Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Faf du Plessis made a critical assessment of his side’s performance in the IPL this season, saying it “wasn’t one of the best teams in the competition” and “didn’t deserve to be in semifinal”.
RCB’s campaign in the IPL ended prematurely yet again with Shubman Gill’s blazing century helping Gujarat Titans to a six-wicket victory here on Sunday.
RCB have never won an IPL trophy and it would have rankled Faf all the more as, despite leading the run-getters’ chart, his efforts went in vain.
“I am so disappointed that our season ends there. If we take a hard look at ourselves, we’ll be honest in saying that we weren’t one of the best teams in the competition,” said Faf, who took over as RCB captain this season.
“We were lucky that there were some really good performances throughout the season but, as a whole (and) as a team, we probably don’t deserve to be in the semifinal, if you look at the period of 15-14 games,” said the South African in a post-match video posted by RCB on Monday.
A win for RCB would have denied Mumbai Indians a spot in the playoffs but GT, thanks to Gill’s heroics, chased down a competitive 198 set by the home team with five balls to spare.
“It (defeat) still hurts. I mean, we tried really hard tonight (Sunday) and unfortunately just fell short. Looking at some real positives in the form of Maxi (Glenn Maxwell) this year, the partnerships we had between myself and Virat (Kohli)… a 50-run partnership in probably every game, the consistency was remarkable.
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“(Pacer Mohammed) Siraj had a great campaign, so some really, really high positives and some areas in the game where we were consistently not great, I think,” added Faf.
RCB head coach Sanjay Bangar said the team’s early exit despite some outstanding performances from Kohli, Faf and Siraj was difficult to comprehend.
“It is indeed very disappointing because there were some outstanding performances. We had to finish a couple of close games but couldn’t.
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We found ourselves in a very tight corner towards the end but (it) doesn’t take away anything from the guys who preformed.” Kohli ended up with two centuries and six half-centuries, while Faf scored eight half-tons, though the poor performance of the middle order ultimately cost them the season. However, Bangar said that he was happy the team played some “attractive” cricket throughout the tournament.
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“The performances put (up) by the team… we were really a fighting unit, a very attractive unit throughout the tournament, just that very disappointed that we could not progress in the tournament,” he added.
Take note, Manchester City: the bigger the match, the bigger the performance from Lautaro Martinez lately.
After scoring key goals against Benfica and city rival AC Milan to help secure Inter Milan a spot in the Champions League final, Martinez netted twice as the Nerazzurri produced a 2-1 comeback win over Fiorentina to defend the Italian Cup trophy on Wednesday.
It’s the second trophy that Inter has won this season after also beating Milan in the Italian Super Cup in January — when Martinez also scored.
After a couple of matches to finish up Serie A, Martinez and Inter will be aiming for one more trophy when they face City in the Champions League final on June 10 in Istanbul.
“In all honesty, I am moved, because for a couple of years we have been bringing trophies to this great club and we’ve got to continue this way,” said Martinez, who also played a big role when Inter won Serie A in 2021. “I want to keep contributing for Inter, because that’s what matters.”
Martinez now has a career-best 27 goals across all competitions for Inter this season, having also helped Argentina win the World Cup in December. He’s also the only player to have appeared in all 54 of Inter’s matches this season.
The match at the Stadio Olimpico was lively from the start as Nicolas Gonzalez put Fiorentina ahead three minutes in following a lapse by Inter’s defense. A cross from Jonathan Ikone was allowed to float across the area for Gonzalez to knock in at the far post.
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Then Martinez took over to put Inter ahead before the break.
First, a perfectly placed through ball from Marcelo Brozovic set up the equalizer as Martinez ran onto the pass and scored with an angled shot into the far corner for his 100th goal with Inter. Then Martinez produced an acrobatic volley to redirect in a pass from Nicolo Barella.
Martinez also nearly produced another goal when he set up Edin Dzeko with only the goalkeeper to beat but Dzeko’s shot sailed high over the bar.
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Fiorentina will play West Ham in the Europa Conference League final on June 7.
“We were hoping for a different result but this will serve as experience and preparation for what to expect on a mental level and how to handle the match for the Conference League final,” Fiorentina coach Vincenzo Italiano said.
It’s the ninth Italian Cup title for Inter, while Nerazzurri coach Simone Inzaghi has now won seven of his eight finals as a manager.
“We started poorly and had the wrong approach, which is rare for us, but the guys did well to stay in the game anyhow and then turn it around,” Inzaghi said. “The team is improving match by match.”
