MADRID: The format may be new, but few would bet against the winner staying the same.
As if record 15-time winners Real Madrid’s Champions League prospects were not great enough already, superstar striker Kylian Mbappe’s arrival makes Los Blancos the most daunting team in the competition.
German side Stuttgart have the honors of facing the reigning kings of Europe in the opening week of the competition, traveling to the Santiago Bernabeu on Tuesday.
Madrid defeated Borussia Dortmund in last season’s Wembley final to claim the trophy for the sixth time in the last 11 years.
Coach Carlo Ancelotti, the most decorated manager in the history of the tournament with five triumphs, has not yet found the perfect set-up to get Mbappe firing from open play, but few doubt he will.
The 25-year-old had arguably his best game for the club in the 2-0 win over Real Sociedad on Saturday in La Liga, threatening the Basque side with his pace and connecting well with Vinicius Junior in attack.
Mbappe scored, albeit from the penalty spot, and he is looking forward to his Champions League debut in Madrid’s resplendent white.
“It will be very important for me — as I said on the first day, I came to Madrid to live these type of nights,” explained the striker.
“I am very focused on what we have to do, the Champions League has changed a lot, it’s a new competition, and we have to win to start well.”
The new-look structure has thrown up ties for Madrid at home against Dortmund, in a rematch of last season’s showpiece, and away at Liverpool, whom they defeated in the 2022 final.
First come Stuttgart, continuing a streak of German opponents for Los Blancos, after they faced Bayern Munich in the semis before Dortmund in London.
Los Blancos have played one European game already this season, defeating Atalanta to win the UEFA Super Cup in August, with Mbappe scoring on his debut.
Madrid defender Antonio Rudiger came through Stuttgart’s youth system and played in the first team for four seasons.
Ancelotti has problems in midfield with Eduardo Camavinga, Dani Ceballos, Jude Bellingham and Aurelien Tchouameni out injured, although the Italian was hopeful the latter two could take part against the Germans.
While Madrid’s shiny new toy Mbappe is drawing much of the attention, Ancelotti has plenty of stars at his disposal with the talent to turn defeats into draws and draws into victories, something of a penchant for the club, particularly under the lights in Europe.
Bellingham was Madrid’s key player for the first half of last season, making an immediate impact on his arrival from Dortmund.
Brazilian forward Vinicius was vital in the home straight, netting a brace in the semis against Bayern and scoring again in the final.
The forward has struggled to find his best level at the start of the season but his coach will show plenty of patience.
“We love him here because although right now he’s not at his best, nobody can forget that with Vini we have won two Champions Leagues,” pointed out Ancelotti last week.
Mbappe says he is working on his on-pitch relationship with Vinicius, with both netting penalties in the win over La Real.
“We try to find each other in training to create the connection and help the team,” continued Mbappe.
“He’s a great player and I’m happy to play with him in Real Madrid — what’s important is goals, not who takes the penalties.”
Mbappe has three La Liga goals from four games this season, including two penalties, while Vinicius has two, both from the spot.
Once the two forward are firing on all cylinders in open play Madrid’s already sizeable chance of winning the Champions League yet again will grow further still.
Mbappe bolstering holders Madrid’s Champions League ambitions
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Mbappe bolstering holders Madrid’s Champions League ambitions
Salah fires Liverpool 16 points clear, Forest beat Man City
- Fresh from a smash-and-grab 1-0 Champions League victory over Paris Saint-Germain, Liverpool boss Arne Slot made just three changes
- The Egyptian slotted home a second penalty two minutes from time to take his tally for the season to 32 goals
LONDON: Premier League leaders Liverpool needed two Mohamed Salah penalties to beat bottom-of-the-table Southampton 3-1 on Saturday.
Liverpool stretched their lead at the top to a massive 16 points, despite a sloppy first 45 minutes.
Fresh from a smash-and-grab 1-0 Champions League victory over Paris Saint-Germain, Liverpool boss Arne Slot made just three changes.
However, the Dutchman was forced into making three half-time alterations to kickstart the champions-elect.
Southampton have taken just nine points from 28 games all season, but stunned Anfield when Will Smallbone fired the visitors in front in first-half stoppage time.
Alisson Becker was Liverpool’s hero at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday but the Brazilian and Virgil van Dijk got in each other’s way to allow Smallbone to roll into an unguarded net.
Slot turned to Harvey Elliott, Alexis MacAllister and Andy Robertson at the break, and the changes had the desired effect with two goals in three minutes before the hour mark.
