Luciano Dos Santos saved two penalties and scored from the spot himself as Uruguay’s River Plate completed a penalty shootout victory over San Lorenzo in the Copa Sudamericana quarter-finals on Wednesday.
In the day’s other quarter-final, Paraguay’s Cerro Porteno beat Brazil’s Botafogo 3-1 and 5-2 on aggregate.
In the semi-finals, River will play either Liga de Quito of Ecuador or Velez Sarsfield of Argentina, while Cerro Porteno will face either Universidad de Chile or Fluminense of Brazil.
In Buenos Aires, River Plate’s Richard Porta scored a minute after halftime after a mistake by the San Lorenzo defense.
Following San Lorenzo’s 1-0 triumph in the first leg, River’s win by the same score sent the match to penalties.
Dos Santos saved Jonathan Bottinelli’s shot and Gaston Aguirre missed for San Lorenzo, while Jorge Rodriguez and Porta failed for River.
After scoring his own penalty, Dos Santos then made the decisive save from San Lorenzo striker Pablo Pintos to secure the 7-6 shootout win.
In Rio, Jorge Nunez opened the scoring in the 57th minute to put Cerro Porteno in charge against Botafogo.
Andre Lima equalized in the 74th minute, but Alessandro was sent off three minutes later with Botafogo still needing another goal to level the aggregate scores.
Cerro Porteno took advantage of the extra man to rubber-stamp their passage to the semis with goals from Julio Irrazabal in the 88th minute and Luis Caceres in stoppage-time.
The two-legged semi-finals will start next week.
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
Taiwanese badminton superstar Lee Yang broke down in tears after publicly retiring from the sport on Sunday. The two-time Olympic gold medalist held a retirement ceremony at the Taipei Arena after the final matches of the Taipei Open. Accompanied by friends, family and former badminton partners, Lee burst into tears while watching a video celebrating key moments in his professional sporting career that also featured messages from international players such as Malaysia’s Teo Ee Yi, Hong Kong’s Tang Chun-man, and Indonesia’s Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan. “I hope that in the future when the world thinks about me, they will
Former Formosa Dreamers player Ilkan Karaman was killed in a traffic accident in Datca, Turkey, Turkish media reported yesterday. He was 34. The former Turkish national team player was reportedly hit by a car, the driver of which was allegedly drunk, while he was standing on a sidewalk, Turkish newspaper Sozcu reported. Karaman and his friends were on their way to the beach town of Dalaman to go scuba diving when they stopped at a gas station to buy gasoline, it reported. Karaman was hit by the car while waiting on a sidewalk as his friends were buying gasoline, it
ANKLE PROBLEM: Taiwan’s Ye Hong-wei and Lee Chia-hsin had a disappointing end to their tournament after an injury forced them out of their mixed doubles semi-final Taiwanese badminton ace Tai Tzu-ying on Friday was knocked out in the women’s singles quarter-finals at her last Taipei Open. The world No. 3 lost 21-18, 16-21, 22-24 to Putri Kusuma Wardani of Indonesia in a match that stretched 68 minutes at the Taipei Arena. Despite her higher ranking, Tai said she was not too sad about the loss, given her struggle with a lingering knee injury. “Wins and losses are just part of the game. Actually, I think I’m going to lose every single match considering my condition now,” said the five-time champion of the Super 300 event, who has announced plans