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By reaching the final, Inter and Fiorentina had each already qualified for next season’s expanded Italian Super Cup, which will feature four teams that also include Serie A champion Napoli and the league runner-up.
The chants of “monkey!” at the Spanish soccer stadium echoed across the Atlantic, reaching the ears of people on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.
That’s where Vinícius Júnior, who is Black, grew up and launched his soccer career. Now, despite his global fame and millions, he was again the target of crude European racism.
His city in multiracial Brazil was sickened, and has rallied to his defense.
In Sao Goncalo, rapper Deivisson Oliveira was eating breakfast when the TV news showed the abuse aimed at his hometown hero.
“I needed to cry out,” said Oliveira, 30, who raps under the name MC Menor do CPX.
Oliveira typed lyrics on his phone with his 6-month-old son at his feet. Powerful verses surged through his thumbs: “From the favela to the world: Strength, Vinícius Júnior!” Racism in the Spanish league has intensified this season, especially after Vinícius started celebrating goals by dancing.
On at least nine occasions, people have made monkey sounds at Vinícius, chanted the slur “monkey!” and hurled other racist slurs. Vinícius has repeatedly demanded action from Spanish soccer authorities.
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Vinícius’ 2017 move to Real Madrid was the culmination of years of effort. One of the most popular clubs in global soccer paid 45 million euros (about $50 million) — at the time the most ever for a Brazilian teenager — even before his professional debut with Rio-based Flamengo.
Relentless racism wasn’t part of Vinícius’ dream when he was growing up in Sao Goncalo.
Sao Goncalo is the second-most populous city in Rio’s metropolitan region, and one of the poorest in the state of Rio de Janeiro, according to the national statistics institute. At night in some areas, motorists turn on their hazard lights to signal to drug-trafficking gangs that the driver is local.
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It is also where the 2020 police killing of a 14-year-old sparked Black Lives Matter protests across Rio.
Racism has once again fanned outrage.
Rio’s imposing, illuminated Christ the Redeemer statue was made dark one night in solidarity. The city’s enormous bayside Ferris wheel this week exhibits a clenched Black fist and the scrolling words: “EVERYONE AGAINST RACISM.” “My total repudiation of the episode of racism suffered by our ace and the pride of all of us in Sao Goncalo,” the city’s mayor, Nelson Ruas dos Santos, wrote on Twitter the morning after the incident.
Rio’s Mayor Eduardo Paes was less diplomatic when responding to a defense issued by the Spanish soccer league’s president.
“Go to hell, son of a…” Paes wrote.
On Thursday, Spanish league president Javier Tebas held a news conference claiming that the league has been acting alone against racism, and that it could end it in six months if granted more power by the government.
At the same time in Rio, representatives of more than 150 activist groups and nonprofits delivered a letter to Spain’s consulate, demanding an investigation into the league and its president. They organized a protest that evening.
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“Vinicius has been a warrior, he’s being a warrior, for enduring this since he arrived in Spain and always taking a stand,” activist Valda Neves said. “This time, he’s not alone.” The first Black Brazilian players to sign for European clubs in the 1960s met some racism in the largely white society, but rarely spoke out. At the time when Brazil still considered itself a “racial democracy,” and did not take on the racism that many faced.
In the late 1980s, the federal government made racial discrimination a crime and created a foundation to promote Afro-Brazilian culture. At the time, many Brazilian players who might identify as Black today did not recognize themselves as such. Incidents of racism in Europe prompted little blowback in Brazil.
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In the decades since, Brazil’s Black activists have gained prominence and promoted awareness of structural racism. The federal government instituted policies aimed at addressing it, including affirmative-action admissions for public universities and jobs. There has been heightened consciousness throughout society.
In 2014, a fan hurled a banana at defender Dani Alves during a Spanish league match; he picked it up and ate it in a show of defiance, triggering a coordinated social media campaign with other Brazilian players, including star forward Neymar, who did the same.
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Vinícius’ own educational nonprofit this week launched a program to train public school teachers to raise awareness about racism and instruct kids in fighting discrimination.
A teacher at a Sao Goncalo school that will host the project, Mariana Alves, hopes it will provide kids much-needed support and preparation. She spoke in a classroom with soccer-ball beanbag chairs strewn about, and enormous photos of Vinícius on the walls.
Most of the school’s students are Black or biracial, and many have experienced racism, Alves said in an interview. This week, her 10-year-old students have been asking if she saw what happened to Vinícius because they don’t fully understand.
“He has money, he has all this status, and not even that stopped him from going through this situation of racism,” said Alves, who is Black and from Sao Goncalo.
