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Tuesday July 4, 2017

GERMANY survived a whirlwind assault by Chile and capitalized on an awful mistake by the South Americans to claim a 1-0 victory in a pulsating, bad-tem-pered Confederations Cup fi nal Sunday.

Germany won the title for the fi rst time after Lars Stindl scored the only goal in the 20th minute when Chile midfi elder Marcelo Diaz gave the ball away on the edge of his own area.

Chile, playing with its trade-mark high octane style and driven forward by another relentless display by Arturo Vidal, dominated the match but were let down by poor fi n-ishing.

The dramatic game featured missed chances, defensive howlers, scuffl es and two video reviews, one producing a highly controversial outcome in the second half.

Chile defender Gonzalo Jara elbowed Timo Werner by the touchline and Serbian referee Milorad Mazic, alerted by the video assistants, let him off with a yellow card instead of a red.

Shortly afterwards, Mazic turned down Chilean appeals for a penalty, stood by his origi-nal decision after another review incident and booked Eduardo Vargas for drawing an imaginary television screen.

It was a remarkable achieve-ment for Germany to lift the trophy with a young, experi-mental squad, although it could also be a bad omen as no team has ever won the World Cup after winning the Confederations Cup the year before.

“The fact that these young players have won this tour-nament makes it a historic

MANNY PACQUIAO’S camp slammed the offi cials after the Filipino great lost his World Boxing Organization welter-weight title in a controversial unanimous decision to Austra-lia’s Jeff Horn on Sunday.

“The referee was sketchy, the judges were crazy,” fumed Pac-quiao’s strength and condition-ing coach Justin Fortune, who is a former Australian heavyweight champion.

“Manny lost the fi ght, but Jeff Horn looks like a pumpkin,” Fortune added, referring to Horn who fi nished the fi ght with a badly swollen face and needing stitches over his right eye.

The three judges scored the

fi ght 117-111, 115-113 and 115-113 to Horn.

The result caused dismay on social media among boxing and sporting greats.

“This is what’s wrong with boxing,” tweeted former undis-puted world heavyweight cham-pion Lennox Lewis.

“Horn was very game but I’m hard pressed to see how he could have won that fi ght by any stretch!”

American football quarterback Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers was equally forthright.

“Boxing is a joke, and it proves it again tonight. Are you kidding me with those scorecards?” Rod-gers said on Twitter.

Baseball and NFL legend Deion Sanders said: “@manny-pacquiao was robbed! I’m really upset right now. Really. This is ignorant. God bless u Manny and all u do for your country. #Truth.”

Broadcaster ESPN said that Pacquiao had landed 182 punches to 82 from the chal-lenger over the 12 rounds in front of more than 51,000 fans in Horn’s home town of Brisbane.

Two of the judges, Waleska Roldan and Chris Flores, were from the United States while the third, Ramon Cerdan, was from Argentina. The referee, Mark Nelson, was also from the U.S.

(SD-Agencies)

Judges slammed after Pacquiao’s shock loss

GERMANY’S Marcel Kittel met expectations and won the second stage of the Tour de France — a 203.5-km ride from Duesseldorf, Germany, to Liege in Belgium — with a commanding sprint fi nish Sunday while three-time champion Chris Froome man-aged to fi nish in the main pack after falling to the pavement amid a mass crash.

Froome’s Sky teammate Geraint Thomas held on to the leader’s yellow jersey.

Froome was near the front of the peloton when a Katusha rider ahead of him lost control coming around a sharp turn with about 30 km to go.

The domino reaction also took down last year’s runner-up, Romain Bardet of AG2R-La Mondiale.

Froome’s shorts and several layers of skin were torn and he had to change bikes as three teammates paced him back to the peloton.

It was Quick-Step Floors rider Kittel’s 10th career Tour stage win. France’s Arnaud Demare (FDJ) took second place with German Andre Greipel (Lotto Soudal) third.

Earlier, former Australian national champion Luke Durbridge quit the Tour after injuring his ankle in a crash on Saturday’s opening stage.

(SD-Agencies)

THE title race is wide open as the Chinese Super League (CSL) defending champion Guangzhou Evergrande lost to Tianjin Quan-jian FC 4-3 Sunday in the 15th round of the CSL.

Yu Hanchao broke the dead-lock for the visiting Evergrande in the 38th minute with Alan’s

assist, while Tianjin Quanjian FC equalized through Sun Ke’s header. The whole match turned out to be a dramatic scoreline as both teams contributed seven goals in total. Wang Yongpo’s two assists helped Tianjin Quan-jian take the lead for the fi rst time in the 51st minute.

Alexandre Pato’s goal and Wang Yongpo’s penalty kick increased the leading advantage for Tianjin Quanjian, which made Paulinho’s two goals useless.

The loss stopped Guangzhou Evergrande’s 10-game winning streak and its leading advantage

was narrowed to just one point as its closest rivals Shanghai SIPG triumphed Saturday.

Elsewhere on Sunday, Yan-bian beat Guizhou Hengfeng 2-1, which left last season’s runner-up Jiangsu Suning on the bottom of the CSL table.

(Xinhua)

Germany claims Confed Cup title

Guangzhou Evergrande suffers second loss of the season

achievement, it’s unique in Germany’s history, it’s out-standing,” said Germany coach Joachim Loew.

Chile fl ew into the game in its inimitable style and Alexis San-chez should have put them in front, but shot wide from close range after keeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen parried Vidal’s shot.

Germany struck almost imme-diately as Diaz lost the ball on the edge of his penalty area to Timo Werner who slipped it through for Stindl to score into an open goal.

Chile kept missing its chances, continued to look vulnerable on

the break and nearly gifted Germany another goal before halftime when Jara gave the ball away in defense, but this time Claudio Bravo saved Leon Goretzka’s shot.

The German players were happy to contain Chile and play on their mistakes in the second half, although they were living dangerously at times.

Substitute Angelo Sagal scooped the ball over the bar from close range and Ter Stegen pushed away an Alexis Sanchez free kick in almost the last action of the game.

“We put our ideas into prac-

tice,” said Chile coach Juan Anto-nio Pizzi. “But because of one of those things, those accidents, it was our turn to lose.”

Meanwhile, an extra-time pen-alty from Adrien Silva gave Por-tugal a 2-1 win over Mexico and third place at the Confederations Cup. Portugal, which missed a spot kick given thanks to the video assistant referees 16 minutes into the match, was awarded a second penalty after 104 minutes when Miguel Layun handled the ball. Adrien Silva converted the kick to give the European champion a hard-fought victory.

(SD-Agencies)

Manny Pacquiao (L) of the Philippines swings and misses during his loss to Jeff Horn of Australia in Brisbane, Australia, on Sunday. SD-Agencies

Quick-Step Floors rider Marcel Kittel of Germany celebrates on the podium wear-ing the green jersey for best sprinter in Liege, Belgium, on Sunday.

SD-Agencies

Kittel wins Tour stage

Germany’s Lars Stindl celebrates with the trophy and teammates after Germany won the FIFA Confederations Cup in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Sunday. SD-Agencies