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VIGO, Spain — Las Palmas is still waiting for its luck to turn. The Canary Islanders drew with Celta Vigo 1-1 in La Liga on Monday in a match where their goalkeeper was taken off on a stretcher and a late winner was disallowed. The club is without a win in 12 games and sits second from bottom on the table. Wearing an unfamiliar black strip for the first time, Celta took the lead seconds before halftime when Alfonso González cut inside from the left and curled a beautiful shot into the far corner from the edge of the box. However, Alberto Moleiro drew Las Palmas equal within three minutes of the restart. Then Fabio Silva had the ball in the net with 72 minutes gone only to see it disallowed for offside. The decision was a blow to Las Palmas, which was seeking a first win since just before Christmas. To compound its misfortune, goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen was injured in the first half after clashing with Borja Iglesias. Celta, meanwhile, was unbeaten in seven and in eighth place. ...

MANCHESTER, England — Manchester City forward Erling Haaland is set for a long spell on the sidelines due to his ankle injury in the FA Cup quarterfinal win. Haaland had just scored his 30th goal of the season on Sunday against Bournemouth when he was hurt in a challenge by midfielder Lewis Cook. After scans on Monday, City said Haaland will see a specialist to determine the full extent of the injury. The only timeframe City gave for Haaland’s recovery was that he should be fit before the end of the season. City is in a fight to qualify for the Champions League next season. It is fifth in the Premier League, outside the top four qualifying spots, with nine rounds remaining. There’s also the FA Cup semifinal against Nottingham Forest at Wembley on April 26. “Assessment remains ongoing to ascertain a full prognosis,” City said on its website. “The expectation is that Erling will be fit in time to play a further part in the remainder of this season, including this summer’s FIFA Club ...

VERONA, Italy — Verona and Parma drew 0-0 in Serie A on Monday, a result that did little to ease either side’s relegation worries. Neither club was able to impose itself in a game of few chances. Daniel Mosquera came closest for Verona when his early header came back off the post. With eight games left in the season, Parma was just three points above the drop zone. Verona was two places and four points above it and still not out of danger. Parma’s last win was on Feb. 22. Verona, meanwhile, missed a chance to record back-to-back wins for the first time in more than a year.

LONDON — Sam Kerr has expressed “sincere regret” in a meeting with Football Australia over her contentious recent court case in Britain, and will rejoin the Matildas squad this week as she continues her recovery from a long-term knee injury. The 31-year-old Kerr was found not guilty last month by a jury in a London court of racially aggravated harassment of a police officer. Kerr, a star striker for Australia and for English club Chelsea, accepted she called Police Constable Stephen Lovell “stupid and white” during a heated exchange at a police station after a night out in London in January 2023, but denied it amounted to the charge. Football Australia reportedly only learned of the charge in March of last year when it emerged in the media, well after Kerr’s involvement in the Matildas’ run to the semifinals of the Women’s World Cup co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand. Kerr hasn’t played in more than a year since sustaining an ACL injury during ...

PARIS — Lille profited from a goalkeeping blunder to beat northern rival Lens 1-0 at home and move level on points with fourth-placed Nice in Ligue 1 on Sunday. Matias Fernandez-Pardo scored in the 19th minute, albeit with a lot of help from Australia goalie Mathew Ryan. Ryan tried to dribble past Fernandez-Pardo after receiving a routine back pass and ended up getting tackled by him, leading to an open goal for the 20-year-old Belgian winger. Ryan had earlier kept out a second-minute shot from Fernandez-Pardo after he went clean through. Lille and Nice both have 47 points with Nice ahead on goal difference. Third-placed Marseille is only two points ahead of them in the race for a Champions League spot, with seven rounds remaining and the top four qualifying. Earlier, Abdoulaye Touré scored two penalties against his former club as Le Havre beat Nantes 3-2 to claim a vital win in its relegation fight. The 31-year-old Touré was born in Nantes and came through the club’s youth acade...

TORONTO — Toronto FC and the Vancouver Whitecaps played to a scoreless draw Saturday in an MLS game that was as drab as the weather until the final minutes. The point will be welcome for Toronto, which had lost four straight. So will the clean sheet after conceding a league-worst 12 goals in its first five games. The Whitecaps will rue a lack of accuracy in their offence. The visitors also found themselves under duress late in the game as Toronto came forward. Toronto ‘keeper Sean Johnson made a big save in the 88th minute to deny Ranko Veselinović off a corner to preserve the draw. At the other end, Ola Brynhildsen came close in stoppage time and Vancouver survived some dicey moments in front of goal. Vancouver (4-1-1) has collected 13 of a possible 18 points early in the MLS season while Toronto (0-4-2) has just two.  The Whitecaps arrived atop the Western Conference and second in the Supporters’ Shield standings, 11 points and 27 places above winless Toronto. Th...

