■ENGLAND
Gerrard signs new deal
Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez on Thursday saluted skipper Steven Gerrard’s contract extension, claiming it would serve to bolster the team’s renewed push for silverware. Gerrard in April agreed a deal to stay at Anfield until 2013, completing the formalities after returning from his summer holiday to begin pre-season training. Dirk Kuyt, Fernando Torres, Daniel Agger and Yossi Benayoun have also penned new deals. “We have spent this summer trying to secure the players we have,” Benitez said. “It’s really good to keep Kuyt, Torres, Agger, Benayoun and Steven. They are the here and now of the club and for the future it is really good. We are really pleased. We have a lot of good players who want to stay, to win and compete.”
■MOROCCO
Lemerre out of a job
Roger Lemerre’s departure as Morocco coach was made official on Thursday, ending weeks of speculation over the future of the French manager. Lemerre leaves a year into his four-year contract after a resolution on pay-off terms was reached with the Morocco Football Federation, spokesman Abdelah Ghellam told reporters. Lemerre, who won the European Championship with France in 2000 and four years later achieved a unique double by guiding Tunisia to the Africa Cup of Nations trophy, took over Morocco a year ago with a mandate to secure World Cup qualification. However, after an easy passage through the first phase of the preliminaries, Morocco have struggled in their final-round group, picking up two points from their first three matches.
■ENGLAND
Aurelio injures his knee
Liverpool defender Fabio Aurelio could miss the start of the season after injuring his knee on holiday and requiring a cartilage operation. “He was injured playing with his son and was really disappointed because he was enjoying the summer,” Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez told reporters on Thursday. “He had the operation — he has had a problem with his cartilage — so he will be one month, maximum two months, not six months like I see in the press.” The 29-year-old Brazilian fullback was a regular last season, making 33 appearances.
■ITALY
Marchionni joins Fiorentina
Juventus winger Marco Marchionni agreed to join Fiorentina on Thursday, opening the way for Arsenal target Felipe Melo to move in the opposite direction. “Florence was always my first choice,” Marchionni told reporters after initially rejecting Fiorentina’s offer which threatened the player plus cash deal involving Brazil midfielder Melo. If Melo completes a move to Turin he will join up with compatriot and former Werder Bremen playmaker Diego, who was being unveiled on Juve’s first day of pre-season training on Thursday. Diego will wear No. 28 because Alessandro Del Piero holds his preferred No. 10 shirt.
■SPAIN
Pennant signs for Zaragoza
Liverpool winger Jermaine Pennant completed his switch from Anfield to promoted Spanish side Real Zaragoza on Thursday on a three-year deal. The 26-year-old, who played in the 2007 Champions League final, said he had snubbed offers from other clubs to play in Spain. “I wanted to come to Spain. I had offers from other important clubs in Europe, but I wanted to sign for Real Zaragoza,” Pennant, who played 163 matches in three seasons at Liverpool, told the club’s Web site. “I want to get started and do well in the championship.”
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures