Leweling rockets Germany past Dutch and into Nations League quarterfinals

Germany's scorer Jamie Leweling, right, celebrates with teammate Antonio Ruediger after scoring the opening goal during the UEFA Nations League group 3 soccer match between Germany and The Netherlands in Munich, Germany, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 15 October 2024
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Leweling rockets Germany past Dutch and into Nations League quarterfinals

  • A beaming Leweling told Germany’s ZDF network “we won as a team, I scored the 1-0, we won 1-0, but we did well and I’m just happy I could help out

MUNICH, Germany: A 63-minute rocket from debutant Jamie Leweling gave Germany a 1-0 win over a limp Netherlands in Munich on Monday and a first appearance in the Nations League knockout rounds.
The Stuttgart forward was called off the bench after an injury to club teammate Deniz Undav in the warm-up.
Leweling had an early goal ruled out for the tightest of offsides before blasting in a loose ball from a Joshua Kimmich corner.
A beaming Leweling told Germany’s ZDF network “we won as a team, I scored the 1-0, we won 1-0, but we did well and I’m just happy I could help out.
“The Dutch are a top nation, but we played a good game nevertheless. We used the chances that we had well.”
Captain Kimmich told reporters the side were proud to overcome a long injury list.
“There were just three players on the field in comparison to five weeks ago against Holland (a 2-2 draw in the Netherlands), that’s why we are proud of what we did.
“You could see how happy we are, how proud we are of the performance today.
“We had lots of new players, some young players, unfortunately lots of injuries but you didnt notice much of a difference.
“Jamie had an outstanding debut — it’s not often the Allianz Arena gives you a reception like that — he did well.
Oliver Baumann, at 34 the oldest debutant goalie in Germany history, pulled off a spectacular save from Donyell Malen in the final minute to protect Germany’s victory.
The Netherlands, missing suspended captain Virgil van Dijk, were poor until the dying stages. They stayed second in the group but only on goal difference ahead of Hungary, who beat Bosnia 2-0.
Before the match, the hosts bid farewell to international veterans Manuel Neuer, Thomas Mueller, Ilkay Gundogan and Toni Kroos, who have all stepped down since the home Euros in the summer.
Since starting his reign one year ago to the day with a 3-1 away win over the United States, coach Julian Nagelsmann has been willing to ignore big names in favor of in-form players.
Injuries to key players including Jamal Musiala, Kai Havertz and Marc-Andre Ter Stegen forced Nagelsmann into seven changes, the injury to Undav, who scored both goals in Germany’s win over Bosnia on October 11, forced a last-minute reshuffle.
The coach gave Leweling and Oliver Baumann their first caps, while Aleksandar Pavlovic and Angelo Stiller started for the first time.
Leweling appeared to have started his Germany career perfectly when he gave the hosts the lead after just two minutes, but a lengthy video review found Serge Gnabry offside in the build-up.
Despite pressing the Dutch into a series of mistakes playing out from goal, Germany failed to carve another clear opportunity in the first half.
The visitors posed little threat to debutant Baumann’s goal, failing to register a shot in the first half.
Leweling’s stunning strike jolted the match into life with just under half an hour remaining.
Xavi Simons rattled the crossbar late as the Dutch hinted at a possible comeback, with Malen also going close but failing to break through.


Hampton the hero as England triumph in crazy shootout

Updated 6 sec ago
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Hampton the hero as England triumph in crazy shootout

ZURICH: England secured their spot in the Euro 2025 semifinals on Thursday after a wild penalty shootout that stretched to 14 players, saw more misses than goals and ended when teenager Smilla Holmberg fired Sweden’s seventh attempt over the bar.

England had come from 2-0 down to force extra time but no further goals led to one of the most extraordinary shootouts ever seen at a major tournament.

It went on for so long that it seems incredible that the final score was only 3-2.

England’s goalkeeper Hannah Hampton turned out to be the unlikely hero having been thrust into the spotlight in her first major tournament after the experienced Mary Earps announced her international retirement just weeks before the tournament.

The 24-year-old Hampton, playing with a bloodied nose stuffed with gauze after taking a hit to the face minutes earlier, made two diving saves in the shootout, but she was also aided by a Sweden team that missed three — two of them sailing miles over the bar.

Alessia Russo and Chloe Kelly, who scored the winning goal in England’s 2022 final victory over Germany, were on target but Sweden keeper Jennifer Falk saved poorly-struck attempts from Lauren James, Beth Mead, Alex Greenwood and Grace Clinton.

