Inter Milan, Barcelona, AS Roma and Rangers are on the brink of qualifying in today's Champions League group matches, with Arsenal and Manchester United already through to the knockout stages.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger intends to give some of his young Gunners another chance to impress in the Group H trip to Sevilla.
A place in the last 16 of Europe's elite club competition is already in the bag after securing the point they needed with a goalless draw from the away game against Slavia Prague earlier this month.
Manchester United, meanwhile, top Group F with a perfect record of 12 points from four matches as they prepare to meet Sporting Lisbon at Old Trafford.
For Scottish club Rangers, however, there is everything to play for at VfB Stuttgart.
Midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger has warned Rangers that he and Stuttgart have regained the belief which brought them the Bundesliga title last season.
The former Aston Villa midfielder is a key figure in the Stuttgart team and was as dismayed as anyone when their season began in lackluster fashion. But Stuttgart made it four wins in a row with their weekend 4-1 victory away to Eintracht Frankfurt.
Hitzlsperger said, after Stuttgart turned on the style: "We are back to our old strength because we believe in ourselves again. After the terrible start we were determined to come back. The results have given us new self-confidence."
Stuttgart may have to cope without German player of the year Mario Gomez when they face Rangers at the Gottlieb-Daimler stadium. The striker had to come off before half-time with a back problem against Frankfurt.
He has not been ruled out yet but Stuttgart will not want to include the 22-year-old if there is any risk involved. They cannot qualify for the last 16 after losing all four of their Group E matches so far.
A Rangers victory combined with Lyon losing at home to Barcelona would give the Scots passage with a game left to go.
Barcelona striker Samuel Eto'o is training again after a three-month lay-off after rupturing a tendon in a friendly match with Inter Milan in late August.
He was a goalscorer in Barca's 2-1 win over Arsenal in last year's European Champions League final though in Eto'o's absence, Argentine striker Lionel Messi has taken over the role of being Barca's principal goal getter.
Lyon, however, are set to field Brazilian Fred in the center forward role in the possible absence of Karim Benzema who has a right thigh injury. Benzemi clashed with Rennes player Bruno Cheyrou on Saturday and club doctors have put a large question mark over his appearance against Barcelona.
Meanwhile AS Roma captain Francesco Totti is a major doubt after suffering a recurrence of the foot problem that has sidelined him for the last month.
Totti lasted just 15 minutes of his return to first-team training on Nov. 22 before taking a knock on the same foot he had injured in the 2-1 win over Sporting Lisbon on Oct. 23.
Although X-rays after the initial injury showed no fractures in his right foot, the player was in too much pain to train the following game and missed Saturday's Italian league match at Genoa.
Roma coach Luciano Spalletti said he did not know when Totti would be fit again though it appears unlikely that Totti, 31, will be available for the Group F match in Kiev where Roma can secure their place in the knockout rounds.
Group G leaders Inter Milan are expected to make changes for today's trip to Turks Fenerbahce after a 2-1 home victory over Atalanta in the Italian league on Saturday kept them top of the table.
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
RSS