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What's next for Cristiano Ronaldo?
Cristiano Ronaldo recently passed Pele on the all-time scoring list but after an otherwise disappointing season with Juventus, rumours of the Portguese star returning to Real Madrid are heating up.
Cristiano Ronaldo recently passed Pele on the all-time scoring list but after an otherwise disappointing season with Juventus, rumours of the Portguese star returning to Real Madrid are heating up.
Sizzling slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr. finished a triple shy of the cycle for the Blue Jays, but it still wasn't enough.
Taylor Hall scored his first goal for Boston as the Bruins dominated the New York Islanders en route to 4-1 win.
The court the Toronto Raptors clinched their 2019 title on will be in Victoria for the upcoming Olympic qualifier. Here's how it all came together.
Charli Collier will join Dallas and Aari McDonald is with Atlanta after a stellar NCAA tournament run.
Things got heated at a youth basketball game after a disagreement over a call.
Roma defender Chris Smalling and his family were held up at gunpoint inside their home in the Italian capital in the early hours of Friday morning.
Patrick Marleau has played in 1,765 career games and is poised to tie Howe's mark of 1,767 on Saturday night in Minnesota and break it two nights later in Las Vegas.
Claude Giroux and Sean Couturier buried a pair of absurd shootout markers as the struggling Flyers edged the Penguins on Thursday.
Did OG Anunoby put Gary Trent Jr. on silk?
DeMar DeRozan heaped praise on his former teammate following Toronto's win over San Antonio on Wednesday.
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Thomas Tuchel has long admired Pep Guardiola, from his early coaching days watching the great Barcelona team from afar to the night in 2014 when the pair — then rival Bundesliga managers — talked tactics for hours in a Munich restaurant using salt-and-pepper mills as props. With Tuchel now a world-class manager in his own right, Guardiola might no longer be on that same pedestal. The admiration hasn’t disappeared, though, ahead of their first meeting in English soccer. It’s a big game, too: Guardiola’s Manchester City vs. Tuchel’s Chelsea in the FA Cup semifinals at Wembley Stadium on Saturday. “The benchmark,” Tuchel said in reference to Guardiola and the City team he has rebuilt this season and that is still on course for an unprecedented quadruple of major trophies. The two teams reached the Champions League semifinals this week — Chelsea after getting past Porto and City by outlasting Borussia Dortmund — but Tuchel said there remains a gap between them. After all, City, the Premier League leader, is 20 points ahead of fifth-place Chelsea and Tuchel still sees his team as a work in progress after joining in January as the replacement for Frank Lampard. That does not mean, he said, that Chelsea should have an inferiority complex going into the cup semifinal. The teams will also meet in the league before the end of the season, and maybe in the Champions League final, too. “It’s important that we accept this without making ourselves too small,” Tuchel said. “From next year on, from day one of next season, we will hunt them, we will try to close the gap between us. “We have to admit there is a gap but, for 90 minutes, we are very self-aware and very self-confident that we believe we can close the gap tomorrow for one game. And this is the target for tomorrow. I arrive happy to compete against the benchmark in England and Europe.” In that well-documented meeting of minds in Munich seven years ago — when Guardiola was with Bayern Munich and Tuchel was between jobs at Mainz and Dortmund — waiters reportedly were too afraid to interrupt the two animated coaches, who were using objects from neighbouring tables to demonstrate their tactical ideas. Tuchel has established a reputation as something of a thinker, just like Guardiola, but he doesn’t see their meeting on Saturday turning into a chess match. More a physical battle. “We need to be on them every minute,” Tuchel said, “not allow easy chances and exploitation of spaces between our lines. We need to be very brave, play with courage, be adventurous and do what’s needed. “It’s a big challenge and it’s the right moment for us to face a challenge like this.” Indeed, Chelsea has lost only two of 18 games in all competitions under Tuchel, the latest — 1-0 at Porto, courtesy of a last-minute goal — not being enough to stop the London club advancing to the Champions League semifinals for the first time since 2014. Tuchel has rotated his squad heavily amid the fixture pile-up but appears to have landed on a preferred forward line in recent weeks — of Christian Pulisic, Kai Havertz and Mason Mount — that leaves high-profile and expensively purchased attackers like Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner looking on from the bench. “We have no promises to make, no gifts to give,” Tuchel said. “Everybody has to fight hard for their place. “Once you get any minutes, you fight hard to