Bayer 04 Leverkusen manager Xabi Alonso on Friday asked for more character after his side beat Borussia Moenchengladbach 3-2 in the Bundesliga season opener through yet another stoppage-time winner.
Leverkusen were awarded a penalty deep into added-time and Florian Wirtz scored on a rebound to earn the visitors the three points after ’Gladbach’s Ko Itakura fouled substitute Amine Adli.
“It was an intense first Bundesliga game for us,” Alonso told a news conference. “A lot of things happened in the second half, it was full of emotion right to the end. We did well in many phases, but we weren’t always so compact today, we were also a bit passive in some phases. We have to do that better. We have to be more aggressive.”
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“It’s difficult to explain why we always score late goals. We can’t train that and I can’t influence it. It’s the mentality of the team,” he said.
Champions Leverkusen, who set a European record of 51 consecutive games without loss across all competitions last season, kept their unbeaten streak intact with a lot of late equalizers.
“We said at halftime that we must not let up and not think that the game is over,” former ’Gladbach player Granit Xhaka said. “At the end of the first half, we started not being consistent enough in our passing game and losing easy balls. Here at home, ’Gladbach never die, you could see that in the [goals for] 1-2 and 2-2.”
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Xhaka gave Leverkusen the lead in the 12th minute, but did not celebrate out of respect for his former club.
“I had the feeling that we made it unnecessarily difficult for ourselves,” said Wirtz, who scored two goals on the night, including the decider. “We were asleep when it came to conceding goals. We let it slip away ourselves, even though we were actually in control, although we didn’t have the ball the whole time.”
LIGUE 1
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AP, PARIS
Paris Saint-Germain on Friday routed Montpellier Herault 6-0 to make it two wins in two games in Ligue 1 as they start life without Kylian Mbappe, who left for Real Madrid in the off-season.
PSG are seeking their fourth straight league title, but many had expected its grip on the trophy to loosen after the departure of its star forward.
So far, that has not been the case, with the team netting 10 goals in their opening two matches.
Bradley Barcola opened the scoring after three minutes with an angled strike from 9m out and Marco Asensio doubled the lead with a low shot from the center of the area after being teed up by a delicate pass from Joao Neves.
Ousmane Dembele’s perfect pass gave Barcola the simplest of tap-ins for the third goal eight minutes into the second half, Achraf Hakimi’s side-footed volley made it 4-0 in the 57th minute and Warren Zaire-Emery slotted home another on the hour mark.
Substitute Lee Kang-in got his second goal in two games when he completed the rout eight minutes from time.
LA LIGA
AP, MADRID
RC Celta de Vigo on Friday marked the 101st anniversary of the club’s founding with a 3-1 win over Valencia for a second straight La Liga win to start the season.
It marked the first time since 2015 that the Galician club have won their first two matches of the season and handed Valencia a second straight loss.
Celta captain and striker Iago Aspas was again at the heart of events. He scored for the second game in a row and then missed a penalty just before halftime.
Diego Lopez had put Valencia ahead after 14 minutes when he converted from close range after a goalmouth scramble, but Celta equalized midway through the first half through Oscar Mingueza.
Aspas’ goal came five minutes later when the 37-year-old forward took a weighted through ball from Mingueza and finished perfectly into the bottom corner.
Valencia goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili saved Aspas’ spot-kick in first-half injury time, but Fran Beltran added the third goal on the hour mark with a classy strike from the edge of the penalty area.
Marloon Herrera was crying — happy tears. With Cuba trailing in the fifth inning of its Little League World Series (LLWS) opener on Thursday, Herrera lined a two-run double to give his team the lead. When the Czech Republic, representing Europe-Africa, made a pitching change, he ran over to give his third base coach a hug. Cuba went on to win 4-1. It was the first game at this year’s tournament for both sides, but it was also the beginning of Cuba’s second appearance in the series ever — and it was emotional. “You breathe baseball in Cuba,” manager Everaldo Machado said on
World Boxing, an international amateur boxing organization formed last year after a breakdown in relations between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Boxing Association (IBA), has announced the admission of Taiwan, along with four other nations, into its growing list of members. In a statement released on its Web site on Friday, the Swiss- based organization said that in addition to Taiwan, admitted as Chinese Taipei, Bhutan, Ecuador, Fiji and Pakistan have also become members. The new members all have well-rounded national and international boxing programs as well as transparency in the leadership and management of their national boxing programs,
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Taiwan badminton ace Tai Tzu-ying advanced to the 2024 Japan Open semi-finals after defeating the host country’s Natsuki Nidaira in straight games 21-13, 21-14 yesterday. Although Tai came out victorious, the 43-minute match was not without difficulties for her due to a left knee injury that has troubled Tai for about seven months. After taking an 11-point lead in the first game to reach 15-4, Nidaira found her momentum to poise for a comeback and took three consecutive points. When the Japanese shuttler was about to score her sixth point, Tai overextended her injured left knee in an attempt to return the shuttlecock