分类： sports

The stage is set in Budapest’s Puskas Arena for one of the most tightly contested UEFA Champions League finals in recent memory, as defending champions Paris Saint-Germain prepare to lock horns with England’s Arsenal this Saturday, in a game widely billed as a battle that will be decided by split-second moments rather than pre-match form.

With contrasting playing styles set to collide, PSG brings an explosive, high-octane attacking line-up against an Arsenal side that has built its tournament run on rock-solid defensive organization. Ahead of the kickoff, PSG manager Luis Enrique downplayed the tag of pre-match favorite, insisting the 90-minute showdown would be decided by tiny margins. ‘There are no favorites going into this European final,’ he said. ‘The difference will be in the details.’

While bookmakers do rank the Ligue 1 title holders and defending champions as slight favorites, analysts note this final is the hardest to predict since Real Madrid’s iconic 2018 win over Liverpool. For Arsenal, the occasion carries extra weight: the club ended a 22-year wait for the English Premier League title this season, and is now chasing its first ever Champions League crown, 20 years after its last final appearance ended in a defeat to Barcelona in Paris.

Arrived in the Hungarian capital in relaxed form, the Gunners’ squad took a casual stroll through Budapest on Saturday morning to beat the summer heat, with good news on the injury front: right-back Jurrien Timber, who had been a major doubt for the clash, recovered in time to make the match day squad, named to the bench alongside striker Viktor Gyokeres. Manager Mikel Arteta opted to start Kai Havertz in the attacking line for the final. The game’s earlier kickoff time — 6pm local time, two hours earlier than recent finals — is seen as a potential advantage for PSG’s fast, physically demanding pressing style.

Arsenal’s tournament campaign has been defined by defensive resilience: the Gunners enter the final unbeaten in this season’s Champions League, having kept nine clean sheets and conceded only six goals. The widespread expectation is that Arteta’s side will drop into a deep defensive block and look to capitalize on set-piece opportunities against the French side. PSG winger and Ballon d’Or winner Ousmane Dembele acknowledged the challenge Arsenal poses, saying: ‘They’re strong pretty much everywhere, whether it’s in attack or in defence, and they’re dangerous on set-pieces as well, everybody knows that.’

PSG also got a key fitness boost ahead of kickoff: both Dembele and right-back Achraf Hakimi were named in the starting line-up after shaking off minor fitness concerns in the lead-up to the final. While Arsenal has played significantly more matches this season than PSG, winger Bukayo Saka rejected suggestions that fatigue could play a deciding role. ‘A game like this is not going to be decided on minutes, it’s going to be decided on moments,’ the England international said.

Both sides carry historic motivation to lift the trophy. For PSG, a win would secure back-to-back Champions League titles, a feat only Zinedine Zidane’s Real Madrid has achieved in the modern era, when the Spanish club won three consecutive titles between 2016 and 2018. It would also make PSG the first French club to win multiple Champions League trophies, marking a historic milestone for French club football.

For Arsenal, a first Champions League crown would cap a redemptive season for the club, honoring generations of Arsenal players who never reached the pinnacle of European football. Club icons have reached out to the current squad to offer support: former captain and Invincibles legend Patrick Vieira sent a personal good luck video to current skipper Martin Odegaard, who called the message a special moment. ‘This stage was one I had hoped to reach for my whole life,’ Odegaard said. ‘When I started playing football with my friends, on the little pitch next to my house, I was dreaming of this moment.’

Thierry Henry, the club’s all-time leading goalscorer and part of the 2006 final squad that lost to Barcelona, also sent a personal message to Saka on Friday. Tens of thousands of Arsenal fans have traveled to Budapest, many without match tickets, to cheer on their side, packing the city’s famous ruin bars and tourist hotspots. Henry is among the high-profile Arsenal supporters in the city for the final.

Security has been ramped up for the occasion, with almost 4,000 police officers deployed for the match — the largest security operation in Hungarian history. The build-up to the game has remained largely peaceful, apart from a minor scuffle between fans in Budapest’s seventh district on Friday night, which police are currently investigating.

A win for Arsenal would also make history for English football. After Aston Villa lifted the Europa League title and Crystal Palace won the Conference League this season, an Arsenal Champions League triumph would mark the first time a single country has won all three major UEFA men’s club trophies in the same season since 1989-90, when Italy achieved the feat with AC Milan, Juventus and Sampdoria claiming the three trophies respectively.

