The Morung ExpressSPORTSFriday25 February 201110 Dimapur

LONDON, FEBRUARY 24 (AP): Sebastien Squilla-ci's early goal gave Arsenal a 1-0 win over Stoke to move within one point of Pre-mier League leader Man-chester United on Wednes-day. Squillaci headed home from five yards (meters) out in the eighth minute but the Gunners, who have played one match more than Unit-ed, also lost Cesc Fabregas and Theo Walcott to injury at Emirates Stadium.

Fabregas, the team's in-spirational captain, trudged off with what appeared to be a knee injury in the 14th minute and Walcott was carried off on a stretcher in the 70th with an ankle problem. Arsenal, which is still in contention for four trophies, climbed seven points clear of third-place Manchester City. Despite the match coming only four days before his team's League Cup final against Birmingham at Wembley, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger selected his stron-gest possible side.

He now probably wish-es he hadn't, confirming af-ter the match that Walcott is out of the final and Fabre-gas will be assessed Thurs-day. Chief striker and top scorer Robin van Persie was already missing through injury, but the Gunners' attack didn't struggle in the Netherlands interna-tional's absence early on against a one-dimensional

Arsenal beat Stoke to inch closer to Manchester United

Stoke team that had limited ambition all match.

Walcott smashed a shot against the post after little more than a minute be-fore Nicklas Bendtner, Van Persie's replacement, got on the end of a deep corner by Jack Wilshere to cross for Squillaci to head in his first league goal of the sea-son. Fabregas was then forced to come off, having signaled to Wenger two minutes earlier that he was

struggling. Wenger also has the second leg of the Cham-pions League last-16 match at Barcelona on March 8 to worry about.

The rest of the half saw Arsenal dominate pos-session without finding a cutting edge as mid-table Stoke sat back with 10 men behind the ball, appearing to settle for a policy of dam-age limitation. The visi-tors' only chance was a vi-cious volley by lone striker

Jon Carew that was beaten away one-handed by goal-keeper Wojciech Szczesny in the 36th.

Arsenal dealt with the trademark long throws of Rory Delap well in the first half but found them difficult to defend after the break, with German defender Robert Huth heading one of them over in the 58th. At the other end, Walcott was fed by substitute Andrey Arshavin but with the goal

gaping, the England winger _ Arsenal's most dangerous player all night _ miscued from a central position 10 meters out.

That was his last mean-ingful action of the game after falling awkwardly on his left ankle as he was chal-lenged by Dean Whitehead. A tense last 10 minutes saw Stoke punt some hopeful long balls into Arsenal's area but Szczesny encoun-tered few problems.

Arsenal's Sebastien Squillaci, left, scores against Stoke City during the English Premier League soccer match at the Emir-ates Stadium in London, Wednesday, February 23. (AP Photo)

MILAN, FEBRUARY 24 (REUTERS): Mario Go-mez scored a last-ditch goal to give Bayern Munich a 1-0 win at Inter Milan on Wednesday and a good chance of avenging last year's Champions League final loss to the Italians. Inter keeper Julio Cesar failed to hold a long-range shot from Arjen Robben and Gomez pounced on the rebound to score in the final minute of normal time.

Bayern, 2-0 losers in Madrid last season to the team then coached by Jose Mourinho, looked more dangerous throughout the last-16 first-leg tie, although the hosts also created open-ings. "Inter surprised me," Bayern coach Louis van Gaal told reporters. "They played to win and that is very beau-tiful. The whole world has

seen a wonderful game and I think both sets of fans could be happy with this game.

"That is what football is about and having enjoy-ment in football. In the fi-nal last year, they attacked less than they today and got a better result. But that's football." Inter had an early chance when defender An-drea Ranocchia side-footed wide from a free kick but Bayern then looked more threatening. Luiz Gus-tavo was twice close while Franck Ribery, always dan-gerous with the ball at his feet, headed against the crossbar from Robben's curling cross.

Samuel Eto'o was In-ter's most threatening player, having a penalty ap-peal turned down, creating a good chance for Esteban Cambiasso and then pro-

ducing a brilliant reflex save from Thomas Kraft before halftime. Fullback Maicon had Inter's best first half chance in stoppage time when was given a clear shot on goal but fired wide. Rob-ben continually tormented Inter and hit the post early in the second half, then struck another effort over the crossbar after cutting inside with one of his trade-mark runs

In between, Inter missed a sitter when Eto'o had another shot saved by Kraft and Cambiasso, un-marked, fired over from the rebound. Inter finished with a flourish as Thiago Motta was foiled by Kraft and an Eto'o shot went agonisingly wide. "Bayern had more ball possession but our chances were better than Bayern's," Inter coach Leonardo said.

