分类： sports

The UEFA Champions League quarter-final stage kicked off with a statement performance from defending champions Paris Saint-Germain, who handed Liverpool a 2-0 defeat in Wednesday’s first leg at Parc des Princes. The result leaves the English side facing an uphill battle in next week’s return fixture at Anfield, with Luis Enrique’s squad holding a commanding two-goal cushion to protect on enemy soil.

PSG controlled the contest from the opening whistle, and their early pressure paid off in the 11th minute. Desire Doue picked up a loose ball just outside the 18-yard box after a mazy dribble from Ousmane Dembele, cutting into the area to fire off a shot. The attempt took a lucky deflection off Liverpool’s Ryan Gravenberch, looping over Georgian goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili to put the French side ahead.

The first half was lopsided in every sense: PSG held 70% of possession, with Mamardashvili called into action to stop further attempts from both Doue and winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. Liverpool’s only shot of the half came from an offside Jeremie Frimpong, leaving Arne Slot’s side with little to build on going into the break.

The pattern of domination did not shift after halftime. Midway through the second half, a perfectly threaded through pass from Joao Neves released Kvaratskhelia down the inside-left channel. The Georgian shrugged off a challenge from Gravenberch, rounded compatriot Mamardashvili, and slotted home to double PSG’s lead, putting the holders firmly in control of the tie.

A brief moment of reprieve came for Liverpool when Spanish referee overturned his own initial penalty decision. VAR review confirmed that Ibrahima Konate had successfully won the ball from Warren Zaire-Emery despite the contact, ruling out what would have been a chance for PSG to extend their lead further. Late in the match, Dembele hit the post for PSG, but the 2-0 scoreline held, capping off a one-sided performance from the reigning champions.

The result marks Liverpool’s second heavy defeat in five days, coming off the back of a 4-0 FA Cup quarter-final thrashing at the hands of Manchester City last weekend. Slot has overseen a difficult campaign for the Reds, who have now dropped 16 matches across all competitions this season and claimed just one win from their last six outings.

In a surprising tactical adjustment that ultimately failed to pay off, Slot set Liverpool up in a rare three-centre-back formation, with Joe Gomez joining regular starters Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate at the back. Star forward Mohamed Salah was left on the bench, with former PSG striker Hugo Ekitike starting up front; Ekitike spent 18 months at PSG but never managed to cement a first-team place behind the iconic attacking trio of Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi and Neymar. Brazilian number one Alisson Becker, who single-handedly kept Liverpool in the tie during their last meeting with PSG in the 2023-2024 knockout stage, was absent for this fixture, forcing Mamardashvili into the starting lineup. Slot made a quadruple substitution in the 78th minute to try to shift momentum, bringing on Alexander Isak — returning from a December leg fracture — but kept Salah on the bench for the full 90 minutes.

Post-match, Kvaratskhelia acknowledged PSG’s dominance while warning against complacency ahead of the return leg. “I think we had chances to score more. There were many moments where we should score but it is OK,” he told Canal Plus. “I think 2-0 is good but we have to stay focused because we have to play at Anfield. We know that the atmosphere will be amazing so we are already starting to prepare that game.”

Liverpool now face the enormous challenge of overturning a two-goal deficit to advance to the semi-finals. The club did pull off a similar comeback in the round of 16 this year, overturning a 1-0 first-leg loss to Galatasaray with a 4-0 home win. However, this task is far steeper: PSG have history on their side at Anfield, having claimed a 1-0 away win in last season’s round of 16 second leg before advancing on penalties, a result that helped launch their run to the 2024 Champions League title. The French side have also now won nine of their last 11 matches against Premier League opposition dating back to the start of 2024, underscoring their current form against top English competition.

One of the Adelaide Football Club’s most legendary goal-kickers has grown frustrated with repeated apologies from the Australian Football League (AFL) over officiating missteps, and is now calling for tangible changes to fix a pattern of costly mistakes that have negatively impacted his team.

Taylor Walker, the Crows’ veteran forward, made his stance clear in the lead-up to Adelaide’s opening match of the annual AFL Gather Round, hosted in South Australia, against the under-pressure Carlton Blues this Thursday night.

The latest controversy surrounding AFL officiating erupted earlier this week, when the league issued a formal apology to Adelaide for a critical unpenalized violation of the six-six-six rule by the Fremantle Dockers late in their recent close encounter. Adelaide ultimately dropped the match by a margin smaller than a single goal, a result directly shaped by the missed call. This error is not an isolated incident: it marks the latest in a long string of officiating mistakes that have gone against the Crows in recent fixtures.