The 2025 French Open is heating up amid a lingering Paris heatwave, with Saturday’s third-round play producing one of the most anticipated round-of-16 matchups in recent Grand Slam history, alongside shocking upsets and breakthrough runs that have reshaped both the men’s and women’s draws.

World number one and top women’s seed Aryna Sabalenka kicked off the day’s standout results with a commanding 6-0, 7-5 victory over 53rd-ranked Daria Kasatkina, wrapping up the 76-minute contest to secure her spot in the fourth round. After blitzing through the opening set without dropping a game, Sabalenka found herself in an early break deficit in the second set, but fought back to seal the win. Speaking on court after her victory, the 28-year-old Belarusian credited her resilience through tough moments, as Roland Garros wraps up the final day of a heatwave that has blanketed Paris since the tournament kicked off.

Sabalenka’s win sets up a high-stakes fourth-round showdown with four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka, a matchup between two players who have each claimed four major titles: two Australian Opens and two US Opens apiece. While Sabalenka has defeated Osaka twice already in the 2025 season, Osaka holds the edge in major meetings—she beat Sabalenka in the same round at the 2018 US Open, the first of her career Grand Slam wins.

Osaka, the tournament’s 16th seed from Japan, earned her place in the fourth round after a grueling three-set battle with 18-year-old American starlet Iva Jovic, 7-6(7/5), 6-7(3/7), 6-4. The match was defined by dominant serving from both players, with the first two sets settled entirely by tiebreaks. Osaka secured the decisive break of Jovic’s serve in the 10th game of the final set to close out the win. The result marks a career milestone for Osaka, who had never advanced past the third round at Roland Garros before this year’s tournament. “I was a lot calmer than in my first matches… In a Slam the further I get the calmer I am. It’s such an honour to be here. It’s the furthest I have ever been here,” Osaka said after her win.

In a politically charged third-round matchup, Ukraine’s Oleksandra Oliynykova lost 7-5, 6-1 to Russian opponent Diana Shnaider, after Oliynykova accused Shnaider in pre-match comments of accepting funding from a company that supports Russian war crimes and liking social media posts from pro-war propagandists.

Defending women’s champion Coco Gauff, the tournament’s fourth seed, will look to join Sabalenka and Osaka in the second week when she faces off against Austria’s Anastasia Potapova in Saturday’s later action, targeting a spot in the tournament’s fourth round.

On the men’s side of the draw, the bracket remains wide open after the shocking early exits of top seed Jannik Sinner and 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic. Italian 10th seed Flavio Cobolli sent a clear message to the rest of the field with an emphatic 6-2, 6-2, 6-3 victory over American Learner Tien on Court Philippe Chatrier, wrapping up the win in just one hour and 45 minutes. Cobolli, who is now set to face Zachary Svajda for a spot in the men’s quarter-finals, said he is focusing on one match at a time amid widespread talk of a first-time Grand Slam champion this year. “I want to think match by match. That’s the way that I want to think this week,” Cobolli said. “I know that… for sure we will have a new Grand Slam champion, but I don’t want to think about this. For sure I have now another tough match.”

American world number 85 Zachary Svajda continued his dream Grand Slam run, upsetting 25th seed Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 6-3 to secure his spot in the second week. The 23-year-old had never advanced past the second round of any major tournament before this year’s French Open, marking his first run into the second week of a Grand Slam.

Saturday’s closing action will see Canadian fourth seed Felix Auger-Aliassime face off against American 31st seed Brandon Nakashima in the night session on Court Philippe Chatrier, while 17-year-old rising French home star Moise Kouame will take on Chile’s Alejandro Tabilo on Court Suzanne Lenglen as he looks to extend his breakout run at the tournament.

One step away from writing his name into road cycling history, Team Visma-Lease a Bike’s Jonas Vingegaard delivered a dominant mountain performance to claim victory in the Giro d’Italia’s penultimate stage on Saturday, putting his first overall title at the three-week Grand Tour all but out of reach.

The 29-year-old Dane, a pre-race favorite and two-time Tour de France champion, has been a class of the field at this year’s Giro, overcoming an early-race illness to win five stages and build an insurmountable lead heading into Sunday’s ceremonial final lap around Rome. Barring an unprecedented catastrophe on the flat, largely ceremonial route through the Italian capital, Vingegaard will become just the eighth rider in cycling history to secure the sport’s triple crown: overall victories at all three of road cycling’s Grand Tours (the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, and Vuelta a España). He will join legendary figures including Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Italian great Vincenzo Nibali in the exclusive group.