With the incredulous crowd wondering if anyone would score, Lucy Bronze limped up to the spot minutes after she had been on her back strapping her own thigh while England’s physios were busy elsewhere.

Having seen a succession of weakly-hit penalties saved, Bronze removed the strapping before stepping up to slam her attempt home with unstoppable power.

“I just felt a little bit tight at the end of the game and I thought I just need to get through to make sure I can keep going, but I thought (the bandage) is going to hinder me in a penalty,” Bronze said.

“I didn’t expect it to go to the sixth penalty, so I didn’t take it off. And then it was my penalty, I thought ‘I need to take this off because I’m going to absolutely smack it’.”

That left 18-year-old Holmberg needing to score for Sweden but she blazed over the crossbar to end the incredible contest.

“Stressful. Stressful watching, stressful playing,” said Hampton. “Every time I saved one I was thinking ‘please just put it in so we have a bit of a cushion’. Their keeper then just went and saved the next one and I was thinking ‘oh goodness, here we go.’ “Me and nosebleeds never go well. Me and the doctor have had some great history in the past with having to go to hospital and stuff so as soon as he came over he was thinking ‘not again’.

“I think I was better in the game when I had one nostril than when I was completely fine! Just happy and relieved now.”
 


Arnold confident his experience can help make Iraq’s World Cup dream come true

Updated 47 sec ago
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Arnold confident his experience can help make Iraq’s World Cup dream come true

Iraq coach Graham Arnold is confident he can lead the country to a first World Cup in 40 years after his team were drawn to face Saudi Arabia and Indonesia in the next phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 tournament in North America.
The three teams will play each other in Jeddah in October, with the winner of the group advancing directly to the World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Former Australia boss Arnold, who replaced Jesus Casas in May, will be attempting to steer Iraq to the World Cup for the second time after they made their debut at Mexico 1986.
“I have extensive experience working against both the Saudi and Indonesian national teams. I know their strengths, but I also know their weaknesses,” Arnold said.
“But we are Iraq, an extremely proud nation with a higher FIFA ranking than both Saudi and Indonesia and we need to prove that.”
Arnold’s finest coaching achievement to date came at the 2022 World Cup when he led Australia to the last 16, with the Socceroos eliminated by eventual champions Argentina.
He resigned as Australia coach in September last year following a 0-0 draw with Indonesia in Jakarta.
The 61-year-old last faced Saudi Arabia in March 2022, when his Australia team lost 1-0 in World Cup qualifier at the same King Abdullah Sports City Stadium where his Iraq team will face the Green Falcons on Oct. 14.
“Having the belief in the players as I do, when we reach the crucial playoff matches in October, they will be in peak form, both physically and mentally ready to win,” he said.
“I firmly believe this is our time and we will fight with everything we have to make the dream of millions of Iraqis come true.”
The group runners-up will progress to a playoff for a berth in a series of intercontinental match-ups in March.
Australia overcame a poor start under Arnold to book their spot at the expanded 48-team World Cup with Tony Popovic in charge.
Regional heavyweights Japan, South Korea and Iran also secured berths in North America, along with first-time qualifiers Uzbekistan and Jordan.

Pogacar retakes Tour de France lead in crushing mountain win

Updated 2 min 58 sec ago
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Pogacar retakes Tour de France lead in crushing mountain win