make the coach make a change. This is the life for a player at Chelsea. It’s big fun and you have to embrace the situation even if it’s a bit harder for some players.” Pulisic, the U.S. international, is finally getting a run of games near the end of another injury-affected season and has three goals in his last two league matches. “He made huge progress, he was fantastic in the last games,” Tuchel said. “He has a huge impact physically and in terms of quality, dribbling runs, arriving in the box in crucial moments. He stepped up and this is what I know from him.” Leicester plays Southampton in the second semifinal match on Sunday, when there will be 4,000 spectators inside Wembley, drawn from local residents as opposed to fans from each club. There will be no spectators for Chelsea-Man City. ___ More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports ___ Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80 Steve Douglas, The Associated Press
TORONTO — The cavernous Toronto Track and Field Centre was all but empty, and far too quiet for Brittany Crew and Sarah Mitton. So the Canadian shot putters blasted music. Some officials wrinkled their noses at the classic rock that blared from Crew's portable speaker while the two competed in the closest thing to track meets amid the global COVID-19 pandemic. But music was a deal-breaker in their preparation for the Tokyo Olympics. "It's been really weird," Mitton said. "Luckily the officials let us play music because if not you would hear a pin drop in the background. It's pretty quiet." "We created our own atmosphere," added Crew, the Canadian record-holder in women's shot put. "We changed up the playlist all the time, whoever's got music (would choose). It didn't really matter as long as it was loud. One official told me to turn it off, and I was like 'Are you kidding me?'" Toronto's COVID-19 restrictions have limited indoor capacity at the indoor track and field facility at York University to just 10 people, meaning with a couple of throwers, plus officials and a videographer, even their coach Richard Parkinson wasn't able to watch their indoor competitions the past few weeks. Parkinson watched the events via live stream on social media. Both Crew, a 27-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., who was sixth at the 2017 world championships, and the 24-year-old Mitton, from Brooklyn, N.S., have qualified for Tokyo. If nothing else, throwing in York University's virtually empty building all winter helped prepare them for what should be a subdued experience in Tokyo. "It's funny. A few people have said that to me recently," Mitton said. Olympic organizers said fans won't be allowed to cheer at events, they'll have to show their support by clapping. With COVID-19 cases climbing in Japan, it's still to be determined how many fans — if any — will be in attendance. Fans from outside Japan won't be allowed. The throwers were apart for about four months after the pandemic arrived in Canada in March of 2020. Crew moved to live with her aunt and uncle on their farm in Breslau, Ont., where her uncle built a shot put circle. Mitton's dad, meanwhile, created a throwing circle in his garage where she could hurl the shot into a hanging tarp. "That was really difficult, we were home on our own doing our own things, trying to make things happen and you definitely felt alone and you had to come up with your own ways to stay motivated," said Mitton, "It was very refreshing to come back and have all your teammates be there for you, when you're upset or having a bad day and you just need a little extra push." Mitton and Crew's training group also includes Trinity Tutti, double gold medallist at the PanAm U20 championships in 2019, Ashley Pryke, the No. 2 javelin thrower in Canada, and Charlotte Bolton, a Paralympic thrower who recently shattered her own Canadian record. "It's a great training group. They can rely on each other, they can lean on each other," Parkinson said. Parkinson is a stickler for preparation. He scheduled the indoor mini-meets to mimic the Tokyo Olympic schedule, so the throwers competed in a mini-meet Friday in what would be the Tokyo preliminary round, and then again on Sunday, to mimic the final. With some experts predicting the pandemic to be peaking in Japan in July, athletes will face challenges unique to these Games. "I'm trying to prepare them for tighter security in the (athletes') village, you're probably going to have longer lines, I bet there's going to be COVID checks," Parkinson said. Parkinson's athletes already have an ongoing "snag list" — a list of anything and everything that could go wrong in an event, and how they would solve it. It could be a broken shoelace to an official who's not correctly following the rules. They're each required to have at least 50 items on their list with solutions. "If the official doesn't know the rules, what are you going to do about that? So you're not learning how to protest on the spot," Parkinson said. "Shoelace breaks? Well they have extra shoelaces in their bag. So there's a lot of stuff." The group is