Saturday’s decisive stage was centered on two grueling 14.5-kilometer climbs to the summit finish at Piancavallo, where Vingegaard turned a comfortable general classification lead into an unassailable advantage. When the main peloton reached the first ascent, a breakaway group had already built a four-minute advantage at the front of the race. By the start of the second climb, that gap had shrunk to just over two minutes, and Vingegaard launched his decisive attack a little more than 10 kilometers from the finish line.

He first pulled clear of the main chasing pack, then easily distanced his closest overall rival, Austria’s Felix Gall, who could not match the Dane’s power on the upper slopes of the climb. Vingegaard then surged past the remaining remnants of the early breakaway to cross the line first, extending his lead over Gall to more than five minutes in the general classification. Gall will head to Rome as the clear second-place finisher, with no realistic path to overturning that gap on the flat final stage.

In the race’s secondary classifications, Italy’s Giulio Ciccone secured the blue Mountains classification jersey with his performance on Saturday, capping a standout performance in the hills. This marks the third Grand Tour mountains classification title of Ciccone’s career, adding to his 2019 Giro mountains win and his 2021 Tour de France polka-dot jersey victory.

Beyond his imminent first Giro title, Vingegaard’s performance this week has set the stage for what is already shaping up to be one of the most anticipated battles in modern cycling at July’s Tour de France. Vingegaard is targeting a rare Giro-Tour de France double this season, a feat only a handful of riders have pulled off in modern cycling history. His top rival, Slovenian superstar Tadej Pogačar, skipped this year’s Giro to focus on the Tour, and the head-to-head between the two Grand Tour greats is expected to be one of the most fiercely contested battles in the 111-year history of the race. Vingegaard’s dominant performance at the Giro, even while recovering from early-race sickness, has cemented his status as the man to beat when the Tour gets underway in July.

Just 12 months after delivering a joint-record 20th English top-flight title in his sensational debut season at Anfield, Arne Slot has been dismissed as Liverpool manager following a catastrophic Premier League title defence that has left the Merseyside giants searching for a new strategic direction.

The club’s American ownership group Fenway Sports Group (FSG) confirmed the sacking in an official statement released on Saturday, capping weeks of mounting fan pressure and internal speculation over the Dutch manager’s future. The decision ends Slot’s 14-month tenure, which began with huge expectations as he stepped into the enormous shoes left by the departure of club legend Jurgen Klopp.

This season’s collapse has been one of the most dramatic in modern Premier League history. After splashing a league-record £450 million (approximately $605 million) on new transfers last summer, Liverpool finished a full 25 points adrift of new champions Arsenal, landing in fifth place in the final table. The club’s 60-point total was their lowest return since the 2015/16 campaign, marking a stark fall from grace just one season after lifting the trophy.

Slot’s second season at the helm was marred by multiple challenges beyond poor on-pitch results. Discontent among the playing squad spilled into public view earlier this month, when departing star Mohamed Salah posted an explosive message on social media calling for a return to Klopp’s famous “heavy metal football” — a thinly veiled criticism of Slot’s more conservative tactical approach. The post was quickly liked by multiple current Liverpool first-team players, confirming widespread reports of dressing room disharmony. Key summer signings also failed to deliver on their price tags: British record signing Alexander Isak spent much of the campaign sidelined with repeated fitness issues, while £100 million wunderkind Florian Wirtz struggled to adapt to the physical and tactical pace of the Premier League after moving from Bayer Leverkusen. Compounding these struggles, Slot was forced to navigate the devastating emotional blow of the death of fan-favourite forward Diogo Jota in a car accident last July.

Despite a late run of form that ultimately secured Liverpool a place in next season’s Champions League — which had previously led to reports that Slot would keep his job — FSG ultimately bowed to growing fan anger to remove the former Feyenoord manager. In its official statement, the club framed the decision as a necessary change of course, not a rejection of Slot’s personal ability.

