Michael vs Michael. 🎯 What a great game.

[jstar]

Tennis association WTA will be organizing professional tournaments in China again. After sixteen months the suspension it imposed is lifted. It all started in December 2021 after the mysterious disappearance of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai.

Peng was not heard from for nearly three weeks at the end of 2021 after accusing former Deputy Prime Minister Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault. The WTA canceled the tournaments in China over concerns for the safety of the former world number 1 in tennis doubles. They called for a formal investigation into the allegations.

The tennis association has come to the conclusion that further suspension of the tournaments makes no sense. It would be too much at the expense of tennis players and tournaments. So tournaments will be organized in China again as of this fall.

The WTA now has information that Peng "lives safely with her family in Beijing".

 

[jstar]

No more advertising for gambling on shirts of the Premier League.

Well, as of 2026 and not on the front of the shirts.

 

[jstar]

Quite some games were played in the Europa League last night.

Europa League vs Champions League: What's The Difference?

Let's Goooooooal! - Check out our newest content on SoccerPrime.com - Europa League vs Champions League: What's The Difference?

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Esp. the game between Manchester United and Seville was remarkable. It ended 2-2 because of two own-goals by ManU players.

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[jstar]

Quite some games were played in the Europa League last night.

Europa League vs Champions League: What's The Difference?

Let's Goooooooal! - Check out our newest content on SoccerPrime.com - Europa League vs Champions League: What's The Difference?

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To make it even somewhat more complicated; there is a third tier level of competition between European football clubs. It’s called the Conference League and rather recent (2021/2022).

The UEFA thought it was a good idea to create a tournament that could give clubs from lower-ranked countries a chance of playing more international games. (Many get eliminated right away from the Champions League and Europa League.) Obviously there are some major commercial arguments as well.

The tournament is played on Thursdays alongside the Europa League. Which might make it even a bit more confusing.

Every country's champion will still enter the Champions League, but only teams from the 15 top-ranked countries go into the Europa League group stages or qualifiers. That means teams from leagues below that level excluding their champions go straight into Conference League qualifying rounds.

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[jstar]

Some games played last night were Anderlecht (Belgium) against AZ (Netherlands) 2-0, AA Gent (Belgium) against West Ham (England) with 1-1 and Bayer Leverkusen (Germany) against Union (Belgium) at 1-1.

Union, the ‘dwarf’ from Brussels (so Anderlecht’s smaller brother) pleasangly surprises in its games. A club with a rather rich history which has gotten very recently back on the higher level. They beat Union Berlin in this tournament before.

 

[jstar]

A very remarkable moment in the Swedish league. In the duel between Häcken BK and Hammarby IF things quickly went downhill for the visitors. Keeper Oliver Dovin got a back-pass in the 5th minute of the game. Now he got the ball, but then mixed it up with the …. penalty spot. You can imagine what the result was.

 

[jstar]

Erling Haaland obviously scored his goal

Erling Haaland caught up with Mohamed Salah's (Liverpool) goalscoring record in the Premier League. The Norwegian striker of Manchester City scored twice in the 3-1 home win against Leicester City and took his tally to 32 goals in the English league this season. Salah scored 32 times for Liverpool in the 2017-18 season.

That‘s a record since the moment the Premier League consists of 20 clubs. Previously, it had 22 clubs which obviously led to four games more than now. Andy Cole and Alan Shearer both scored 34 goals in a season with 42 games at the time.

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[jstar]

Tadej Pogacar has done what only three cyclists have done before him, Eddy Merckx in 1975, Jan Raas in 1979 and Philippe Gilbert in 2017; winning the Tour of Flanders and the Amstel Gold Race in one year. In 1975 Merckx also added Liège-Bastogne-Liège to that. Appointment next week.

 

[jstar]

Arsenal, as last week, lost some points. Mikel Arteta's team already led 0-2 after ten minutes in the London derby at West Ham United, but eventually had to settle for a point. So they currently only have a 4 point lead on Manchester City which still has an additional game to catch up.

Trainers from both teams come from the ‘Cruijff academy’.

Guardiola was a defensive midfielder. He spent the majority of his career with Barcelona, being a part of Johan Cruyff's Dream Team that won the club's first European Cup in 1992, and four successive Spanish league titles from 1991 to 1994.

Arteta was Guardiola's assistant at Manchester City for about three and a half years. Pep Guardiola believed Mikel Arteta would be able to become Manchester City‘s next manager. But his ambitious compatriot didn't want to wait any longer, and he moved to Arsenal.