ROME — New Juventus coach Igor Tudor had a direct role in the Bianconeri’s first goal since he replaced the fired Thiago Motta. Tudor was quick to gather a ball on the sideline and toss it to Teun Koopmeiners for a throw-in that bounced off Dusan Vlahovic and into the path of Kenan Yildiz. He dribbled through the defense before scoring from a tight angle midway through the first half. “It just happened,” Tudor said. “It wasn’t something we practiced.” The goal ended up being decisive in a 1-0 win against Genoa during Tudor’s debut in Serie A on Saturday. The result was a sharp turnaround from 4-0 and 3-0 losses in Juventus’ two previous matches, which led to Motta’s firing. The Bianconeri conceded only one decent chance to a Genoa team coached by former Juventus player Patrick Vieira — an acrobatic effort from Andrea Pinamonti at the start of the second half that barely missed the target. Juventus then nearly doubled the lead with a series of chances in the final mi...

OTTAWA, Ontario — Former Canada soccer coach John Herdman has received a written admonishment following a disciplinary committee hearing that was triggered by a drone-spying scandal at the Paris Olympics. The disciplinary hearing, conducted by a three-person panel independent of Canada Soccer, came after Herdman was cited in a report by a law firm’s report on the scandal. The independent review, commissioned by Canada Soccer and released in a redacted form in November, concluded that it was clear the “practice of conducting surreptitious surveillance of opponents” predated the Paris Games. At the time, Canada Soccer said it had “initiated a proceeding with respect to Mr. Herdman under its Disciplinary Code.” “Potential violations of the Canada Soccer Code of Conduct and Ethics by the former head coach of the men’s national team were identified,” Canada Soccer said in its release in November. First news of the disciplinary committee findings came Friday in a statement from Herdman ...

STRASBOURG, France — Liam Rosenior’s Strasbourg put on a superb second-half performance to demolish Lyon 4-2 and leapfrog its rival into fifth place in Ligue 1 on Friday. The English coach has worked wonders in his first season and the win stretched its unbeaten league run to seven games, only the second such streak by the club in this century. Strasbourg was lucky to get to the break on level terms as Lyon had most of the early play, but it was a different story in the second half. Captain Andrey Santos put the home side ahead when he stooped to head home a corner and then Dilane Bakwa found space on the edge of the box to make it 2-0 with a fine low shot on the hour mark. Lyon cut the deficit two minutes later when Corentin Tolisson nodded home after Djordje Petrovic could only parry Rayan Cherki’s fierce drive. But Emanuel Emegha made it 3-1 16 minutes from time when he ran onto Valentin Barco’s superb pass and deftly slipped the ball past a despairing goalkeeper. On-loan Sout...

Winless Toronto FC is looking to add to its roster with speculation that Swiss midfielder Maxime Dominguez is close to joining the team. The MLS primary transfer window closes April 23. “We’re in discussions with a couple of players. And we’ve looked at a number of players,” Toronto coach Robin Fraser said Friday. “And I certainly expect that we will add at least one player between now and then. “Certainly, we look forward to whatever we can do to help strengthen the squad.” The 29-year-old Dominguez joined Brazil’s Vasco da Gama in September, transferring from Portugal’s Gil Vicente FC. He has also played in Poland for Raków Częstochowa and Miedz Legnica. Before that, he had stints with Servette FC, FC Zurich, Lausanne Sport and Neuchâtel Xamax in Switzerland. The MLS secondary transfer window runs July 24 to Aug. 21 More from Sportsnet Former Toronto FC young guns Nelson, Priso return to BMO Field as Vancouver Whitecaps Insigne returns to starting lineup but Toront...

After a short break, the 2024-25 FA Cup resumes this weekend with the quarterfinals.  Manchester United was eliminated in the previous round, which means there’ll be no repeat for the Red Devils. Who will step up to replace them as the holders of England’s most prestigious domestic cup?   Could it be their neighbours, Manchester City? Could it be second-tier side Preston North End, whose last FA Cup title came in 1937-38? Or maybe it’ll be a first-time winner, such as Brighton & Hove Albion?  Here’s what you need to know about this weekend’s quarterfinal round of the FA Cup. Single-elimination format   The four matches that make up this round are all single-elimination contests, and not two-legged, home-and-away affairs. If a team loses, it’s eliminated.     The 2024-25 FA Cup features a significant change with no match replays in the proper rounds. That means if a game is tied after 90 minutes of regulation time, 30 minutes of extr...