gearing up for Tokyo with a series of meets in the U.S. Mitton threw 18.53 metres last weekend in Miramar, Fla., surpassing the automatic Olympic qualifying mark for the third time. They'll continue competing through May 22 before heading home for Canada's mandated 14 days of isolation post-travel. However, Crew go could straight to Europe from the U.S. to compete in a couple of Diamond League meets and earn some prize money. "Financially, it's been a friggin struggle this year, because a lot of my income is from prize money," Crew said. Crew received some financial help in November as part of CanFund's #150Women campaign. "Otherwise I was going to have to get a job," she said. Crew has also been struggling with a nagging groin injury and said her recent drop in weight could have contributed to a slow recovery. She's lost almost 25 pounds since October, from 264 down to almost 240 and is now focused on maintaining muscle mass. "I just really didn't like what I looked like anymore. I was starting to hate my body, and that's not good for confidence," Crew said. "Yeah, OK, I was stronger. But I was losing my speed. This is the lightest I've been ever since high school. And I look so much different. So the body composition has definitely changed. "It's been a little bit of an experiment, probably shouldn't experiment with it too much during the Olympic year, but I needed to make the change for myself personally, and now I feel better about myself, and I'm healthier, and way more fit." If and when Crew and Mitton are throwing in the Tokyo Olympic final, these many months of challenges will have been worth it, Crew said. "You know, everything happens for a reason. Usually, the best things happen at the right time for some reason, it just works out," Crew said. "It would be nice to reap the benefits of this struggle bus." This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 16, 2021. Lori Ewing, The Canadian Press
As in the 2016 Games in Rio, eighth-ranked Canada could be drawn with two top-five teams in the group stage at the Olympic women's soccer tournament. On Friday, using the April rankings, FIFA released the makeup of the pots to be used in next Wednesday's draw to determine the three groups of four for the women's field in Tokyo. Pot 1 contains host Japan (ranked No. 11), the U.S. (No. 1), and the Netherlands (No. 3) while Pot 2 is made up of Sweden (No. 5), Britain (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are ranked separately by FIFA) and Brazil (No. 7). Canada is in Pot 3 along with Australia (No. 9) and China (No. 14). Pot 4 consists of New Zealand (No. 22), Chile (No. 37) and Zambia (No. 104). Britain qualified via England’s performance at the 2019 Women’s World Cup — the three best-placed European teams earned Olympic berths — so was allocated to a pot based on England’s position (No. 6) in the rankings. FIFA says the "general principle" for the tournament draw is to ensure that no group has more than one team from the same confederation so Canada should avoid the Americans to start. The Canadian women could find themselves in a group with Sweden, which knocked them out of the 2019 World Cup in France in the round of 16. And drawing Japan, the lowest-ranked team in Pot A, is no guarantee of success given Canada is 4-7-3 against the Japanese, losing 4-0 last time out in October 2019. Former Toronto FC head coach Ryan Nelsen will help with the draw in Zurich. The former defender captained New Zealand at the 2008 and 2012 Games. Former U.S. international Lindsay Tarpley, who won gold in Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008) will also assist. Canada (ranked 10th at the time) was drawn in a group with Germany (No. 2), Australia (No. 5) and Zimbabwe (No. 95) at the 2016 Rio Olympics. The Canadian women upset Germany to top the group with three wins. They defeated France 1-0 in the quarterfinals before falling 2-0 to eventual champion Germany in the semifinals. Canada then downed Brazil 2-1 to win bronze, repeating its performance from the 2012 Games in London. Canada remained at No. 8 in the FIFA rankings released Friday. But this time it does not have company there with Brazil moving up one place to No. 7 at the expense of Australia, which fell two spots to No. 9. The U.S. and Germany remained 1-2 with the Netherlands leapfrogging France into No. 3. The rest of the top 10 has France, Sweden, England, Brazil, Canada, Australia and North Korea Also next week, the 16 men's sides in Tokyo will be drawn into four groups of four (Groups A to D). Pot 1: Japan, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea. Pot 2: Mexico, Germany, Honduras, Spain. Pot 3: Egypt, New Zealand, Ivory Coast, South Africa. Pot 4: Australia, Saudi Arabia, France, Romania, The Olympic soccer tournament runs July 21 to Aug. 7 in Tokyo, Sapporo, Miyagi, Kashima, Saitama and Yokohama. --- Follow @NeilMDavidson on Twitter This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 16, 2021 Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press
Steve Cohen said he will listen carefully to a law firm's review.