Besides a genius football player, Cruijff was also a gifted trainer. Often misunderstood with his oneliners. E.g. "Speed is often confused with insight. When I start running earlier than the others, I appear faster.". Or: “Every disadvantage has its advantage.”. And: “If you see a player sprinting, he left too late”.

The ‘total football’ style of both English teams is reminiscent of Ajax and Barcelona decades ago. With personal twists of course.

 

[jstar]

Climate activists from Just Stop Oil on World championship Snooker…

 

[jstar]

Manchester City will play the semi-finals of the Champions League for the third year in a row. After the 3-0 in the first leg, the English never got into trouble in the Allianz Arena. Haaland scored on a pass from De Bruyne, Kimmich scored for the 1-1 draw with a penalty.

In the other quarter-final, Inter goes through at the expense of Benfica.

 

[jstar]

Europa League games played on Thursday night.

 

[jstar]

View attachment 2927

To make it even somewhat more complicated; there is a third tier level of competition between European football clubs. It’s called the Conference League and rather recent (2021/2022).

The UEFA thought it was a good idea to create a tournament that could give clubs from lower-ranked countries a chance of playing more international games. (Many get eliminated right away from the Champions League and Europa League.) Obviously there are some major commercial arguments as well.

The tournament is played on Thursdays alongside the Europa League. Which might make it even a bit more confusing.

Every country's champion will still enter the Champions League, but only teams from the 15 top-ranked countries go into the Europa League group stages or qualifiers. That means teams from leagues below that level excluding their champions go straight into Conference League qualifying rounds.

.

And the Conference League games:

The games between the final four will be played in May.

 

[jstar]

Especially the elimination of Manchester United in the Europa League was quite a surprise. They played rather bad against Sevilla with many defensive mistakes.

About the qualification possibilities of the English teams for the three tournaments: At the start of the season, the top four in the Premier League qualify for the Champions League, while fifth place and the FA Cup winners enter the Europa League. The winners of the Carabao Cup qualify for the Europa Conference League.

Champions League: 1, 2, 3, 4
Europa League: 5, FA Cup winners
Europa Conference League: Carabao Cup

Obviously there are priority rules if a team wins a cup and also ends in the top 4 for instance. And it can have consequences for others outside of the top 5.

 

[ChrisTex]

I remember the rules for Europa League, used to it would just go to the next league position if a Top 4 team won either domestic cups or runner up. The rules for who qualified always seemed to change every year apart from the Champions league.

I still remember the fuss over Millwall getting to play in the Europa League T in the early 2000s as they lost to Man U in the FA Cup final. Everyone was worried they were going to get English clubs banned from all Europe comps.

 

[jstar]

Millwall

Ah yes.
”no one likes us, no one likes us, no one likes us, we don’t care!”

 

[jstar]

Seven-time world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan faced Hossein Vafaei, the man who recently lashed out at the English snooker legend, in the second round of the World Snooker Championship: "I think Ronnie is a nice guy, but only when he's asleep".

His opening was frowned upon, he wanted to ‘make a point’ (figuratively speaking) but whether you should do that in a world-championship? Not very smart.

 

[jstar]

Well well. While Stephen is still crying over his pint, the international press have their sport pages ready on the thrashing of Arsenal by Manchester City. Esp. Kevin De Bruyne received a lot of praise.

 

[jstar]

Erling Haaland caught up with Mohamed Salah's (Liverpool) goalscoring record in the Premier League. The Norwegian striker of Manchester City scored twice in the 3-1 home win against Leicester City and took his tally to 32 goals in the English league this season. Salah scored 32 times for Liverpool in the 2017-18 season.

No player has ever scored 35 goals in the Premier League. Until now. Erling Haaland scored his 35th goal of the current Premier League season in Manchester City's home game against West Ham United (3-0). He takes over the record from Andy Cole and Alan Shearer. They both scored 34 times for Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers in the 1993/1994 and 1994/1995 seasons.

Before the Premier League existed (since 1992) there were more impressive scores of course. The ultimate record in all those years is by Dixie Dean who scored no less than 60 goals for Everton in the 1927/1928 season.

 

[jstar]

The Giro ( 3 week tour of Italy) started with an individual time trial.

Belgian Remco Evenepoel was already a favorite but his win was still extremely impressive. With an average speed of more than 55 km/hour.

So he’s the first wearing the pink jersey, but he‘s also a contender for the final victory. The biggest competitor will be Roglič.

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