzbekistan, Iraq and India, believes the Brazilian federation had little choice but to look overseas.
“Now is not a good time for Brazilian coaches, not just in Brazil but all over the world,” he said.
“Now, when it comes to the Brazil team, if you’re going to bring someone in, bring the best. As I see it, Brazil brought the best.
“For me he’s the best, so I don’t see anything to complain about.”
Brazil have yet to clinch their place at next year’s World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico, and are currently fourth in the South American qualifying table.
Ancelotti is their fourth coach since Tite stepped down following the quarter-final loss to Croatia at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
The Italian faces some tricky fixtures in World Cup qualifying, with games at Ecuador and Bolivia still to come.
But Zico believes Brazil can be one of the main contenders for the trophy if they avoid the unthinkable and book their place in the tournament.
“I think Brazil have a chance if Ancelotti manages to do a good job in the short time he has,” he said.
“I think Brazil could become one of the contenders for the title. Why not? I don’t see any team in the world today as favorites.”

Topics: Zico Brazil Carlo Ancelotti

Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier chosen as captains of WNBA All-Star Game by fan vote

Updated 30 June 2025

June 30, 2025 05:39

Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier chosen as captains of WNBA All-Star Game by fan vote

Clark received 1,293,526 votes from fans, while Collier had about 100,000 fewer
Collier leads the league in scoring at a career-best 24.5 points and is fourth in rebounding at 8.4 per game

Updated 30 June 2025

June 30, 2025 05:39

NEW YORK: Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier will captain the WNBA All-Star Game next month, the league announced Sunday.
Clark received 1,293,526 votes from fans, while Collier had about 100,000 fewer.
“It’s cool that fans get to be a part of it and have a little impact on the game,” Clark said. “It’s going to be special to do it here in this city. ... Trying to make it the best All-Star that the WNBA has ever had. It’s certainly a cool honor.”
The Indiana Fever star, who is sidelined with a groin strain, is averaging 18.2 points and a career-high 8.9 assists. She also led the fan voting last season, her rookie year, but the All-Star format was the US Olympic team playing against a select group of WNBA stars so no captains were chosen. She learned she was captain in a phone call from WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert.
Collier leads the league in scoring at a career-best 24.5 points and is fourth in rebounding at 8.4 per game. Her daughter surprised her wearing a shirt saying “Mama you’re a All-Star,” as she scooted into the locker room with former Lynx great Sylvia Fowles right behind her to let Collier know the news.
“It’s really cool,” Collier said to reporters before warming up for a game Sunday night “I went from never being a starter to captain.”
This will be her fifth All-Star appearance.
Before squaring off in Indianapolis on July 19, Clark and the Fever will face Collier and the Lynx on Tuesday in the Commissioner’s Cup final.
The 10 starters were selected from across the WNBA without regard to conference affiliation. Current players and a media panel joined fans in selecting the All-Star starters. Fans voting accounted for 50 percent, while the players vote and the media choices each account for 25 percent.
The pair will draft their fellow starters from a group that will be revealed on Monday. After the starters are announced, the league’s head coaches will choose the 13 reserves by voting for three guards, five frontcourt players and four from either position. Coaches can’t vote for players from their own teams. The 12 reserves will be revealed next Sunday.
“Obviously I’m going to try and get my teammates on my team, that’s the goal,” Clark said. “Once they come out with whoever has made it and whoever hasn’t, I’ll get to pick and choose. I don’t know how it works.”
The two All-Star captains will then draft their respective rosters by selecting first from the remaining eight players in the pool of starters and then from the pool of 12 reserves.
Clark and Collier also led the initial fan voting, with Indiana’s Aliyah Boston in third. Boston finished second last season behind Clark in the fan vote.

Topics: WNBA Caitlin Clark Napheesa Collier

Hall of Fame horse trainer D. Wayne Lukas, a winner of 15 Triple Crown races, dies at 89

Updated 30 June 2025

June 30, 2025 05:33

Hall of Fame horse trainer D. Wayne Lukas, a winner of 15 Triple Crown races, dies at 89

His family said Sunday that Lukas died Saturday night at his Louisville, Kentucky, home
Lukas won 15 Triple Crown races, including the Kentucky Derby four times. Only good friend Bob Baffert has more Triple Crown victories, and Lukas owns a record-tying 20 in the Breeders’ Cup World Championships

Updated 30 June 2025

June 30, 2025 05:33

NEW YORK: D. Wayne Lukas, the Hall of Famer who became one of the most accomplished trainers in the history of horse racing and a face of the sport for decades, has died. He was 89.