Walker acknowledged that human error is an unavoidable part of any sport, saying that no person is immune to making mistakes in any walk of life. But he stressed that repeated apologies mean nothing without corrective action to prevent similar errors from harming other teams in future matches.

“I don’t get sick of mistakes because I reckon everyone in this vicinity has made a mistake in their life,” Walker told reporters. “I would just like to know what we’re doing about it. Don’t continue to make apologies – tell us what you’re going to do about it. It’s not really about the Adelaide footy club at all. Let’s gather around, find a solution for it and not be a part of the mistake. It was pretty obvious, the six-six-six, wasn’t it?”

Off the officiating discussion, Walker also used his pre-match press conference to push for locking in Gather Round as a permanent long-term fixture in South Australia, after the state secured hosting rights for four years of the event. He noted that the annual round has been a runaway success in SA, with the vast majority of visiting clubs enjoying the experience of playing in the state.

“We’re very grateful as a footy club that we can open up Gather Round on a Thursday night,” he said. “As [South Australian Premier Peter] Malinauskas said, we’re pretty chuffed that SA have been able to have it for four years and hopefully we can get a deal done for a long period of time. Because when something’s not broken you don’t need to fix it and we’re doing a great job here in South Australia … most of the teams enjoy coming over here playing in Gather Round. Let’s lock it away for a long period of time.”

For Australian Football League (AFL) forward Jack Higgins, the weeks ahead of his 150th senior career match look just like any other. Life, as he puts it, is “pretty normal” these days. But that very normalcy is a triumph few would have predicted back in 2019, when a devastating on-field injury nearly ended both his football career and his life.

It began after a match for Higgins’ former club Richmond, when persistent concussion symptoms led doctors to a shocking diagnosis: a life-threatening brain bleed that required immediate, high-risk surgery. The procedure carried grave potential outcomes – permanent paralysis or even death – and left the then-rising star wondering if he would ever step onto an AFL field again. In a recent interview with reporters, Higgins recalled the dark uncertainty that followed the procedure. “I didn’t think I’d play another game, didn’t think I’d live a normal life after that,” he said.

Recovery in the early days was grueling. Simple daily tasks that most people take for granted – reading, writing, even getting through a day without crippling headaches – were huge challenges. But with support from a team of elite medical professionals, Higgins slowly rebuilt his strength and his abilities. Today, the residual effects of his surgery are barely noticeable in his day-to-day life. “To play one AFL game and live normally after that, I am happy and proud of myself for it,” he said.

In late 2020, Higgins made the switch from Richmond’s Punt Road ground to St Kilda’s Moorabbin headquarters – a move that held special personal meaning, as St Kilda was the club Higgins grew up supporting. Since the transfer, he has thrived, emerging as the Saints’ leading goal kicker and a core leader of the club’s forward line. Last season, he turned in a career-best performance, nailing 46 goals from 63 scoring shots to cement his place as one of the league’s most reliable attacking threats.

Now, as he prepares to walk onto the field for his 150th career game, Higgins says the milestone feels extra special knowing it will come wearing the guernsey of his childhood team. “It’s a really great achievement, I am really happy I’m playing 150,” he said. “To do it at the club I barrack for was pretty special, I can’t wait to play 150 and hopefully a few more after that. 150 is a great achievement, so I’ll take it day by day.”

Despite already outperforming every expectation set after his injury, Higgins shows no signs of slowing down, and says he still has ambitions to expand his role on the field. For years, he has pushed coaches for the chance to spend more time in the midfield, a role he briefly played as a first-year player at Richmond in 2018. “I would love to play midfield, I have been asking Ross (Lyon) and all my other coaches for the last nine years and they never play me there,” he joked. “I played a bit in my first year at Richmond and that was good fun, I did all right there, hopefully they can look at AFL tables from 2018.”

The milestone match will take place in Adelaide – a city Higgins once joked he had no interest in exploring – but the 200-game veteran-to-be says he does not care where he plays, as long as he gets to keep lacing up his boots at the highest level. He even joked he would play “Martians on the moon” if it meant another AFL match. When asked what would make for the perfect milestone game, Higgins did not hesitate: a solid team performance ending in a win, with himself contributing a healthy haul of goals. “Hopefully I play well, the team plays well and we can celebrate in Adelaide on Sunday,” he said.

As the undefeated Collingwood Magpies prepare to take the field for this year’s highly anticipated Gather Round, the AFL powerhouse has received a massive boost to its lineup with the confirmed return of two fan-favorite superstars and the long-awaited debut of a promising young talent ahead of Friday’s clash against the Fremantle Dockers.