Darwin Nunez levelled with a sharp near-post finish from Luis Diaz’s cross.
Nunez was then upended inside the area and Salah converted from the spot.
The Egyptian slotted home a second penalty two minutes from time to take his tally for the season to 32 goals.
Second-placed Arsenal have two games in hand on the leaders, the first of which comes away to Manchester United on Sunday.
But it appears a matter of when not if Liverpool will clinch just their second league title in 35 years.
Crystal Palace shrugged off the loss of top scorer Jean-Philippe Mateta to a serious ear injury to beat Ipswich 1-0 thanks to Ismaila Sarr’s winner.
The Eagles have won nine of their last 11 games in all competitions and climb to 11th.
Brighton boosted their own Champions League hopes courtesy of Joao Pedro’s 98th-minute penalty to beat Fulham 2-1.
Raul Jimenez’s spectacular strike opened the scoring for Fulham, but Jean Paul van Hecke levelled before half-time.
Pedro’s spot-kick lifts the Seagulls to sixth and within one point of City.
Aston Villa travel to Brentford and Wolves host Everton in Saturday’s later kick-offs.
Bayern unpunished for shock loss as Leverkusen fall to defeat
- Despite the loss, just Bayern’s second of the season, the Bavarians still hold an eight-point lead over defending champions Leverkusen with nine games to play
- Leverkusen’s woes were deepened with an injury to star midfielder Florian Wirtz
MUNICH: A 10-man Bayern Munich went unpunished for a shock 3-2 home defeat to Bochum on Saturday after title chasers Bayer Leverkusen were beaten 2-0 by Werder Bremen.
Despite the loss, just Bayern’s second of the season, the Bavarians still hold an eight-point lead over defending champions Leverkusen with nine games to play.
Leverkusen’s woes were deepened with an injury to star midfielder Florian Wirtz, who limped off after a rough challenge having played just 14 second-half minutes.
With an eye on Tuesday’s return leg in the Champions League last 16 against Leverkusen, Bayern coach Vincent Kompany named a heavily changed XI, including leaving striker Harry Kane on the bench.
Bayern midfielder Raphael Guerreiro’s 14th minute goal, when the Portuguese hammered a loose ball into the net, had Bayern on track before Serge Gnabry missed a 21st-minute penalty.
With Kane, who has converted his past 30 penalties in a row, sitting on the bench, Gnabry stepped up but hit the ball against the post.
Guerreiro however scored again with a rare header on the 28-minute mark, just three minutes before Bochum’s Jakov Medic pulled one back with an unstoppable rocket.
Bochum were given hope when Bayern’s Joao Palhinha saw red for sinking his studs into Giorgos Masouras’s ankle just before half-time.
Ibrahima Sissoko headed Bochum level six minutes into the second half and Matus Bero put the underdogs in front 71 minutes in, going the length of the field to knock in a Philipp Hofmann pass.
Bochum’s surprise victory, their first win in Munich since 1991, took them three points clear of the automatic relegation placings.
Leverkusen were down after just seven minutes when Romano Schmid tapped in from close range.
With Leverkusen failing to click, coach Xabi Alonso brought Wirtz from the bench at halftime, but the Germany midfielder was brutally fouled eight minutes afterwards and limped from the field.
Any injury to Wirtz, the club’s talisman and best player this season, would be a serious blow to Alonso’s side, particularly ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League match against Bayern, who hold a 3-0 lead from the first leg.
Borussia Dortmund’s slim chances of reaching the top four took a hit with a 1-0 home loss to Augsburg, with Jeffery Gouweleeuw’s first half header the only goal in the game.
Dortmund were toothless in attack and offered little against an in-form Augsburg, who have conceded just three goals in the league in 2025 — the best mark in Europe.
Dortmund, last season’s Champions League finalists, sit 10th in the league, seven points off the top four.
Elsewhere, St. Pauli scored their first goal in five matches in a 1-1 draw at Wolfsburg, going two points clear of the relegation playoff spot.
Fellow promoted side Holstein Kiel also picked up a point with a hard-fought 2-2 home win over Stuttgart.
Later on Saturday, Freiburg host RB Leipzig.
Forest beat Man City in a top four showdown
- City have been reduced to battling for a place in next season’s Champions League after a dismal campaign
- Even that usually routine target is far from assured for Guardiola’s men following their ninth league defeat this term
NOTTINGHAM, United Kingdom: Nottingham Forest dealt a major blow to Manchester City’s bid to qualify for the Champions League as Callum Hudson-Odoi’s late winner sealed a 1-0 victory in the top four shoot-out on Saturday.