His family said Sunday that Lukas died Saturday night at his Louisville, Kentucky, home. Lukas had been hospitalized with a severe MRSA blood infection that caused significant damage to his heart and digestive system and worsened pre-existing chronic conditions.

“Wayne devoted his life not only to horses but to the industry — developing generations of horsemen and horsewomen and growing the game by inviting unsuspecting fans into the winner’s circle,” his family said in a statement. “Whether he was boasting about a maiden 2-year-old as the next Kentucky Derby winner or offering quiet words of advice before a big race, Wayne brought heart, grace, and grit to every corner of the sport. His final days were spent at home in Kentucky, where he chose peace, family, and faith.”

Lukas won 15 Triple Crown races, including the Kentucky Derby four times. Only good friend Bob Baffert has more Triple Crown victories, and Lukas owns a record-tying 20 in the Breeders’ Cup World Championships.

“The whole secret of this game, I think, is being able to read the horse: Read what he needs, what he doesn’t need, what he can’t do, what he can do,” Lukas said in May before his 34th and final Preakness Stakes. “That’s the whole key. Everybody’s got the blacksmith, everybody’s got to the same bed available, the feed man. We all can hire a good jockey. We all can hire a pretty good exercise rider if we’ve got the means, so what the hell is the difference? The horse is the difference and what we do with him in reading him.”

Lukas was affectionately known around the barns and the racetrack as “Coach” because he coached high school basketball before his professional career with horses began. Even with months to go before his 90th birthday, he would get up on his pony in the early morning hours and go out to the track himself, rather than letting his assistants do the day-to-day work.

Born Darnell Wayne Lukas on Sept. 2, 1935, in Wisconsin as the second of three children, he rose to prominence in the sport with quarter horses in races that are effectively sprints. He moved into thoroughbreds in the late 1970s and won his first Preakness with Codex in 1980.

Lukas has 4,967 documented victories in thoroughbred racing, with his horses earning more than $310 million from more than 30,600 starts.

“Today we lost one of the great champions of Churchill Downs and one of the most significant figures in Thoroughbred racing over the last 50 years,” Churchill Downs Inc. CEO Bill Carstanjen said. “We will miss his humor, his wisdom and his unmatched capacity to thrill the fans with the performances of his horses on our sport’s biggest days.”

Achieving something of a career renaissance over the past decade, one he credits to finding the right owners willing to spend money on horses, Lukas won the Preakness last year with Seize the Grey. Asked what motivates him to keep doing his job well into his late 80s, he gave a pep talk fit for a locker room before a big game.

“If you have a passion, you eliminate all the excuses,” Lukas said. “That’s how it works. You get up early. You go without a meal. You drive. You go without sleep — as long as you got the passion. Don’t let that sofa pull you down. It’s a little easy when that alarm goes off to say, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know if I really want to do this today.’ Erase that. The most important decision you’ll ever make in your life is your attitude decision. Make it early, and make the right one.”

Topics: Horse Racing D. Wayne Lukas

Aldrich Potgieter, 20, wins Rocket Classic in five-hole playoff

Updated 30 June 2025

Reuters

June 30, 2025 05:27

Aldrich Potgieter, 20, wins Rocket Classic in five-hole playoff

Potgieter drained an 18-foot birdie putt on the fifth playoff hole to secure his first PGA Tour victory by winning the Rocket Classic at Detroit Golf Club
The trio of Potgieter, Greyserman and Kirk finished 72 holes at 22-under-par 266

Updated 30 June 2025

Reuters

June 30, 2025 05:27

DETROIT: As a grueling playoff unfolded in the Rocket Classic, South Africa’s Aldrich Potgieter was determined to have enough pace on what became the final putt Sunday.

Potgieter drained an 18-foot birdie putt on the fifth playoff hole to secure his first PGA Tour victory by winning the Rocket Classic at Detroit Golf Club.

“Struggled to make putts. Left a lot short,” Potgieter said. “Finally got one to the hole.”

Potgieter outlasted Max Greyserman in an extended playoff that began with three golfers. Chris Kirk’s bogey on the second playoff hole cost him a chance and reduced the playoff to two golfers.

