Atletico Madrid downs Mallorca 3-0 in Spain

MADRID (AP) - Atletico Madrid downed Mallorca 3-0 on Monday to move into the Europa League positions at the midway point in the Spanish league season.

The game promised to be a tough test for Atletico without injured forward Sergio Aguero and facing a Mallorca that had already won at Sevilla and Valencia and earned a rare point at Barcelona.

But after resisting the visitors' early push, defender Juan Valera and Diego Forlan scored for Atletico before halftime and Jose Antonio Reyes added the third in injury time.

Atletico goalkeeper David de Gea saved Pierre Webo's penalty in the 70th after captain Antonio Lopez had been sent off for pulling down Mallorca winger Emilio Nsue in the area with only the 'keeper to beat.

"The entire team played a great game, and with a man less," said De Gea.

Atletico's first win of 2011 lifted the team into sixth place on 30 points.

Mallorca looked to be the hungrier team from the start following shots by Victor Casadesus and Webo, but Atletico struck first when Valera rose above the defense at the near post to head home Reyes' corner in the 13th minute.

Atletico's major winter signing, Brazilian midfielder Elias, combined well with his new teammates on debut and tested goalkeeper Dudu Aouate with a well-struck shot from the edge of the area in the 24th.

Forlan, who had not scored at Vicente Calderon stadium since the 11th round, hit his seventh goal of the season in the 34th.

Former Arsenal playmaker Fran Merida caught the Mallorca defense trying to spring an offside trap and set up the Uruguay striker, who slotted the ball past 'keeper Dudu Aouate.

Atletico's other winter reinforcement, Juanfran Torres, set up Reyes to cap the victory in the fourth minute of injury time.

On Thursday, Atletico will look to overcome a 3-1 deficit in the second leg of the Copa del Rey quarterfinals against crosstown rival Real Madrid.

"We are going to play to the death because we know that with two goals we are there," said De Gea.

Mallorca dropped to ninth with 27 points after its first loss in three weeks.

Barcelona leads the standings with a league-record 52 points at the midway point after beating Malaga 4-1. Real Madrid fell four points back after drawing 1-1 with last-place Almeria. Villarreal is third with 39, followed by Valencia on 37 and Espanyol on 34.

  

Leaders Milan held at lowly Leece as four title rivals win

MILAN: Serie A leaders AC Milan nervously responded to victories for four of their title rivals by drawing 1-1 at Lecce on Sunday to remain four points clear at the top.

Milan lacked guile in the first half with Robinho and Andrea Pirlo missing and Ronaldinho sold but as he so often does Zlatan Ibrahimovic opened the scoring with a brilliant opportunist strike from 20m early in the second half.

Lecce, who won at high-flying Lazio last weekend, hit the post before Ruben Olivera swept home following a corner on 82 minutes to grab a deserved point in their fight against the drop.

Milan also drew 4-4 with Udinese last Sunday as cracks begin to show in their title bid at the start of the second half of the season despite signing the mercurial Antonio Cassano.

“What Ibra did today was of extraordinary beauty and I’m sorry we’ve dropped two points from a game which we had in our grasp,” coach Massimiliano Allegri told Sky.

“We conceded a goal in the only way we were going to.”

Late winners from Lazio, Juventus and AS Roma kept the lucky trio on Milan’s tail while resurgent champions Inter Milan, in sixth, beat Bologna 4-1 on Saturday and are now just nine points behind the leaders with two matches in hand.

The first game of the two is at home to Cesena on Wednesday.

Lazio went joint-second thanks to substitute Libor Kozak’s header six minutes from time in a 1-0 home win over Sampdoria.

The Czech striker, expected to leave the Rome club in the January transfer window, looked just ahead of the last defender as a free-kick was swung into the box but he celebrated wildly nonetheless and ripped his shirt in the process.

Lazio, surprise packages having been relegation candidates last season, moved level with Napoli after Walter Mazzarri’s side could only draw 0-0 with Fiorentina on Saturday.

Fourth-placed Roma’s 89th-minute goal in the 1-0 win at Cesena could have been chalked off too with Adriano appearing to be just in front of the defenders during a scramble.

His shot, after Marco Borriello hit the bar, was saved and Simplicio also looked a touch offside as he put the ball back across the goal and it went in off Maximiliano Pellegrino.