“So the students wonder … Will I go through that, too? Is that going to happen to me?’” As a boy, Vinícius started training at a nearby feeder school for Flamengo, Brazil’s most popular club, before signing with its youth team.
Sao Goncalo kids there were a blur Wednesday afternoon as they ran non-stop drills, leaving them without time or breath to discuss their idol’s troubles on another continent.
Still, they knew.
One of them, Ryan Gonçalves Negri, said he has talked about it with his friends outside the soccer school, and that Vinícius should transfer out of the Spanish league “urgently.” “I would never want to play there,” Negri, 13, said. “It’s not for Brazilians who know how to score goals and celebrate.”
While the kids practiced, the rapper Oliveira and his producer Éverton Ramos, known as DJ Cabide, stepped onto the turf and made their way to the corner.
They set up a speaker beneath a banner of Vinícius as a brash teenager with his tongue extended, then started recording a clip for their protest song’s music video.
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“I’m no one, but my voice can reach where I can’t go, where I can’t imagine going,” Oliveira said. “My voice will get there, you understand?”
After getting a couple of early reprieves, Gujarat Titans lost their talismanic opener Shubman Gill early in the final of the Indian Premier League on Monday at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, thanks to some magic from Chennai Super Kings’ MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja.
Shubman, who took the Orange Cap for the highest run-scorer of the season in Qualifier 2 last week, was looking in fine form in the final, having scored 39 off 19 balls. This included three consecutive boundaries off a Tushar Deshpande over.
But in the last ball of the seventh over, Jadeja bowled a flatter and fuller delivery at Gill which enticed him forward. But the turn beat his edge and sneaked into the hands of Dhoni, who wasted no time in whipping off the bails. It was the 300th T20 dismissal for Dhoni in what is his 250th IPL game.
As soon as he made the stumping, the umpire went upstairs. Jadeja was unsure, asking Dhoni if that was out. Dhoni nodded.
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The wicket of Gill was important for the CSK as he has scored 890 runs this season, with three centuries and four half centuries at an average of 59.33.
Lionel Messi’s transfer saga this summer has taken another turn after Saudi Arabia FA President Yasser Al-Misehal confirmed their interest in bringing the Argentine superstar to the middle east.
According to a report on goal.com Saudi FA president spoke to SSC News and said, “I have no news to be honest. There’s no doubt that personally, I would like to see Messi in the Saudi Arabian league. It would complete the great leap that was made by Cristiano.”
If Messi does make a move to Saudi Arabia, then it will be an important moment in football’s history.
He will follow Ronaldo’s footsteps, and will be a major addition to the Middle East, thus changing the region’s football landscape.
The move could also boost the growing financial power of Saudi Arabia, which has been investing heavily in football in recent years, and is now one of the richest leagues in the world.
Messi’s potential arrival could also attract other top players to the Saudi Professional League.
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Meanwhile, Messi was featured in Paris Saint-Germain’s (PSG) promotional video for their 2023-24 kit. This fuelled speculations that he might remain at the French club for another season.
🆕🏟️👕
Presenting our new 23/24 season 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐣𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐲 @nikefootball 🟥🟦
A shirt that honours the design of a classic Parisian kit and embodies the unique spirit of the French capital ✨#𝐼𝐶𝐼𝐶𝐸𝑆𝑇𝑃𝐴𝑅𝐼𝑆 pic.twitter.com/nQURugA94J
— Paris Saint-Germain (@PSG_English) May 31, 2023
Interestingly, Brazilian star Neymar also appears alongside Messi.
AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost says Yuki Tsunoda continues to improve and remains “on the right track” for a promotion to Red Bull for 2025.
Tsunoda made his F1 debut for Red Bull’s sister outfit in 2021 but had an inconsistent rookie season. Although he made progress in his second year, he still only scored 12 points during the campaign, with a seventh-place finish in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix his best result.
Having previously said that it takes three years for a driver to reach his optimal performance level in Formula 1, Tost warned last winter that this year was do-or-die for the Japanese driver who must prove that he was worth the team’s support.
However, the current limitations of AlphaTauri’s 2023 car aren’t helping Tsunoda’s efforts.
Read also: Frustrated Tsunoda says second red flag in Aussie GP ‘mega sucked’
“Yuki drove two extremely strong races so far,” Tost told Sport1 ahead of last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix in which Tsunoda finished P10.
“I am very happy with him. It’s not his fault that we aren’t competitive yet.”
Regardless of how Tsunoda’s 2023 season unfolds, a move to Red Bull in 2024 is off the table for the Japanese charger as Sergio Perez is contracted to the Milton Keynes-based outfit until the end of next season.