“We have collectively come to the conclusion that change is necessary in order for the club to keep moving forward,” the statement read. “Again, it must be stressed that this is not a decision which has been reached lightly, anything but. The conclusion we have come to is built on a belief that the team’s trajectory is best addressed through a change of direction. That does not diminish the work Arne has done here, or the respect we have for him. Nor is it a reflection of his talents. Rather, it is indicative of the need for a different approach. Arne leaves with our gratitude, with a Premier League title to his name, and with the knowledge that he and his family will always be welcomed back at Anfield.”

FSG added that the hiring process for Slot’s replacement is already well underway. While a large section of Liverpool supporters have publicly pushed for the return of fan favourite Xabi Alonso, the former Reds midfielder has already agreed to take the head coaching role at Chelsea for the 2025/26 season, ruling out a return to Merseyside this summer.

Instead, the frontrunner for the job is outgoing Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola, who is on track to become Slot’s permanent successor after a historic season with the Cherries. The Spanish manager led Bournemouth to a sixth-place Premier League finish and qualification for European competition for the first time in the club’s 125-year history, capping the campaign with an 18-match unbeaten run that saw the south coast club finish just three points behind Liverpool, despite operating with a far smaller playing budget. Iraola also has an existing working relationship with Liverpool sporting director Richard Hughes, who previously held the same role at Bournemouth before moving to Anfield.

The dismissal caps a turbulent season for one of English football’s biggest clubs, and sets the stage for a new era at Anfield as the ownership looks to reset the team’s trajectory ahead of the next campaign.

The 2024 French Open delivered another tense, memorable chapter on Saturday, as four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka fought past 18-year-old American prospect Iva Jovic in a riveting three-set third-round clash to keep her dream of a Paris title alive. The 7-6(5), 6-7(3), 6-4 win marked the furthest Osaka has ever advanced at Roland Garros, extending a historic run that has already defied expectations for the 16th-seeded Japanese star.

Osaka once again turned heads before the first ball even landed on Court Suzanne Lenglen, making a typically dramatic entrance in a glittering gold outer ensemble: a sequined gold jacket paired with a flowing gold train, offset by soft pink tennis sneakers and a black branded visor. Once play began under the bright sun of Paris’ lingering late-season heatwave, she shed the outer layers to reveal a matching gold tennis dress that sparkled across the court, turning her pre-match entrance into one of the tournament’s most talked-about moments. When asked after the win whether more bold, themed outfits were waiting in her hotel wardrobe for upcoming matches, Osaka teased fans with a smile, saying only that every tournament appearance would bring a new surprise.

The match itself was a tightly contested battle of serves, with both players grabbing early breaks of serve in the opening set before locking in to force a first-set tiebreak. Osaka claimed the tight opening tiebreak to take the lead, but the 18-year-old Jovic refused to back down, stepping up her aggressive baseline play to force a second-set tiebreak that she won comfortably to level the match. The decider stayed on serve through the first nine games, before Osaka landed a series of aggressive returns to claim the decisive break in the 10th game, closing out the match when Jovic sent a forehand long on the first match point. Jovic opened the final game with a blistering 162kph ace, but crumbled under pressure from Osaka’s consistent, sharp returns, missing two shots into the net before the final errant shot that sealed Osaka’s spot in the fourth round.

Speaking to reporters after the match, Osaka highlighted her improved mental composure compared to her earlier matches at this year’s tournament, noting that she grows calmer the deeper she advances into a Grand Slam. The 28-year-old has claimed four Grand Slam singles titles to date — two Australian Opens and two US Opens — but had never advanced past the third round at Roland Garros before this year’s run. “It’s such an honour to be here,” Osaka said. “It’s the furthest I have ever been here.”

She also credited her consistent serve as the key to getting past the young, aggressive Jovic, who put heavy pressure on Osaka’s second serve throughout the match. “I am really glad it was working,” she said. “Against some players you need to put your serve in and she was very aggressive on my second serve.”

Osaka will now wait to learn her next opponent, who will be either world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka or unseeded Australian Daria Kasatkina, who faced off in their third-round match later on Saturday.