Nick Daicos and Scott Pendlebury, two of Collingwood’s most impactful players, have been cleared to suit up for the crucial round, head coach Craig McRae confirmed in a media briefing on Wednesday morning. Both stars had been sidelined with minor soft tissue injuries heading into last week’s match against the Brisbane Lions, where Collingwood suffered its first defeat of the season.

Daicos, who was originally listed as a late game-day withdrawal against Brisbane due to a tight calf injury, completed a full training session at Melbourne’s Olympic Park this week to prove his fitness. While McRae noted the young star is not quite at 100% match sharpness, the coaching staff has no plans to limit his game time against the Dockers, and will not shift him into a forward role ahead of the contest, preferring to adjust his positioning based on how the match unfolds. “Nick will play and so will Pendles, they did what they needed to do this week to get through,” McRae told reporters. “I don’t think anyone will declare 100 per cent right to play, he’s probably close to it, but I don’t think we’ll manage Nick’s minutes. We might with some others, we’ve been doing that in the early part of the season, depending on injuries and the bench. We’re probably going into the game thinking not (playing him forward) to see what the game gives us.”

Pendlebury, the club’s veteran leader, has also overcome the achilles soreness that forced him out of the Lions clash after he picked up the issue in the prior week’s match against GWS, rounding out the much-welcomed lineup additions for the Magpies.

Alongside the return of the two established stars, Collingwood will also hand a first senior AFL debut to young midfielder Angus Anderson, a 2023 draft selection recruited from South Australian National Football League (SANFL) powerhouse Sturt. Anderson turned in a dominant performance in the Victorian Football League (VFL) last week against Coburg, notching 30 disposals, 12 clearances and one goal – a form line that McRae said made him impossible to leave out of the matchday squad.

The clash will carry extra personal meaning for Anderson, who won a SANFL premiership with Sturt at Adelaide Oval last year, making the Gather Round fixture a de facto homecoming for the young talent. “His last at Adelaide Oval he won a premiership with Sturt so he’s got some great memories there and plenty of friends I am sure so it’ll be a good homecoming for him,” McRae said. “Tough, he’s tough. The fans will love his tackling intensity and every time we show some highlights of him at VFL, he’s really smashing in and hurting the opposition. His contest and clearance work is his strength, and we’re playing against an opposition that is number one in the competition in those parts of the game.”

Heading into the Gather Round, Collingwood holds an undefeated record in the annual event, and the strengthened lineup has positioned the club to extend that streak as it looks to bounce back from last week’s upset loss to Brisbane.

Rugby league fans across Australia and New Zealand are still buzzing after Apa Twidle’s sensational NRL debut for the Parramatta Eels on Easter Monday, a performance that delivered two tries in his first two touches and cemented his name as one of the most exciting new prospects in the competition. But beyond the on-field highlights, the 20-something winger’s journey to the top of the sport is a story of sacrifice, loss, and unwavering family support that has captured the hearts of rugby league supporters everywhere.

Before the blockbuster clash against the Wests Tigers, few casual fans knew Twidle’s name. Just one week prior, he had turned heads in the lower-tier NSW Cup with a four-try haul against premiers Penrith Panthers, but he was still expected to ease into first-grade football off the Eels’ bench. That changed when starting winger Bailey Simonsson dislocated his ankle early in the match, forcing the rookie into the game far earlier than planned.

What followed was debut magic Twidle and NRL fans will not soon forget: he scored a brilliant, boundary-hugging try with his very first touch of top-level football, then crossed the try line again just two minutes later. By the end of the match, clips of his debut were circulating widely on social media, and he was even named the NRL’s fan-voted Tasman Try of the Week for Round 5 just days later.

But for Twidle, the moment was far more than a career breakout – it was the culmination of a years-long journey that began when he left his home in New Zealand at just 16 years old to pursue his dream of professional rugby league in Australia. Moving alone to Brisbane to play school football at Marsden State High School, the young teen struggled profoundly with loneliness and homesickness, even calling his mother begging to book a return flight home after his first weekend away.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get homesick. I got homesick every day,” Twidle recalled after Monday’s match. “I was young and dumb, it was one of the hardest times in my life. But my mum, dad, and brothers kept pushing me to stay the course. My brothers are my idols – they taught me you don’t get anywhere without hard work, and that’s what stuck with me.”