But if Tsunoda continues his upward trajectory, he could be in line for a promotion to the senior bull outfit at the end of next year according to Tost.
“As far as I know, Sergio Perez still has a contract for next year,” added the Austrian.
“All I can say is that Yuki is on the right track. He has improved in every respect. But I think he should drive at AlphaTauri again in 2024.
“In 2025, I think he will finally be ready for Red Bull.”
But Tsunoda likely won’t be the only Red Bull driver targeting a seat at the championship winning team alongside Max Verstappen.
The team’s current reserve driver Liam Lawson intends to stake a claim to the plum drive, while Nyck de Vries is also hoping to assert his right to a promotion to Red Bull Racing.
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
According to L’Équipe, Algerian attacking midfielder Youcef Belaïli (31) is unhappy at Brest, not being selected in key matches to start: only starting four out of seven matches he has featured in this season.
He is also separated from his family, who haven’t been able to join him in France because of ongoing Visa issues – it is also reported that he left his house in such a state that it needed €50,000 worth of renovations. Whilst the mood surrounding the player is bleak, no contract termination talks are yet to begin.
Foot Mercato reported yesterday that Youcef Belaïli is in advanced talks to terminate his contract with Brest, less than a year after he joined the Breton club.
The 30-year-old is said to be unhappy at the club since the start of the summer, despite his good start to life in Ligue 1, scoring three and assisting two in the latter half of last season.
Despite the arrival of his compatriot Islam Slimani, who tried to help his international teammate acclimate to his new surroundings, Belaïli is said to be struggling with being far from his family.
Brest are reportedly exasperated by his behaviour and are now prepared to let him go, despite recently extending his contract – talks over a termination are now at an advanced stage, but are not complete as of yet.
Despite notching two assists already this season, Belaïli has not appeared since September 7. The Algerian initially wanted to move back to Qatar, but a move to the United Arab Emirates appears to be the likelier solution, given the transfer window there lasts until September 29.
One of the biggest transfer stories in France revolved around the future of Houssem Aouar in the last summer transfer window. But with Lyon failing to agree to a deal over the midfielder’s sale, the 24-year-old had to stay put at his hometown club.
In a recent interview with L’Équipe, Aouar admitted that he would’ve left Lyon in the summer transfer if he had been in charge of his transfer fate.
Nevertheless, the player has not ruled out a move away from OL after his contract with his current club runs out in June 2023. Explaining the dilemma regarding a transfer, Aouar said:
“It’s not me who failed to leave. In a transfer, there are three parties: the buying club, the selling club, and the player. If it were up to me, I would’ve been transferred since I had accepted the offers. But everyone has to agree and respect that. It happens every summer for a lot of players. It doesn’t bother me mentally at all. I am someone who quickly moves on.”
According to L’Équipe, Olympique Lyonnais president Jean-Michel Aulas is hoping for a Lyon-produced double at the Ballon d’Or award ceremony on Monday with Wendie Renard vying for the women’s award, and former Lyon academy graduate Karim Benzema highly tipped to win football’s biggest individual prize.
“I would love, as there are two Ballon d’Or awards, one for women and one for men, for Karim Benzema to be joined by a student from the Academy (Wendie Renard and Selma Bacha In any case), it’s great news.”
“Benzema deserves it very much, and we’re a bit proud because obviously he’s come out of our Academy, so we’re going to take part, we’re getting ready for it. I’m also happy for the president of Madrid [Florentino Perez], a great man who I’ll say hello to in passing. He came looking for Karim in 2009 with a lot of class, because he called me, and we went together to see him with his family in Bron.”
Marseille fans caused minor havoc in their Champions League game against Eintracht Frankfurt as the Ligue 1 side succumbed to a 2-1 defeat to the German club.
As reported by L’Équipe, 1,900 Marseille fans made the trip to the Deutsche Bank Park for OM’s Champions League encounter against Frankfurt on Wednesday evening.
Daichi Kamada’s goal in the third minute of the match drew the first blood. Mattéo Guendouzi soon equalised with an inspiring finish in the 22nd minute. Five minutes later, Randal Kolo Muani notched up the decisive goal of the match, securing all three points for the German club.
The report suggests minor incidents broke out after the final whistle, with the travelling supporters throwing a few firecrackers and other projectiles in the direction of the adjacent stand. But the trouble did not escalate as the Marseille players approached the away end to give out a few jerseys. Igor Tudor’s side host Tottenham Hotspur in a crucial Champions League fixture next week.