  • Team UAE leader Pogacar skipped away on an 11km solo ascent to finish two minutes and 10 seconds ahead of Vingegaard, who refrained from trying to follow the blistering attack
  • French President Emmanuel Macron was on hand at the mountaintop finish, shaking his head in admiration as the 26-year-old shot across the lin
  • Friday’s stage 13 could shake up the standings again as it is an unforgiving individual time trial, mainly uphill, that the Slovenian has been looking forward to
HAUTACAM, France: Tadej Pogacar said he was in the form of his life after climbing to a commanding Tour de France stage win on the Hautacam mountain in the Pyrenees on Thursday. The three-time Tour winner punished his key rival Jonas Vingegaard on stage 12 as he left him trying to limit the damage on the first major mountain on the 21-day race. Team UAE leader Pogacar skipped away on an 11km solo ascent to finish two minutes and 10 seconds ahead of Vingegaard, who refrained from trying to follow the blistering attack. Overnight leader Ben Healy of Ireland meanwhile wilted to a 13min deficit on the day. French President Emmanuel Macron was on hand at the mountaintop finish, shaking his head in admiration as the 26-year-old shot across the line. Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel was also left trying to limit his losses, finishing 3min 35sec down in seventh on the 180.6km ride from Auch. In the overall standings Pogacar now leads by 3min 31sec over Visma rider Vingegaard while Evenepoel is third at a daunting 4min 45sec. Pogacar admitted after the race that until now he’s been cranky, complaining about attacks, the heat and tiredness. But he offered a different story in the Pyrenees. “I could see that Visma weren’t feeling so well,” he said. “On the last climb it was really hot but I was really feeling good,” he said, explaining how he shattered the 12-man group still clinging on at the foot of the final climb. He also offered a broader explanation. “This is the best moment of my career. It’s been like a fairytale,” he said of the stage win on a mountain where he had previously been beaten. “I enjoy this sufferfest,” he said of the long climb days. “I’m at the peak of my career. Once this fire goes out, my performance will drop.” Pogacar admitted at the finish line his team had been secretly targeting this stage for some time. “The plan was to win this stage,” he said. “I’m super happy to take time and win on this particular climb,” said Pogacar, who fell heavily on stage 11. “You don’t know how your body reacts after a crash. It wasn’t so bad. The team did a super job.” The champion had kind words for Irishman Healy, who had a bruising day himself. “Healy tried, he showed big spirit. It was hard for everybody today,” said Pogacar. He also dedicated this win to Italian junior cyclist Samuele Privitera who died aged 19 following a fall at this week’s Tour of the Aoste Valley-Mont Blanc. “I was thinking of him in the final kilometer. This sport can be so hard. It’s so sad,” Pogacar said. Friday’s stage 13 could shake up the standings again as it is an unforgiving individual time trial, mainly uphill, that the Slovenian has been looking forward to. “The race isn’t over, just look at the next few stages and then there’s next week too,” he said. Pogacar also took over the polka dot king of the mountain jersey while Jonathan Milan has the green sprint jersey and Evenepoel the white jersey as the best young rider. Healy described his time in yellow as a “whirlwind” after dropping to 11th, over 13min off the pace. There were three mountains on the menu Thursday as the peloton entered the Pyrenees. The pack was whittled down before Pogacar’s astonishing attack on the fabled Hautacam, a 13.6km ascent at 7.8 percent gradient. On Friday a 10.9km race up the Peyragudes mountain rescue airfield with slopes of up to 16 percent await some potentially tired legs with the temperature set to hit around 33 degrees Celsius (92 Fahrenheit).

Why the US might finally start calling soccer ‘football’

Updated 17 July 2025
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Why the US might finally start calling soccer ‘football’