After finishing high school, Twidle signed with the Parramatta Eels’ underage program and moved to Sydney at 18 to live with his aunt, continuing to work his way up through the club’s ranks. Through his early years in Brisbane, he was fostered and trained by Paul Brown, a local coach who took him in without asking for anything in return, pushing him to train harder than he ever had before. Brown, who kept his terminal cancer diagnosis private from even Twidle, passed away last year – just one week after Twidle’s daughter was born.

“I wouldn’t be standing right here right now if it wasn’t for that guy,” Twidle said. “He was the reason I stayed in the game, he got me where I am. I wrote his initials on my strapping for the debut – he’s with me everywhere. I never even got a photo of him with my daughter. That’s something that hurts me still. When I found out he’d passed the morning after my daughter was born, I was bawling my eyes out all day.”

Monday’s debut was full of other emotional surprises for Twidle too. His mother Pura, who still lives in Hamilton, New Zealand, had originally been told not to bother coming by Twidle, who did not expect to get much game time in his first match. But after his aunt pressured her to make the cross-Tasman trip, she booked a last-minute flight on Sunday morning and flew into Sydney just hours before kickoff, bringing Twidle’s seven-month daughter – who Brown never got to meet – with her to CommBank Stadium.

“When we met after the game, we didn’t even say anything, we just started crying,” Twidle said. “Tears of joy, obviously. That emotion just came pouring out – this is what all the hard years were for.”

As with any remarkable debut, Twidle’s big day came with a bitter twist: he suffered a Grade 3 AC joint tear, a complete ligament rupture to his shoulder, during one of his tackles, and left the field with his arm in a sling. The injury rules him out of selection for the Eels’ next round clash, but the young rookie says he is already looking ahead to what comes next after a rollercoaster debut he will never forget.

As European football enters its spring knockout stretch, two English Premier League clubs carry the country’s hopes into the first leg of the Europa League quarter-finals, with one unlikely goalscoring sensation chasing a personal and collective fairytale.

Nottingham Forest finds itself in a tricky domestic bind this 2024-25 campaign: locked in a battle to avoid relegation from the top flight, sitting 16th in the table with just a three-point buffer over the drop zone. For manager Vitor Pereira, that fight for survival has naturally taken priority over the club’s first European campaign since the 1995-96 season, even leading him to rest key starters for the previous round against Midtjylland. Yet it is on the continental stage that Forest have turned in their most impressive performances of the year – and no player embodies that contrast more than 25-year-old striker Igor Jesus.

Since joining Forest from Brazilian side Botafogo in the off-season, Igor Jesus has struggled for goals in the cutthroat Premier League, netting just three times in 30 league outings. But in Thursday night Europa League action, the 2024 Copa Libertadores winner has exploded into form, notching seven goals to draw level as the competition’s outright top scorer. For the Brazilian, lifting the trophy and ending the campaign as the tournament’s leading marksman would be the realisation of a lifelong goal.

“Getting to the final and winning the Europa League would be a dream come true, especially as the top scorer,” Igor Jesus told UEFA’s official website on the eve of the first leg. His side travels to Porto’s iconic Estadio do Dragao for Thursday’s opening fixture, and the striker made clear he is under no illusions about the challenge ahead: Porto sits comfortably atop the Portuguese Primeira Liga and boasts a squad packed with top-tier talent, even if Forest can claim bragging rights from a 2-0 group-stage win over the Portuguese side earlier in the campaign, a result that makes Forest the only club to beat Porto in European competition this term.

“Porto have got a great team. They’ve got a lot of quality. We’ve also got quality,” Igor Jesus said. “We know it won’t be an easy game — in fact, it’ll be really tough. However, we’re willing to fight. We will go into Thursday’s first leg really focused and looking for a positive result to take home and defend for next week’s second leg.” Forest are chasing a first European title in 46 years, a milestone that would make their underdog run all the more memorable.

Across the quarter-final draw, another Premier League side, Aston Villa, also heads into Thursday’s first leg targeting silverware, with Unai Emery’s men facing a tough away trip to Italy to face Coppa Italia winners Bologna. Domestically, Villa has fallen out of the Premier League title race in recent weeks, leaving the Europa League as their only realistic shot at ending the 2024-25 season with a trophy. If any manager is built for success in this competition, it is Emery: the Basque coach has lifted the Europa League trophy four times throughout his career, and has now guided Villa to three consecutive quarter-final appearances across the Champions League and Europa League.

After booking their quarter-final spot with a dominant 3-0 aggregate win over Lille, Villa captain John McGinn said his squad is hungry to go all the way this term. “They want more now,” the Scottish midfielder said. “We need to take it one game at a time and keep pushing on, all the way.”