Gomez snatches late winner for Bayern

Bayern Munich forward Mario Gomez, right, scores past by Inter Milan Brazilian goalkeeper Julio Cesar during a Champions League, Round of 16 , first leg soccer match between Inter Milan and Bayern Munich, at the San Siro stadium in Milan , Italy on February 23. (AP Photo)

MARSEILLE, FEBRUARY 24 (REUTERS): Olympique Mar-seille and Manchester United played out a dour 0-0 draw in their Champions League last-16 first-leg match on Wednesday. There were few clearcut chances with both de-fences in dominant form and the tie is evenly poised going onto the second leg at Old Trafford follow-ing the Premier League leaders' failure to score an away goal.

"It was a disappointing game," United manager Alex Ferguson told ITV. "They made sure they weren't going to concede a goal. 0-0 can be a dangerous score but we will be bet-ter at home." In a cagey opening pe-riod, United's Darren Fletcher had a good chance when his sharp effort was smartly saved by Steve Man-danda and Nani blazed over from a promising position.

Marseille probed without any real purpose, former United de-fender Gabriel Heinze particularly keen to impress with a few driving runs down the left, but Brandao's weak header was practically all they had to show for their increased endeavour in the second half. Fer-guson, who said before kick off he feared Marseille's power and noisy fans, left Paul Scholes on the bench despite his injury-depleted squad but replacement Darron Gibson failed to impose himself and the

Marseille and Man United in turgid drawformer England midfielder re-placed him for the last few minutes.

United left back Patrice Evra, a former Monaco player and a France World Cup rebel, was booed on his every touch by the Stade Ve-lodrome but made some decent raids to link up with Wayne Rooney as the striker drifted to the left and dropped deep to try to make some-thing happen in a turgid game. He had two shots blocked while Por-tuguese winger Nani flattered to deceive, slipping twice when in good positions as the three-times European champions struggled to create chances. The poor nature of the first half was summed up by the home fans booing United for pass-ing the ball back to keeper Edwin van der Sar but the visitors were in-creasingly content to settle for 0-0 with centre back Chris Smalling looking solid on his first big Euro-pean occasion.

"Smalling was excellent," Ferguson said. "He gave a tre-mendous example of centre back play and he is getting better all the time." A slightly blunted Mar-seille, who upped the tempo af-ter the break, were without main striker Andre-Pierre Gignac be-cause of a groin problem and play-maker Mathieu Valbuena came on as a late substitute following his recovery from injury.

Manchester United's goalkeeper Edwin Van der Sar of Netherlands, center, catches the ball during their Cham-pions League soccer match, in Marseille stadium, southern France on February 23. (AP Photo)

DDCA informs registered clubs under Dimapur DIMAPUR, FEBRUARY 24 (MExN): All the reg-istered clubs under Dimapur district are informed that any sort of cricket activities within the jurisdic-tion of Dimapur District should be conducted with prior permission from the Dimapur District Cricket Association. DDCA President I. Pihoto Awomi, in a press note stated that this is to enable us to provide any logistic, technical and infrastructural support and proper guidance. The DDCA is also committed to the development of the game as Nagaland Cricket As-sociation is now an affiliated member of Board of con-trol for Cricket in India (BCCI). All registered Clubs and its players are asked to follow the guidelines of the DDCA so as to avoid any controversies.

Garland instead of medal at the National Games!RANCHI, FEBRUARY 24 (AGENCIES): Guess what was in store for kho-kho women's bronze medal-lists at the National Games medal ceremony? The un-suspecting players got only floral garlands and a bou-quet instead of their medals. The reason - the bronze medals were out of stock. The gold and silver medal winners were presented their respective medals. The medal ceremony of 10 sporting events could not be conducted at the mega sports complex late on Wednes-day evening due to shortage of medals. This came even as the office-bearers of both National Games Organis-ing Committee (NGOC) and the Jharkhand Olympic Association (JOA) are busy blowing their own trumpet on the successful conduct of the Games. JOA general secretary SM Hashmi confirmed the fiasco, saying the bronze medals were indeed out of stock. He, however, hastily added that the matter was resolved by late night and the medals had arrived. The medal ceremony for Wednesday's winners will be held on Thursday.

Mizoram wins national sub-junior soccer titleKOLKATA, FEBRUARY 24 (PTI): Mizoram won the 33rd Sub-Junior National Soccer title for Mir Iqbal Hussain trophy beating defending champions Jharkhand 2-1 at Mohun Bagan ground here today. In an evenly contested match, short but speedy Mizoram boys took the lead through their crafty striker Ra-mengmawia in the 10th minute. Stung by the early strike, Jharkhand went all out and made a series of raids forcing the equaliser seven minutes later through medio Syed Shoaib Mahato. The second half saw both the sides making alternative moves without any suc-cess till 65th minute when Mizoram captain David K Hmingthanga collected the ball from a defensive lapse and slammed home the winner with a rasping drive from the top of the box. Mizoram striker Rameng-mawia was adjudged man of the match in the final.