City have been reduced to battling for a place in next season’s Champions League after a dismal campaign.
Even that usually routine target is far from assured for Guardiola’s men following their ninth league defeat this term.
With six titles in the past seven seasons, City have rarely had to worry about their place in the Premier League’s top four in the Pep Guardiola era.
Yet they left the City Ground looking anxiously over their shoulders after a first league loss to Forest since 1997.
Fifth-placed Chelsea, just one point adrift of City, will go above the champions if they beat lowly Leicester on Sunday.
Finishing fifth could still be enough for City to reach Europe’s elite club competition depend on the results of the English clubs who remain in continental competitions this term.
For City to achieve that modest goal, they will have to significantly improve on the latest limp display in a turbulent season.
Third-placed Forest are four points clear of City thanks to only their third win in their last eight league games.
Enjoying a fairytale season just a year after battling relegation, the former European champions are closing on a berth in the Champions League for the first time since 1980-81.
After Forest’s former defender Stuart Pearce was rushed to hospital having been taken ill on a flight this week, his old club displayed a big screen message reading ‘Get Well Soon Stuart’, after three minutes of the Premier League game, recognizing Pearce’s old shirt number three.
Forest were able to draw on the ultra-aggressive Pearce’s trademark fire and brimstone in a stirring finale that followed a tepid first half.
Nico Gonzalez fired just wide from 25 yards as City tried in vain to seize the initiative in a nervous start from both teams.
The unseasonably sunny weather by the banks of the River Trent gave a soporific feel to what should have been a high-tempo clash with so much at stake.
City went close when Josko Gvardiol picked out Phil Foden, whose goal-bound shot was blocked by Nicolas Dominguez, before Bernardo Silva wastefully fired over with Erling Haaland unmarked and waiting for a pass that never came.
Jeremy Doku’s strike forced Forest keeper Matz Sels into action for the first time.
But a woeful effort from Forest midfielder Morgan Gibbs-White finished closer to the corner flag than the goal, an ugly misfire in keeping with the scrappy fare.
Anthony Elanga crossed to the far post where Dominguez’s volley finally forced Ederson to make a save soon after the interval.
Guardiola sent on Omar Marmoush, Kevin De Bruyne, Rico Lewis and Mateo Kovacic in a bid to spark City into life.
The changes didn’t have the desired effect as Forest found late momentum.
Ederson made a fine save, turning Hudson-Odoi’s curler onto the post.
De Bruyne’s free-kick was saved by Sels, but Hudson-Odoi stole the points as the City Ground erupted in the 83rd minute.
Gibbs-White conjured an inch-perfect pass to Hudson-Odoi and the forward cut inside before drilling a superb strike past Ederson’s weak attempted save at the near post.
Trump will lead task force preparing for 2026 World Cup
- For 2026, the World Cup will expand to 48 teams playing 104 matches across three nations, the first time the tournament will be split between countries
- The Trump administration will face a second test on the global sports stage in 2028, when the summer Olympics will be held in California, the first time the Games will have been in the US since Salt Lake City hosted in 2002
NEW YORK: President Donald Trump created a task force Friday to prepare for the 2026 World Cup, which will bring the globe’s premier soccer tournament to North America at a time when his on-again, off-again tariffs have ratcheted up tensions across the continent.
“I think it’s going to make it more exciting,” Trump said of playing the World Cup amid sharp rhetoric between leaders of the host nations. “Tension’s a good thing.”
The task force, which Trump will chair, will coordinate the federal government’s security and planning for the tournament, which is expected to draw millions of tourists to the US, Canada and Mexico.
“It’s a great honor for our country to have it,” Trump said of the World Cup after meeting with officials from FIFA, the international soccer governing body. He said he’d like to attend multiple games.
Preparations are ramping up across the continent alongside tensions between the US and its neighbors as Trump has repeatedly threatened to impose tariffs before backing off, spooking markets and leading to fears of a trade war and economic downturn. He also speaks pejoratively of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and muses about Canada becoming a US state, which has boosted national pride north of the border.
For 2026, the World Cup will expand to 48 teams playing 104 matches across three nations, the first time the tournament will be split between countries. Seventy-eight of 104 matches will be played in the US, with 13 games each in Mexico and Canada, and as many as six matches a day. The final will be played July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino said the task force will ensure that each of the visitors who will travel from around the world “feels safe, feels happy and feels that we are doing something special.”