Bologna, however, are not just making up the numbers in the last eight. After pulling off a major upset to eliminate fancied Italian side Roma in the previous round, head coach Vincenzo Italiano is targeting another shock result against the Premier League side. Bologna have lost both of their previous meetings with Aston Villa over the last two seasons, and will enter the tie as underdogs once again – but that status has not stopped them before. “We will be the underdogs again but we will try to surprise again,” Italiano said after his side’s 5-4 aggregate win secured their quarter-final spot.

Beyond the two all-Premier-League-involved ties, the rest of the European quarter-final fixture list kicks off across the week. In other Europa League first legs on Wednesday, La Liga side Real Betis will travel up the Iberian coast to face Portuguese club Braga, with Bundesliga outfit Freiburg hosting Celta Vigo of Spain on Thursday. Over in the UEFA Conference League, the pick of the quarter-final first legs, all scheduled for Thursday, sees Crystal Palace host Fiorentina at Selhurst Park. Other Conference League ties see Rayo Vallecano welcome AEK Athens, Shakhtar Donetsk (playing their home fixture in Krakow, Poland due to ongoing conflict in Ukraine) host AZ Alkmaar of the Netherlands, and Strasbourg travel to face Mainz.

The Penrith Panthers have kicked off the 2025 NRL season in historic fashion, putting together a five-game run so dominant that even rival players are openly speculating the club could pull off the unprecedented feat of finishing the entire regular season undefeated.

No other side in the league’s modern history has opened a campaign with such a devastating combination of offensive firepower and defensive discipline. Through the opening five rounds, the Panthers have outscored every other club, while conceding fewer points than all 16 competing rivals. They have piled up 190 total points for an average of 38 per game, and held opponents to just eight points per match — a mark that stands out starkly across the league, where nine squads have already given up at least 40 points in a single outing this season, with multiple clubs hitting that mark twice.

Even with this historically strong start, Panthers players insist the version of the team taking the field right now is far from the finished product, warning competing sides that Penrith will only continue to improve as the season progresses.

“I’ve always said that the sky’s the limit,” centre Paul Alamoti told reporters. “We’re searching for perfection, but it’s an illusion because you’ll never get there. If we continue to try to get better each day, that’s all we can be in control of and focus on at this stage. Things are obviously heading in the right direction with the way that we’re playing and how things are looking on the field, but we know internally that there’s still a long way to go. There are still 20 rounds to go and there’s still stuff in our game that we need to work on. We’re heading in the right direction, but we’re not getting too ahead of ourselves. Every team is still trying to get better, and we’re in the same position.”

Much of the Panthers’ current success has been anchored by a dynamic, high-scoring left edge attack that has left opposition defenses scrambling to keep up. Young backline talent Casey McLean has skyrocketed into State of Origin contention after a standout performance against the Melbourne Storm, while winger Tom Jackson has already notched a league-record 12 tries through just five rounds. Five-eighth Blaize Talagi, who joined the club last year when the Panthers sat at the bottom of the ladder after 12 rounds, has emerged as a key playmaker for this dangerous attacking unit, crediting head coach Ivan Cleary for giving young players the space to grow into their roles.

“I feel like we’re seeing opportunities and we’re not afraid to take them. I think our fundamentals are showing out there,” Talagi said. “Everyone is always alive and ready to take whatever comes on. We’re seeing things and we’re ready to take it and it’s coming off. It’s still not perfect. I’m still growing as a player, but I feel like we’ve come a long way and that’s thanks to Ivan for trusting us.”

Newly appointed attack coach Ben Harden has also been singled out as a major driving force behind the team’s record-breaking offensive output, as the squad adapts to his refreshed strategic framework. For Alamoti, the room for improvement extends to both sides of the ball — a prospect he says the club is eager to pursue, even as it leaves rivals shaken.

“We’ve got a new attack coach so that’s a bit different and we’re trying to adapt to his style of game play and what we’re trying to achieve out of that,” Alamoti explained. “We’ve obviously scored a few points over the first couple of weeks, but there are still little pockets of our game that we think we’re going to get better in. Defensively, we leaked 20 points two weeks ago and another 10 points last week. Everyone wants to keep the other team to zero, so that’s the goal.”

That relentless pursuit of improvement has already convinced even top rival players that the Panthers are on track for history. Melbourne Storm star Cameron Munster is among those who have publicly said he sees no reason Penrith cannot finish the entire season undefeated, even as club leaders acknowledge the squad will likely rest its key starters at multiple points later in the 25-round campaign — the only factor analysts see as a potential roadblock to the historic run.