Wozniacki into quarterfinals with win over PetrovaDOHA, FEBRUARY 24 (AP): Top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki beat 2006 champion Nadia Petrova of Rus-sia 6-3, 6-2 on Wednesday to reach the quarterfinals of the Qatar Ladies Open. The Dane joins No. 2 Vera Zvonareva and No. 5 Jelena Jankovic as the remain-ing seeded players left in the tournament. Zvonareva downed Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia 6-1, 6-2, and Jankovic defeated Sania Mirza of India 6-0, 6-1. Woz-niacki will play Flavia Pennetta of Italy, who earned a hard-fought 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic. "I just focus on myself and I try to win," said Wozniacki, who broke once in the first set and twice in the second. "There's a lot of good players here, so it's not easy to win. I'm just taking it one day at a time. It's not going to be easy tomorrow, but I'm look-ing forward to it. "My serve was quite good, so too the returns. Considering the fact that Nadia serves well, it was important to get my returns right."

Michelle Wie of the United States reacts after missing a putt on the 10th green during the first round of the HSBC Women's Champions Golf tournament Thursday February 24 in Singapore. (AP Photo)

MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 24 (PTI): Pinning hopes on the likes of Saina Nehw-al, Gagan Narang and Mary Kom to win medals at the 2012 London Olympics, world chess champion Vish-wanathan Anand has said India will have to start plan-ning for the 2016 edition of the quadrennial event from now to get good results.

"Right now the likes of Saina, Gagan and Mary are some of our big hopes. Then we also have some younger

promising players," the chess ace told reporters when asked about India's medal hopefuls at the mega sporting event.

"Clearly, our target is two. It’s better than one but we should be able to get more. It think you need some time to build it up. At this moment we not only have to plan for 2012, but 2016 as well for good re-sults," he said.Anand will be mentoring and training potential athletes for Olym-pics and is going to be active

on the 'Power your champi-on' initiative of the Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ), the NGO floated by legends Prakash Padukone and Geet Sethi.

The 41-year-old said the OGC's objective was to en-sure that the country did not lose out any medals just be-cause the talented athletes lack access to facilities or equipment. "I think as ath-letes what we would have liked is some organisation to take the practical details out of the way. Its not a sports-

man's job to look for spon-sorships, worry about equip-ment, visa, tickets. That's not what he should be doing. We at OGQ try to sort out these issues and get him the best medical facility, the best physio trainer and so on.”

"Ultimately it comes to the athlete. We cannot per-form for them. But we want to make sure that if they are very talented we shouldn't lose the medal because they don't have the right equipment or medical facilities," he said.

MARANA, FEBRUARY 24 (AGENCIES): Tiger Woods, Steve Stricker and holder Ian Poulter made early exits as the opening round of the WGC-Accen-ture Match Play Cham-pionship lived up to its reputation of wild unpre-dictability.

There were 14 upsets in all from the 32 matches at Dove Mountain's Ritz-Carlton Golf Club, fulfill-ing world number one Lee Westwood's pre-tourna-ment description of the first day as "one of the most exciting days of the year".

Three-times champion

Woods, striving to end a winless run of 15 months, was eliminated by 65th-ranked Dane Thomas Bjorn after 19 holes.

"I blew it," the 14-times major winner said green-side after going out in the first round for a second time at this event.

American world num-ber eight Stricker, who claimed the 2001 Match Play title in Australia, was stunned by 17-year-old Italian Matteo Manasse-ro 2&1. Poulter, who beat fellow Englishman Paul Casey 4&2 in last year's fi-nal to claim his first PGA

Tour victory, was beaten by American Stewart Cink after 19 holes.

A tournament record eight matches went into extra holes but three of the top four seeds ensured a measure of normalcy with comfortable victories on a day of dazzling sunshine, cool temperatures and gusting winds in the Arizo-na desert. Top-seeded Brit-on Westwood never trailed in his match before beat-ing 2007 champion Henrik Stenson of Sweden 3&2.

Second-ranked Ger-man Martin Kaymer completed a 7&6 demoli-

tion of South Korean Noh Seung-yul and fourth seed Phil Mickelson breezed past Australian Brendan Jones 6&5.

Woods appeared to hold the momentum in his match with Bjorn after sinking an eight-foot birdie putt at the par-four 18th to force extra holes.

However, he pushed his next drive way right into desert scrub from where he needed two shots to get back out onto the fairway. He struck his fourth to 18 feet and missed the bogey putt before conceding the match to Bjorn.

'Nehwal, Narang, Mary Kom Olympics medal hopes'

Woods, Poulter and Stricker go out on wild day