BARCELONA, Spain — The Spanish soccer federation has offered Seville as an alternative host city for this year's European Championship if UEFA rules out using Bilbao as planned. Federation president Luis Rubiales said Friday he has put forward La Cartuja Stadium in the southern Andalusia region as an alternative to San Mamés Stadium. Last week, the federation announced that the current pandemic situation in Bilbao made it impossible for fans to be allowed into matches based on the regulations established by health authorities in the northern Basque Country region. “With all my respect for what Bilbao has done, it is facing many difficulties and it would be terrible for another country to get the host city,” Rubiales said. “La Cartuja would be a magnificent site ... and the first option if Bilbao is finally discarded.” The federation told The Associated Press that it would be up to regional authorities in Andalusia to decide whether fans could potentially be allowed into games in Seville. Currently, there are no fans allowed into league or national team matches anywhere in Spain. A Basque Country region spokesman said Friday that the local government has “not received any direct notification from UEFA” of a change of plans. “If they changed their opinion, and we have to see if they do, then they would inform us. And if they did, they would have to give us an explanation,” regional official Bingen Zupiria said. Other host cities for the tournament to be held around Europe between June 11 and July 11 have given assurances to UEFA that spectators will be allowed into stadiums. A UEFA decision on Bilbao is expected soon. La Cartuja Stadium is a publicly owned stadium run by Andalusia’s regional government. The stadium, which has a running track around the field, can hold 60,000 fans. Seville’s biggest soccer clubs, Sevilla and Real Betis, each have their own stadiums in the same city. The stadium is set to host a second Copa del Rey final this month when Barcelona plays Athletic Bilbao on Saturday. It also hosted the delayed 2020 final two weeks ago, when Real Sociedad beat Athletic Bilbao. No fans have been allowed to attend either final. UEFA has used another stadium in Seville, Sevilla’s Sánchez Pizjuán, as a replacement venue after the home team was eliminated from the Champions League. It hosted both legs of the Chelsea-Porto quarterfinal matchup because of travel restrictions between England and Portugal. San Mamés Stadium in Bilbao is scheduled to host Spain’s Group E games against Sweden, Poland and Slovakia as well as one match in the round of 16. The Basque Country region around Bilbao has been one of the hardest hit by the pandemic in Spain. On Thursday, the region reported 358 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over 14 days, compared to 225 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in Seville's Andalusia region. Above 200 cases per 100,000 is considered high risk by authorities. ___ More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports Joseph Wilson, The Associated Press
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A Winnipeg volleyball player says she was disgusted after her coach said he should be allowed to use racial slurs while expressing his opinions about race and George Floyd, whose death during an arrest sparked protests for racial equality around the world. Whitney Ashu, who immigrated to Canada from Cameroon, a country in West Africa, said the incident happened last week when she was at volleyball practice for the U15 Blue team of the Vision Elite Volleyball Club. The team is made up of mostly 14- and 15-year-old girls. She said it started after her coach Ben Solmundson asked the team if they had read anything interesting lately. One of the players mentioned they were reading The Hate You Give, a book about a Black teenager who witnesses the shooting of her best friend by police. At that, she says Solmundson started talking about the death of George Floyd, making comments that he was an addict and had a history of arrests. Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is on trial for second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd's death. Ashu said she didn't get involved in the discussion until Solmundson started telling the players that he had free speech and should be able to say whatever he wants, including the N-word. "Then that's when I got mad because he kept on talking about things that people of colour constantly have to deal with," she said. "So I got mad and then I told him that you can't say the N-word because the N-word is an incredibly painful word, like it's very hurtful and there's years of history behind it." She said Solmundson told her the word didn't matter, and said he proceeded to use a similar word, replacing the "i" in the slur with an "a," in an attempt to get his point across. CBC News spoke with other teammates who were at the practice, who confirmed this happened, and said they were under the impression Solmundson was using a different pronunciation of the slur. 