“The referees have said they’ll never spot that centimetre, it’s not worth discussing,” Roma boss Claudio Ranieri said.

Alberto Aquilani’s volley 11 minutes from the end deflected in off team-mate Giorgio Chiellini to wrongfoot the goalkeeper and give fifth-placed Juventus a 2-1 win over bottom side Bari.

  

Surprise packages Hanover climb to second spot in the Bundesliga

BERLIN: Surprise packages Hanover 96 scored twice in six minutes to beat hosts Eintracht Frankfurt 3-0 on Sunday and climb to second place in the Bundesliga after 18 games.

The visitors, usually involved in the relegation battle, silenced the home crowd after 15 minutes when Mohammed Abdellaoue beat two defenders and threaded the ball past goalkeeper Oka Nikolov.

The 36-year-old Nikolov denied Emanuel Pogadetz from close range, palming his header from 5m over the bar but was helpless when Christian Schulz headed in the ensuing corner.

Ivorian striker Didie Ya Konan notched his 10th goal of the campaign a minute from time to complete Hanover’s fifth away win this season.

“We are working well together,” Hanover coach Mirko Slomka told reporters. “At the moment everything is working out well.”

Kaiserslautern, playing with 10 men for 50 minutes after Srdjan Lakic was sent off, battled back from a goal down to draw 1-1 with Cologne and move up to 10th spot on 22 points.

Lukas Podolski put the visitors ahead on the half hour and the Germany international twice came close to scoring the winner in the dying minutes.

Borussia Dortmund, who beat Bayer Leverkusen 3-1 on Friday, are top on 46 points from 18 games with Hanover on 34. Mainz 05, who lost to VfB Stuttgart 1-0 on Saturday, and Leverkusen are on 33.

  

Barca open four-point gap with sensational display, Real held

MADRID: Barcelona opened up a four-point gap at the top of the Spanish First Division on Sunday when they staged another sensational display of attacking football to sweep aside Malaga 4-1.

Motivated by Real Madrid’s shock 1-1 draw at bottom side Almeria earlier in the day, Barcelona were quickly out of the blocks and Andres Iniesta scored the opening goal after just seven minutes.

World Player of the Year Lionel Messi was running circles around the Malaga defence and the little Argentine set up David Villa to double the advantage, while Pedro Rodriguez added a third before the break.

Malaga had more possession in the second half and they pulled a goal back through a fine Duda free-kick.

But Barcelona raised their level again, and Villa latched on to a Xavi Hernandez pass to notch up his second of the night.

“It is ridiculous to talk about a four-point gap at this stage of the season as it is nothing. There is a long way to go and we can drop points,” said Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola.

“We will continue to take risks and play our style of football. It is important for us to keep working and concentrating on our own situation.”

Malaga coach Manuel Pellegrini admitted that his side were well beaten.

An Esteban Granero strike rescued a point for misfiring Real against Almeria. In stark contrast to Barcelona, the talk in recent weeks has been over Real’s lack of fire-power following an injury to Gonzalo Higuain and although they saw plenty of the ball in midfield they were unable to create any clear chances in the first half.

Karim Benzema was brought on for Kaka after the break but it was Almeria who broke the deadlock on the hour mark against the run of play through Jose Ulloa.

Substitute Granero fired Real level in the 77th minute and in an action-packed finish Cristiano Ronaldo hit the post for the visitors with a free-kick.

“We dropped two points but looking at the first half of the season as a whole then we have done well,” said Real coach Jose Mourinho.

“I also want to say that we want to win the title and not just have good results so we will have to wait and see what happens from here on.”

Mourinho was furious with the referee who turned down a succession of penalty appeals.

“I hope that Perez Lasa does not referee our games again and also those of Barcelona. I do not complain about referees and I prefer to talk positively about them. However, I have known Mr Lasa since 1996 and the Lasa of 2011 is exactly the same.”

Valencia beat Deportivo Coruna 2-0 and their fourth consecutive victory means they remain two points behind third-placed Villarreal.

After a tight start, the game opened up following the break but it appeared to be heading for a draw until Jeremy Mathieu squeezed the ball home from a tight angle with 13 minutes to go.

Then Pablo Hernandez added another with a breakaway goal in injury time. 