LONDON — Chelsea staged a big first-half comeback to march into the semifinals of the Women’s Champions League with a 3-0 victory over Manchester City on Thursday. Sandy Baltimore scored early in the all-England quarterfinal at Stamford Bridge before Nathalie Björn and Mayra Ramírez netted in a five-minute span to overturn a 2-0 deficit from the first leg and set up a last-four matchup against defending champion Barcelona. Baltimore gave Chelsea a 1-0 lead on a rebound with a left-footed, one-timed strike after a low shot from Lucy Bronze hit the post in the 14th. Björn headed in to double the advantage in the 38th before Lauren James set up Ramírez, whose shot beat goalkeeper Khiara Keating and put Chelsea ahead 3-2 on aggregate. Last week, City had ended Chelsea’s unbeaten run with a 2-0 victory. Barcelona routs Wolfsburg Barcelona remained on course for a third straight Women’s Champions League title after routing Wolfsburg 6-1 in the second leg of their quarterfinal encounter...

The war of words over Alphonso Davies’ knee injury cooled somewhat Thursday with a conciliatory communique from the Canada captain’s agent. In the wake of Bayern Munich’s announcement Wednesday that Davies had torn his anterior cruciate ligament in Canada’s 2-1 weekend win over the U.S. in the CONCACAF Nations League third-place game in Inglewood, Calif., agent Nedal Huoseh turned up the heat by saying Davies “was not 100 per cent after the Mexico game (last Thursday)” and was “pressured to start the (U.S.) game by the coach (Jesse Marsch).” “Canada Soccer needs to do a better job managing these players,” he concluded. Paulo Senra, Canada Soccer’s chief communications and content officer, disputed that statement later in the day, saying “Canada Soccer’s coaches and experienced medical staff are true professionals and have always prioritized player safety and well-being.” “Anything suggesting otherwise is untrue,” Senra said in a statement. Huoseh offered a more diplomatic take in ...

He has been the goal-scoring poster boy of a Wrexham team soaring through England’s soccer leagues following its takeover by Hollywood celebrities. There’s a giant mural of him in the center of the city. He formed such a close bond with Ryan Reynolds, one of the club’s owners, that he even appeared in the last “Deadpool” movie. Now Paul Mullin is experiencing a negative side to Wrexham’s remarkable rise — the ambitious team looks to have outgrown him. Mullin, the prolific striker who has been Wrexham’s player of the season in each of the last three years, hasn’t played a league game in nearly two months. With Wrexham signing two strikers in the recent transfer window to boost its bid for promotion to the second-tier Championship, the 30-year-old Mullin has dropped down the pecking order and doesn’t even make the 18-man matchday squads for games these days. A sudden fall It’s a sudden turn of events for a player who has had a leading ro...

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Argentina is proving it can win without Lionel Messi, just in case he opts not to play in the 2026 World Cup. After Argentina secured a spot in next year’s competition, the main question now is whether the 37-year-old star will play in his sixth tournament and try to win back-to-back championships. “We will see what happens, there’s plenty of time,” Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said. “We must go one game a time otherwise (we) will be speaking about the same thing the rest of the year and we need to leave him alone, we will see. He will decide it whenever he wants, let’s not drive him crazy with this.” On Tuesday, hours after Argentina qualified for the next World Cup, it went out and handed Brazil its worst-ever loss World Cup qualifying — a 4-1 thrashing. That was days after Argentina’s 1-0 victory at Uruguay. Both victories came without Messi. The eight-time Ballon d’Or winner had been ruled out after sustaining a low-grade adductor muscl...

LYON, France — Kadidiatou Diani scored one goal and set up two more as Lyon outclassed Bayern Munich 4-1 in the second leg of their Women’s Champions League quarterfinal on Wednesday. The French powerhouse needed a wake-up call before reaching the semifinals for the 13th time. Klara Bühl opened the scoring in the 33rd minute off the far post to claw a goal back for Bayern after losing the first leg 2-0 in Munich. Lyon, the eight-time champion, emerged reinvigorated after the break and went on to wrap up a 6-1 victory on aggregate with Diani scoring and setting up goals for Melchie Dumornay and Tabitha Chawinga, who both scored in Munich last week. Dumornay played in Ada Hegerberg to seal the rout with a flourish by shooting the ball between Bayern goalkeeper Maria-Luisa “Mala” Grohs’ legs in stoppage time. Bayern will be left to rue defensive blunders for undermining its comeback hopes. Diani was given two opportunities to cross the ball for Dumornay to equalize on the night, then...