'He has no idea what it's like' Ashu said she was shocked to hear an adult she trusted speak this way. She said she loves volleyball, and because she has practice three days a week, her coaches are a big part of her life, she said. "He was trying to teach me what it's like to be Black when he has no idea what it's like," she said. "I didn't know what to do. I never expected somebody who was trusted this much by my family and by others to say something like this." She said she's not the only BIPOC player on the team, and that many of the players were very upset, even having to leave the gym. Some were left in tears, she said. Ashu said she's been told that another coach will be filling in for the rest of her team's season, and she's excited to work with them. Ashu said many of her teammates were very upset by what happened. (Submitted by Kimberly Stevenson) Ashu's mom Pauline Takor said she confronted Solmundson after practice. She said he apologized for "dropping N-bombs" at practice. When she asked him what he meant by that, she said he admitted to using the racial slur. CBC News made several attempts to contact Solmundson but did not hear back. Alison McDougall, program director for Volleyball Winnipeg, said Solmundson was removed from the coaching team of the Vision Elite club after they were made aware of the incident. On Thursday morning, she said the organization has decided not to allow him to coach in any of its programs moving forward. "Volleyball Winnipeg in no way condones or supports the use of derogatory language by any of its staff or representatives," McDougall said. Takor said her family emigrated from Cameroon about 10 years ago, thinking Canada was a welcoming place and its citizens were open-minded. She said this incident has shaken her and makes her worried that racist, divisive attitudes are becoming more prevalent in Canada. "If we start getting things like this, I begin to wonder if Canada wants to copy what is happening south of our borders," she said. "Because every day we see that. We see what is happening inside of our borders with people of colour." Parents frustrated Despite the fact that Solmundson is no longer a coach with Volleyball Winnipeg, some parents are still frustrated with how the organization and the head coach of the Vision Elite club handled the situation. Kim Stevenson, the volunteer parent team manager for the team says she emailed the head coach Luc Tremblay the morning after the incident. Players on the U15 Blue team of the Vision Elite Volleyball Club during a practice. (Submitted by Kimberly Stevenson) Though he said Solmundson wouldn't be coaching that team anymore, Stevenson said that for close to a week, it was unclear to her and the rest of the parents whether he'd be involved with other programs run by Volleyball Winnipeg. Then, on Wednesday, a letter was sent out to parents from Tremblay, saying Solmundson had been removed as the coach for all of the club's teams. However, in the letter Tremblay suggests Solmundson might be allowed to coach with the Vision Elite club in the future if he requested it. "Should he ever ask for a path to redemption, one should be made available," Tremblay wrote. "It is my understanding he is thoroughly humiliated by his actions and has removed himself from any such consideration." Stevenson said she was frustrated by this letter as she felt Tremblay was placing the blame on parents for the fallout after bringing the incident forward. "It still doesn't take responsibility. It doesn't acknowledge any of the … like all the racist attitudes that were spewed at those girls," she said. Tremblay did not respond to requests for comment. However, when asked about the letter, Volleyball Winnipeg reiterated that Solmundson would not be coaching in any of its programs moving forward. John Blacher, executive director of Volleyball Manitoba, said the incident has been brought to his attention and also to the attention of Volleyball Canada's independent, third-party Safe Sport officer. He said they are reviewing the matter to determine the process moving forward within its discipline and complaints policy. "Volleyball Manitoba is committed to providing a safe, positive and respectful environment for the sport of volleyball and takes a serious approach to all concerns," Blacher said.