Potgieter, a big-hitting 20-year-old, began the tournament with a 62 on Thursday and ended up with the biggest prize. He is the youngest South African to win on tour.

“Big thanks to my family, friends, coaches, everyone who has been involved to kind of get me to this point,” Potgieter said.

The trio of Potgieter, Greyserman and Kirk finished 72 holes at 22-under-par 266.

“This one is going to sting a little bit,” Greyserman said.

Potgieter, who became the seventh-youngest PGA Tour winner since 1983, and Greyserman both had birdies on the par-5 14th hole — the fourth stop in the playoff — before Potgieter sank the winning putt on the par-3 15th hole.

Kirk and Greyserman shot final-round 5-under-par 67s and Potgieter, who was the first- and third-round leader, had 69.

Kirk had the best chance on the first playoff hole, but he was off the mark on a birdie putt of slightly more than 9 feet.

“It’s a shame that first playoff hole,” Kirk said. “Hit just three perfect shots and I misread that putt a little bit. That’s the way it goes sometimes.”

Greyserman missed from 11 feet on the second extra hole before Kirk was eliminated with a three-putt bogey moments later.

“Just really disappointed right now,” Kirk said. “Felt like I played great today. I’m happy with the way I played.”

Greyserman, ranked 48th in the world entering this week, remains without a PGA Tour victory. He has four runner-up finishes.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t get the job done,” Greyserman said. “Thought I hit a lot of good shots down the stretch. Very pleased with how I handled myself down the stretch.”

It was a bogey-free round for Greyserman, who missed a birdie putt from just inside 12 feet on the final hole that would have given him the victory. He made birdies on Nos. 16 and 17 to rise into a share of the lead.

Except for a birdie on No. 17, Kirk posted par on seven of his last eight holes in regulation.

It was a crowded leaderboard for the entire day.

Michael Thorbjornsen (67) and Jake Knapp (68) shared fourth place at 21 under. Jackson Suber (68) and Colombia’s Nico Echavarria (66) tied for sixth at 20 under.

By late afternoon, there were 26 golfers within three shots of the lead. After Potgieter and Greyserman made the turn as the final pairing, there were several fewer so close to the top, but still more than a dozen — with more than half of those golfers still on the course.

Echavarria played the final seven holes in 4 under to match his first-round 66.

Harry Higgs and Akshay Bhatia had 65s for the best scores of the last round, finishing at 16 under and 15 under, respectively.

Topics: Rocket Mortgage Classic Aldrich Potgieter

New faces lead US women to familiar result: 4-0 win over Ireland

Updated 30 June 2025

Reuters

June 30, 2025 03:59

New faces lead US women to familiar result: 4-0 win over Ireland

It was such a young lineup that Biyendolo had almost twice as many appearances (81) as the rest of the starting lineup (41), which represented the fewest combined matches of any USWNT lineup in the past 24 years
The US will get a much sterner test on Wednesday when they play Canada in Washington, D.C., to complete the three-match window

Updated 30 June 2025

Reuters

June 30, 2025 03:59

CINCINNATI: The US women’s national team’s depth was on display Sunday in Cincinnati when the squad’s backups dominated Ireland for a 4-0 victory in a friendly.

US coach Emma Hayes made 11 changes from the lineup that defeated Ireland 4-0 on Thursday and didn’t miss a beat as the Americans won their fourth straight match without allowing a goal. In fact, Ireland did not put a shot on frame.

Izzy Rodriguez, who made her USWNT debut along with Sam Meza, scored in the 42nd minute for a 2-0 lead while Emma Sears played a part in the first three goals. Sears and Rodriguez played together at Ohio State, less than two hours away.

Sandwiching the Rodriguez goal, Lynn Biyendolo opened the scoring in the 11th minute and Yazmeen Ryan extended the lead to 3-0 in the 66th with her first goal. Alyssa Thompson made it 4-0 in the 86th on an assist by Claire Hutton.

The win was the 600th in USWNT history in just 765 matches.

It was such a young lineup that Biyendolo had almost twice as many appearances (81) as the rest of the starting lineup (41), which represented the fewest combined matches of any USWNT lineup in the past 24 years.

It didn’t matter. Sears made a cross to Biyendolo in the middle of the box and she ripped a shot for her 25th goal.