It is the world’s most popular sport and yet there is still debate over what it should actually be called.
Is it football or soccer?
US President Donald Trump waded into the topic while at the Club World Cup final in New Jersey last Sunday. He joked that he could pass an executive order to bring the United States in line with much of the rest of the world and ensure that from now on Americans refer to it as football.
“I think I could do that,” he said with a smile during an interview with host broadcaster DAZN.
It was a light-hearted comment, but at a time when the US is playing an increasingly significant role in soccer the question of why Americans continue to call it by a different name to the one by which it is most commonly known has been raised again.
“They call it football, we call it soccer. I’m not sure that change could be made very easily,” Trump said.
Soccer keeps growing in the US and so does its influence on the sport. It is co-hosting the men’s World Cup with Canada and Mexico next year — the third year in a row that it stages a major tournament after the 2024 Copa America and this summer’s Club World Cup.
Other factors are keeping soccer more often in the US consciousness — and perhaps they will make saying ”football” more commonplace in a tough sporting landscape.
One of the greatest players of all time, Lionel Messi, plays for MLS team Inter Miami; the popularity of the Premier League and Champions League is booming; and the documentary series “Welcome to Wrexham” about a low-level Welsh club co-owned by Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, has attracted new eyeballs.
Don’t blame Americans for calling it soccer
Despite “soccer” being widely associated with the US, it is commonly accepted that the word was actually coined in Britain, perhaps as far back as the 1880s.
The exact date when it was first used is not known, but it is believed “soccer” was derived from “association football,” which was the first official name of the sport.
The charity English Heritage says the nickname may have first been used by pupils at the iconic Harrow School to “distinguish the new association game from their older pursuit, known as ‘footer.’”
Numerous versions of football began to flourish, often involving handling a ball more than kicking it. One example dating back to the 1600s and still played today in England is Royal Shrovetide. Rugby is another example.
The English Football Association was created in 1863 and drew up codified rules for associated football to set it apart from other versions being played elsewhere in Britain and, from there, soccer as we know it was born.
Dr. Stefan Szymanski, a professor of sport management at the University of Michigan, co-wrote the book “It’s Football, Not Soccer ” and explored the origins of the name. In a lecture to the American University of Beirut in 2019 he said soccer was “very clearly a word of English/British origin.”
“And bear in mind that the name ‘association football’ doesn’t really appear until the 1870s,” he said, “so it appears really very early on in the history of the game and the word ‘soccer’ has been used over and over again since it was coined at the end of the 19th century.”
Soccer was a commonly used term in Britain
“Soccer” is not a commonly used term in Britain these days but that has not always been the case.
It was the title of a popular Saturday morning television show, “Soccer AM,” which ran from 1994 to 2023 on the Premier League’s host broadcaster Sky Sports.
England great and 1966 World Cup winner Bobby Charlton ran popular schools for decades, titled “Bobby Charlton’s Soccer School.”
And Matt Busby — Manchester United’s iconic manager who won the 1968 European Cup — titled his autobiography, which was published in 1974, “Soccer at the Top, My Life in Football.”
That book title suggests the terms “soccer” and “football” were interchangeable in British culture at that time.
Perhaps the word ‘soccer’ isn’t the real problem
Szymanski suggested the problem some people have with “soccer” isn’t the word at all. But rather that it is specifically used in America.
“It’s when Americans use this word that we get the outpourings of distress and horror, and one of the most popular thoughts that people throw at this is to say that American football is not really football,” he said in his lecture.
He argued that given the overwhelming popularity of the NFL in the US it makes perfect sense to differentiate between soccer and its own version of football.
Not just Americans call it soccer
The use of the word “soccer” is a bit more confused in other countries.
Australia, which has its own Australian rules football along with both rugby codes, commonly uses the term and its national men’s team are known as the Socceroos. It’s soccer federation, however, is called Football Australia.
It’s a similar situation in Ireland, where Gaelic football is popular. The term “soccer” is used but the national soccer team is still governed by a body called the Football Association of Ireland.
Canada, like the US simply calls it soccer, which clearly distinguishes it from the NFL and Canadian Football League.
The Associated Press stylebook says soccer is the preferred term in the US but notes that “around the world the sport is referred to as football.”


La Liga, Thmanyah sign partnership to boost quality of Saudi football broadcasts

Updated 17 July 2025
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La Liga, Thmanyah sign partnership to boost quality of Saudi football broadcasts

  • Agreement signed in London

LONDON: Riyadh Season announced on Thursday its sponsorship of a strategic partnership between La Liga and Thmanyah, the exclusive broadcaster of Saudi football competitions, in an initiative aimed at enhancing the audiovisual production standards of the Saudi Pro League.

The agreement was signed in London by Faisal Bafarat, CEO of the General Entertainment Authority, on behalf of Riyadh Season; Javier Tebas, the president of La Liga; and Abdulrahman Abumalih, founder and CEO of Thmanyah, a subsidiary of the Saudi Research and Media Group. The signing ceremony was attended by SRMG’s CEO Jomana Al-Rashed.

The agreement was signed in London by Faisal Bafarat, CEO of the General Entertainment Authority, on behalf of Riyadh Season; Javier Tebas, the president of La Liga; and Abdulrahman Abumalih, founder and CEO of Thmanyah, a subsidiary of the Saudi Research and Media Group. The signing ceremony was attended by SRMG’s CEO Jomana Al-Rashed. (Supplied)

Under the agreement La Liga will provide technical consultancy to elevate production quality across SPL broadcasts. Areas of focus include improved camera positioning, signal configuration, and audio systems, along with enhanced lighting distribution in stadiums. The collaboration will also develop a technical production manual and introduce modern broadcast workflows.

Another key element of the partnership involves training programs designed to upskill local production teams and ensure the sustainable transfer of knowledge. La Liga will also work closely with Saudi stakeholders to formulate a robust anti-piracy strategy to protect premium sports and entertainment content across the Kingdom.

Turki Alalshikh, the head of the GEA and Riyadh Season, described the move as a continuation of Riyadh Season’s commitment to extending its global footprint.

He noted that last year’s sponsorship of La Liga marked a key milestone in that journey, with the latest partnership further reinforcing the season’s impact across sports and entertainment sectors.

Tebas said: “We are pleased to join forces with Riyadh Season and Thmanyah to enhance the audiovisual production standards of the Saudi Pro League.

“We already have a strong working relationship, and we look forward to building on that to deliver world-class broadcast experiences. At La Liga we are committed to sharing our knowledge and expertise to support football’s global growth, and this initiative is an important step forward for Saudi football’s international visibility.”