Month: July 2024

ORLANDO: Barcelona beat Manchester City 4-1 on penalty kicks after the two teams tied 2-2 in a pre-season friendly in Orlando this morning.

The match at the Camping World Stadium was postponed for 80 minutes due to weather problems, the same situation that occurred during City’s first action when they lost 3-4 to Celtic in the tour series in the United States (US).

After the match started, Erling Haaland thought he had scored in the first 15 minutes but his visible push of the ball over the goal line was ignored by the referee.

Barcelona on the other hand opened the curtain on Pau Victor in the 24th minute. He managed to shoot a shot into the penalty box even though Kalvin Phillips tried to tackle him.

City equalized through 19-year-old Nico O’Reilly but Barcelona were back in front just before the break when Victor’s fine cross was finished with a precise shot by Pablo Torre.

The two teams made exchanges at the break seeing Pep Guardiola replace Haaland and Ederson.

City equalized soon after through Jack Grealish after getting a pass from Mateo Kovacic for the score to end at 2-2.

In the penalty shootout, Phillips was among the City players who failed to score the spot-kick that allowed Barcelona to win 4-1.

City’s next game is against Chelsea in Ohio on Saturday while Barcelona face La Liga challengers Real Madrid in New Jersey.

LONDON: World Cup winner, Joachim Low is reportedly also interested in the position as England manager.

Low, 64, who managed Germany for 15 years and helped the country lift the World Cup trophy in Brazil in 2014, is seen ready to discuss the matter with the English Football Association (FA) following the resignation of Gareth Southgate.

Apart from him, another German manager and former Liverpool manager, Jurgen Klopp, has also been the talk of the town in England but he is said to be clearly not interested in returning to football this summer.

Eddie Howe, Graham Potter and Lee Carsley are also reportedly on the FA’s shortlist.

The FA may prefer to choose a local operator but has not ruled out the possibility of hiring an outside manager.

The last game Low managed before stepping down as Germany manager was when the team lost 2-0 to England at Wembley in the Euro 2020 best 16 competition, three years ago.

The former Stuttgart and Fenerbahce manager then decided not to work since then.

Southgate earns 5 million pounds a year to manage The Three Lions and Low was only paid half of that amount during his last contract with the German FA.

Klopp earns 15 million pounds per season with Liverpool and the estimated average salary seems reasonable for the FA.

Under the management of Low, Germany also managed to advance to the final of Euro 2008 but lost 1-0 at the hands of Spain.

LONDON: The Swiss media claims that Murat Yakin’s squad need not be afraid when facing England in the Euro 2024 quarter-finals this Saturday.

England came out with an erratic performance in the tournament this time but they were still able to progress to the last eight after coming from behind to beat Slovakia 2-1 in extra time.

The Three Lions squad is scheduled to face Switzerland who eliminated the defending champions, Italy 2-0.

Switzerland’s biggest newspaper, Blick, believes Gareth Southgate’s England are not a big threat.

The newspaper referred to England’s lackluster performance in the Euros so far.

The publication referred to England’s ‘fragile performance’.

Blick also commented on the dullness of England’s attacking machinery which has only managed to score four goals in four games so far.

The last competitive meeting between the two nations was in the Nations League third-place playoff in 2019 which saw England win on penalties with goalkeeper Jordan Pickford among the scorers.

Switzerland finished second in Group A at this summer’s tournament with five points from three games.

England also collected five points in the group stage but managed to emerge champions of Group C.