Zimbabwe’s Tawanda Chirewa scored in the final minute to deal a major blow to Nigeria’s World Cup qualification prospects in a 1-1 draw between the teams Tuesday. Unbeaten Egypt made no such mistake as Zizo’s goal was enough for a 1-0 win over Sierra Leone in Cairo. Zizo struck just before the break for the Pharaohs to maintain a five-point lead over Burkina Faso, which had defeated Guinea-Bissau 2-1 on Monday, in qualification Group A. Nigeria’s nightmare Nigeria star Victor Osimhen put the Super Eagles on course to claim just their second win in Group C when he scored in the 74th. Friday’s 2-0 victory over Rwanda had rekindled Nigeria’s qualification hopes. But the 21-year-old Chirewa, a late substitute, equalized in the 90th to earn Zimbabwe a draw. Meanwhile, South Africa defeated Benin 2-0 to consolidate the top spot. Bafana Bafana leads with 13 points from six rounds, five clear of Rwanda (which drew with Lesotho 1-1) and Benin. Nigeria stayed fourth in the group with just ...

Trinity Rodman is back with the U.S. women’s team for the first time since last summer’s Paris Olympics. Rodman had been nursing a back injury and was left out of both the U.S. team’s January camp and the recent SheBelieves Cup tournament. She made her return to her club team, the Washington Spirit, last weekend in a National Women’s Soccer League match. U.S. coach Emma Hayes added her to a 24-player roster announced Tuesday in advance of a pair of friendly matches against Brazil next month. Rodman was part of the U.S. team’s “Triple Espresso” front line with Mallory Swanson and Sophia Wilson that helped lead the team to its fifth Olympic gold medal in Paris. Neither Swanson nor Wilson were on the latest squad. Swanson has been taking time off for personal reasons and did not start the season with the Chicago Stars. Wilson, formerly known by her maiden name Smith, is on maternity leave. Hayes said she’d be cautious with Rodman’s return. “You can go from a posit...

MUTTENZ, Switzerland — Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini won again in court Tuesday and now lead 2-0 in trial verdicts against Swiss federal prosecutors. Once soccer’s most powerful men, former FIFA president Blatter and former UEFA president Platini were acquitted for a second time in a case now in its 10th year on charges of fraud, forgery, mismanagement and misappropriation of more than $2 million of FIFA money in 2011. Blatter, now aged 89, gave little reaction listening to the verdict of three cantonal (state) judges acting as a federal criminal appeals court. Sitting in the row in front of Platini, Blatter alternately tapped his fingers on his desk or held his left hand over his mouth. Only when the 55-minute verdict statement was over did Blatter smile before reaching across to shake his lawyer’s hand. Blatter then shared a long hug with his daughter, Corinne. “You have seen my daughter was coming with tears because she believed in (her) father and I believed in myself,” said ...

LONDON — Reece James scored a brilliant free kick and Eberechi Eze grabbed his maiden international goal as England beat Latvia 3-0 in a World Cup qualifier at Wembley Stadium on Monday. James, making his first start in 2 1/2 years, curled a 25-meter free kick into the top corner after 37 minutes. The goal was his first in 18 England appearances and broke down a stuffy Latvia side. Midway through the second half, with the home crowd starting to get restless, young midfielder Morgan Rogers combined well with Declan Rice to pave the way for a Harry Kane tap-in. Then Eze cut in from the right and his shot hit the back of the net after taking a slight deflection. England is the hot favorite to win Europe Group K and qualify for the 2026 World Cup. New coach Thomas Tuchel, in just his second game in charge, will be content with the result if not the performance against a side 136 places behind it in the FIFA rankings. Albania record first win In the same group, Albania bounced back fr...

Still stinging from its disappointing loss against Mexico , the Canadian men’s team responded on Sunday with a dominant performance against the United States in the third-place match at the Concacaf Nations League. The Canadians overcame an early injury exit by captain Alphonso Davies and coach Jesse Marsch being red carded in the second half to earn a 2-1 win over the Americans at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. Jonathan David scored the winner for Canada, while Tani Oluwaseyi bagged his first international goal in 11 appearances for his country. “The mentality of this team is strong, and today was another big test for us against a very good American team and it showed. It showed that we’re ready to compete and beat everybody in this region,” assistant coach Mauro Biello said. Here are three observations from Canada’s latest victory over the United States.  Man of the match: Canada’s Jonathan David Canadian forward Jonathan David is rightly considered among th...