English Premier League giants Liverpool FC have confirmed that head coach Arne Slot has been relieved of his duties with immediate effect, bringing an end to the Dutch manager’s two-season tenure at Anfield. The decision comes on the back of a catastrophic title defense campaign that saw the Merseyside club slump to a fifth-place finish in the 2024-25 league table, falling well short of the high standards expected by the club and its global fanbase. Growing unrest among supporters boiled over into open criticism of Slot after a string of underwhelming performances across the campaign, while internal tensions have also been reported within the first-team dressing room, with star forward Mohamed Salah identified as the most vocal critic of the manager’s leadership. In an official statement released to the public on Saturday, the club confirmed the sudden managerial change and added that the process to identify and appoint a permanent successor is already underway. Club executives explained that the split was prompted by a belief that the club required a fresh strategic direction to return to title contention. The statement was careful to acknowledge Slot’s contributions during his time at the club, stressing that the dismissal does not undermine the work he delivered or the respect the organization holds for him. “Nor is it a reflection of his talents. Rather, it is indicative of the need for a different approach,” the statement read. Slot leaves Anfield having secured a Premier League title in his first season in charge, and the club closed by thanking him for his service, noting that he and his family will always be welcomed back to the stadium in the future.

As the NSW Blues prepare for the second clash of the 2024 State of Origin series, rookie prop Addin Fonua-Blake has pushed back against early criticism of his debut performance, while openly expressing his ambition to form a devastating front-row combination with injured returning star Payne Haas in Melbourne.

Fonua-Blake’s first Origin appearance got off to a notoriously slow start at Sydney’s Accor Stadium. The Blues’ disastrous opening 15 minutes saw the Queensland Maroons race out to an early lead, leaving the powerful front-rower with just two carries for 17 running metres before he was benched shortly after the Maroons scored their third try. But the NSW rookie fought back in the second half, turning the tide of his performance to end the match with 10 carries for 82 metres, as the Blues completed a comeback to claim a tense 22-20 opening game win.

Speaking to media following his club Cronulla Sharks’ victory over Manly just 48 hours after the Origin opener, Fonua-Blake hit back at critics who panned his early-game performance. “You see a lot of stories about not having an impact in the first 15, but I don’t think many people would have had an impact in that first 15 minutes of that game,” he explained. “We only got the ball maybe twice while I was on and then it was a bit of a scrappy fight. We regrouped and we went out there in the second half and I thought I did what I know I could do.”

The 28-year-old, who became eligible to represent NSW after recent changes to State of Origin eligibility rules that allow players with past New Zealand or Tonga representative honours to play for Australian state sides, says he is not worried about being dropped for the second game. “I’m not worried (about getting dropped). I know if I just do my job here and do what I know I can do here, then I give myself the best opportunity to get a call. But if I don’t get a call, then I’ll just work hard. I‘ve just got to keep doing my job here.”

Fonua-Blake’s club coach Craig Fitzgibbon, a former Blues representative and assistant coach who knows the intensity of Origin football intimately, has leapt to defend his star prop, pointing to his dominant performance just two days after his Origin debut where he recorded a team-high 139 running metres and 18 perfect tackles to inspire the Sharks to victory. Fitzgibbon has thrown his full support behind retaining Fonua-Blake in the second game, specifically to pair him with Brisbane Broncos star Payne Haas, who is set to return to the Blues side after recovering from an early injury.

“It frustrates me that front-rowers have to have carries and make metres for people to rate their performance,” Fitzgibbon said. “We need the ball to do that. They had no ball, and him and Mitch Barnett were off before they had one or two carries each. Then their second stints, both of those front-rowers got them back in the game.”

Fitzgibbon also highlighted that Fonua-Blake’s underrated defensive work often flies under the radar of critics. “His defence is always underestimated for Addin, whereas guys like Addin are notorious for their meters and tries and the things that everyone notices. But for what we’re valuing Addin at the moment, he saved three tries, three weeks in a row for us on last plays. It’s actually kicks downfield that he turned up on the try line. So there’s some stuff off the ball that he’s probably not getting credit for.” Fitzgibbon also suggested the pair could combine with Mitch Barnett to create a terrifying forward rotation, leaving incumbent Jacob Saifiti, who did not take the field in game one, fighting to retain his spot in the 17-man squad.

For his part, Fonua-Blake says he is eager for the chance to share the forward pack with Haas, widely regarded as one of the best props in the game. Having faced Haas multiple times at club level, the Sharks prop believes the pair could create an unstopable one-two punch in the middle of the field for the Blues. “That would be an ideal situation to get to play alongside him,” he said. “I definitely think he’s one of the best players to play the game. I’ve never played with him. I’ve played against him a lot of times and seen what he’s capable of. I feel like it’d be a really good one-two punch, but I can’t think about that too much. I have to do my job here back at club level and then give myself an opportunity to get there again.”