  

Van Nistelrooy not allowed to rejoin Real

HAMBURG: Hamburg striker Ruud van Nistelrooy will not be allowed to rejoin Real Madrid, the German club’s director of sport, Bastian Reinhardt, said on Sunday.

With Real’s Argentina striker Gonzalo Higuain out for the next four months with a back injury, 34-year-old Dutchman Van Nistelrooy, who is out of contract at the end of the season, has been targeted as a replacement.

“We will not let him leave,” said Reinhardt.

“He will see out the end of his contract, the decision is final.” 

  

Thank you for not sacking me, says Qatar coach Metsu

DOHA: Flamboyant French coach Bruno Metsu has thanked his Qatar football bosses for not sacking him.

Metsu, who has been in the job since September 2008, has steered his team into the Asian Cup quarter-finals for only the second time in their history.

But his position was tenuous after the host nation lost their opening match to Uzbekistan 2-0.

Over the years, failure at the tournament has seen many heads roll and Saudi Arabia maintained the tradition when they lost their opener in Doha to Syria 2-1, immediately firing Jose Peseiro.

Metsu was grateful he avoided the same fate.

“I would like to take this opportunity to say thanks to all the Qatar officials for their trust in me after losing the first match against Uzbekistan and they did not resort to actions like the Saudi Football Federation,” he said.

The relieved Metsu was speaking after Qatar beat Kuwait 3-0 to book their place in the last eight.

“I dedicate this win to the officials and the Qatar Football Association and all the players,” he added.

Uzbekistan joined Qatar in the last eight after they grabbed the point they needed in a 2-2 draw with China to top Group A with seven points from three matches, one ahead of Qatar with China third on four and Kuwait last with none.

  

High five for Japan

DOHA: Japan routed Saudi Arabia 5-0 yesterday to set up an Asian Cup quarter-final clash with hosts Qatar, while Jordan joined them in the last eight by coming from behind to defeat neighbours Syria 2-1.

A hat-trick from striker Shinji Oka­zaki was the centrepiece of a comfortable Japan victory that consigned traditional giants Saudi Arabia to one of the most abject and humiliating defeats in their history.

Jordan, meanwhile, had to battle back from a goal down and were indebted to some generous Syrian defending as they booked a last-eight date with Group A winners Uzbekistan.

The emphatic margin of Japan’s victory saw them through as Group B winners, pipping Jordan to top spot on goal difference.

Three-time champions Japan, who needed an injury-time goal to rescue a 1-1 draw with Jordan in their opening game, raced into a 3-0 lead inside 20 minutes at Doha’s Al Rayyan Stadium.

Reported Stuttgart target Okazaki, a replacement for injured playmaker Keisuke Honda, broke the deadlock in the eighth minute before doubling Japan’s lead five minutes later with a diving header from Shinji Kagawa’s centre.

Ryoichi Maeda made it 3-0 when he flicked home Yuto Nagamoto’s cross in the 19th minute and Saudi Arabia, who sacked Portuguese coach Jose Pereiro after their opening 2-1 defeat by Syria, were already dead and buried.

Maeda extended Japan’s lead early in the second half before Okazaki lashed home his third in the 80th minute as the hapless Saudis, themselves three-time champions, crashed to a third successive defeat in the competition.

A draw would have been sufficient to take Jordan through at the expense of Middle East neighbours Syria and they saw Hasan Abdel Fattah fire narrowly wide after only 36 seconds at the Qatar Sports Club Stadium.

Syria gradually assumed control of the game, however, and on 15 minutes they took the lead.

Sanharib Malki’s low shot was parried by Jordan goalkeeper Amer Shafi into the path of Mohamed Al Zino, who gleefully slammed the ball into an open goal from six yards.

Syria were through as things stood, but with their fans launching a premature Mexican wave, Jordan levelled.

It was a desperately poor goal to concede, defender Ali Dyab rising to meet Amer Deeb’s innocuous cross from the Syrian right and succeeding only in heading the ball over goalkeeper Mosab Balhous and into his own net.

Jordan completed the turnaround shortly before the hour mark with another goal that owed much to statuesque reactions in the Syrian defence.

A goal-kick from Jordan goalkeeper Amer Shafi was allowed to reach the edge of the Syria box and striker Odai Al Shaify capitalised on the hesitancy to poke the ball past Balhous and send the Jordan fans into raptures.