Rodriguez got on the board when Sears took an entry pass from Olivia Moultrie and forced a save by Courtney Brosnan (six saves). The ball came to Rodriguez and she did not hesitate on the rebound.

The role was reversed on the third goal. Sears fed Moultrie and she found an unmarked Ryan.

A minute after Thompson’s goal, hometown favorite Rose Lavelle entered the match to a standing ovation and nearly scored in the ensuing minute.

The US will get a much sterner test on Wednesday when they play Canada in Washington, D.C., to complete the three-match window.

Topics: US women’s national team Emma Hayes

Reed wins four-man playoff to capture first LIV Golf title

Updated 30 June 2025

AFP

June 30, 2025 03:39

Reed wins four-man playoff to capture first LIV Golf title

“The biggest thing with relief is to finally win in my home state,” said Reed, who lives near Houston

Updated 30 June 2025

AFP

June 30, 2025 03:39

WASHINGTON: Patrick Reed birdied the first extra hole to win a four-man playoff on Sunday and capture LIV Golf Dallas for his first victory in 41 starts in the Saudi-backed series.
Reed, the 2018 Masters champion, led by as many as five strokes early in the final round, squandered his advantage, then won on only the third birdie of the day at the 18th hole at Maridoe Golf Club.
“The biggest thing with relief is to finally win in my home state,” said Reed, who lives near Houston. “To finally get that done meant a lot. To get my first win here as part of LIV means so much to me.”
The 34-year-old American won last November’s Hong Kong Open on the Asian Tour for his first title since a 2021 PGA victory at Torrey Pines.
Reed, England’s Paul Casey, South African Louis Oosthuizen and Japan’s Jinichiro Kozuma shared the lead after the regulation 54 holes on six-under 282.
Reed opened with a birdie at the first hole, jumped ahead by five after double bogeys by his top rivals, but had five bogeys on the front nine before parring his way through the back nine proved good enough to make a playoff.
“I tried to mess it up,” Reed said. “After making birdie on the first I seemed to leave every putt short. Just kind of putting pretty tentative.”
He missed a birdie putt at 18 in regulation to ensure a playoff.
“Had a good putt there to win on the final hole of regulation, hit a good putt and it doesn’t go in there. Leave it short,” Reed said. “So when I had that down there (to win in the playoff) I thought I left it short too but making a birdie at the last always helps.”
Reed composed himself at the turn after losing the lead to his woeful front side.
“I told myself the putts have to start falling. For the most part I thought I hit the ball fine. I had just a lot of missed putts,” he said.
Kozuma missed a chance for his first victory outside his homeland.
Sharing fifth on 283 were Americans Charles Howell and Harold Varner, England’s Tyrrell Hatton and Northern Ireland’s Tom McKibbin.
Spain’s Sergio Garcia qualified for the British Open, taking the spot available to a top-five LIV season player not already in the field for next month’s major showdown at Portrush.
The Crushers, featuring Casey and two-time US Open winner Bryson DeChambeau, won the team title.

Topics: LIV Golf Patrick Reed

Zico says Ancelotti just the man to take Brazil back to the top

Zico says Ancelotti just the man to take Brazil back to the top

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Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier chosen as captains of WNBA All-Star Game by fan vote

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Hall of Fame horse trainer D. Wayne Lukas, a winner of 15 Triple Crown races, dies at 89

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Justify the one to beat with Bob Baffert and D. Wayne Lukas gunning for Preakness glory

As Triple Crown chase rolls on, horse racing at a crossroads after latest spate of deaths

Aldrich Potgieter, 20, wins Rocket Classic in five-hole playoff

Aldrich Potgieter, 20, wins Rocket Classic in five-hole playoff

Pendrith edges ahead of Finau for Rocket Mortgage Classic lead

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New faces lead US women to familiar result: 4-0 win over Ireland

New faces lead US women to familiar result: 4-0 win over Ireland

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Back-to-back wins for Hayes as US women down South Korea 3-0

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Zico says Ancelotti just the man to take Brazil back to the top

Zico says Ancelotti just the man to take Brazil back to the top

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Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier chosen as captains of WNBA All-Star Game by fan vote

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Hall of Fame horse trainer D. Wayne Lukas, a winner of 15 Triple Crown races, dies at 89

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Aldrich Potgieter, 20, wins Rocket Classic in five-hole playoff

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New faces lead US women to familiar result: 4-0 win over Ireland

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