“So we’re here to create and to make the best show on the planet ever,” Infantino said. He gave Trump a personalized game ball and unveiled an elaborate trophy that will go to the winner of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, which will pit top soccer clubs against each other this summer ahead of next year’s matchup of national teams.
Trump later brought Infantino to show off the trophy at the start of a White House cryptocurrency summit. The US, where soccer has grown in popularity but remains a niche sport, represents a major growth area for soccer, he said.
Infantino likened producing the World Cup to holding three Super Bowls daily for a month, a dizzying security and logistical challenge for the host governments.
The Trump administration will face a second test on the global sports stage in 2028, when the summer Olympics will be held in California, the first time the Games will have been in the US since Salt Lake City hosted in 2002.
Cavs survive Hornets scare, Jokic makes history in Nuggets win
- Oklahoma City Thunder extended their lead at the top of the standings after defeating the Portland Trail Blazers 107-89
- In Miami, the Minnesota Timberwolves’ balanced offense was enough to secure a 106-104 victory over the Heat, with seven T’Wolves players finishing in double figures
LOS ANGELES: The Cleveland Cavaliers staged a dramatic late rally to stretch their unbeaten streak to 13 games with a nail-biting 118-117 over the lowly Charlotte Hornets in the NBA on Friday.
Charlotte, buoyed by a stellar 46-point display from Miles Bridges, looked ready to score a massive upset after opening up a nine-point lead with just over five minutes remaining.
But Eastern Conference leaders Cleveland, who this week became the first team to punch their ticket to the postseason, rallied superbly to claw their way back into the game.
A sensational Evan Mobley three-pointer tied it for the Cavs at 106-106 with just over two minutes remaining, before Donovan Mitchell put the Cavs into a winning position with six straight free throws.
Mitchell led the scoring for Cleveland with 24 points while Darius Garland finished with 20 and Mobley 19 as the Cavs improved to 53-10. Cleveland lead the East by eight games.
Bridges almost single-handedly inspired Charlotte to what would have been a remarkable upset. Only two other Hornets players finished with double figures as Charlotte fell to 14-48 to remain one place off the bottom of the table.
Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson said his team’s determination to dig out victory augured well for the looming playoff campaign.
“Thirteen in a row — I think yes, we’re in a good groove,” Atkinson said.
“We’ve had to scratch and claw these last couple of games, which is great for playoff prep — playing in some tight games and having to execute at the end of the game.
“Our group’s in a really good place. It did feel like our energy was a little bit down, but when our energy’s high it’s really tough to beat us.”
In the Western Conference, meanwhile, the Oklahoma City Thunder extended their lead at the top of the standings after defeating the Portland Trail Blazers 107-89.
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault could afford to rest Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams and Cason Wallace, but they were still too strong for an outgunned Blazers line-up.
Aaron Wiggins led the Oklahoma City scoring with 30 points while Jaylin Williams posted his first career triple-double with 11 rebounds, 11 assists and 10 points.
OKC improved to 52-11 and lead the West by 11 games from the second-placed Los Angeles Lakers.
In Denver, Nikola Jokic made history en route to equalling his career-high tally of triple-doubles for a season as the Nuggets downed the Phoenix Suns 149-141 in an overtime thriller.
Three-time NBA Most Valuable Player Jokic finished with 31 points, 21 rebounds and 22 assists to complete his 29th triple of the season. It marked the first time ever a player has scored more than 30 points, 20 rebounds and 20 assists in a single game.
The Suns, desperately needing a victory as they chase a place in the play-in tournament, rallied back brilliantly from 21 points down in the third quarter to tie it up when Kevin Durant drained a three-pointer on the buzzer.
But Jokic took over in overtime to close out a victory that leaves the Nuggets third in the West on 41-22.
Elsewhere, the Memphis Grizzlies halted their four-game skid with a 122-111 victory over the Dallas Mavericks, who were without the injured Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis.
Ja Morant sparked the Grizzlies with 31 points, while Desmond Bane added 27 points, 16 rebounds and six assists.
The Grizzlies are fourth in the West with a 39-24 record while Dallas fell to 32-32.
In Miami, the Minnesota Timberwolves’ balanced offense was enough to secure a 106-104 victory over the Heat, with seven T’Wolves players finishing in double figures.
