An own-goal from Andy Webster was all that separated the two sides as Liverpool scraped a narrow
victory over Hearts in the first leg of their Europa League play-off at Tynecastle.
The Edinburgh side impressed for much of the tie before suffering a late blow against their
Barclays Premier League visitors, who made the trip across the border without a number of star
players.
Not that it really mattered, but England broke a 43-year hoodoo by beating Sweden for the first
time in 13 games at a sparsely-populated Wembley last night, with the narrow victory also affording
them their first defeat-less calendar year since 1994.
Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher has declared that winger Raheem Sterling has a "big future" at
the club after impressing in the Reds' 1-0 Europa League victory over Hearts.
Sterling, 17, joined the club from QPR's youth set-up in 2010 and has emerged as one of Liverpool's
most promising young players in recent years.
When Liverpool finally won the FA Cup for the first time, they didn't do it the easy way. The
club had secured their first league title under Bill Shankly—and their sixth overall—the year
before, only a season removed from returning to the top flight after spending nearly a decade in
the Second Division, and they were matched up against a Leeds United side that had just won
promotion.
Defending German Bundesliga champions Borussia Dortmund kicked off the season with a narrow
victory over Werder Bremen. The rest of the Bundesliga teams will play on the weekend.
Below is the German Bundesliga able through August 24, 2012.
AEL edged Anderlecht, BATE defeated Hapoel, Malaga blanked Panathinaikos, Dinamo beat Maribor,
and Udinese held Braga in the UEFA Champions League on August 22, 2012.
AEL 2-1 Anderlecht
Greek side AEL got goals from Dossa Junior and Melo Rui Miguel to get the narrow victory.
Anderlecht did level the match for 11 minutes but a 75th minute Milan Jovanovic red card ended any
realistic chance of a draw.
The first leg of the UEFA Champions League second qualifying round started with 11 matches on
July 17, 2012. Most matches were very close while HJK Helsinki, FC Basel, and Partizan all
positioned themselves in great position to move into the next round of qualifying. The second legs
will take place on July 24 and 25.
Speaking as a partially-inebriated neutral, Arsenal's narrow victory over Marseille at the Stade
Velodrome wasn't in the politest terms possible very easy on either the eye or the frontal
lobes.
The relief was almost tangible as Arsenal began life after Cesc with a win last night, beating
Udinese 1-0 in the first leg of their Champions League play-off at the Emirates thanks to a
fourth-minute Theo Walcott goal.
However, the narrow victory wasn't overly convincing, with the Italians going close on several
occasions particularly Antonio Di Natale, who clipped the woodwork twice and forced a decent save
out of Wojciech Szczczczczczcney in the first-half.
There is only so much that one can take from another human being before one snaps.
I have immense respect for the man from a footballing perspective; he has put so much into the
British game as we know it, reforming the entire drinking and dietary culture around the game and
contributing a new attacking flair with a dogged defensive solidity.
Malaga won on the road, Sevilla edged Getafe, and Mallorca defeated Espanyol in the Spanish
Primera Division (La Liga) on August 18, 2012.
Celta Vigo 0-1 Malaga
Malaga started the season with a victory thanks to a late second half Fabrice Olinga goal.
Malaga finished fourth last season and will be looking to challenge for third which would avoid
qualifying for the UEFA Champions League.
One of the favorites to win this year's Africa Cup of Nations, Ghana opened its tournament with
a narrow victory over Botswana that can best be described as a roller coaster for John Mensah.
The Ghana captain endured highs and lows in Ghana's Group D opener, scoring the only goal before
receiving a red card and then picking up a hamstring injury.
Paris Saint-Germain' march to the Ligue 1 title, hit a speed bump on Saturday as they needed a
last-minute penalty from Zlatan Ibrahimovic to snatch a 2-2 draw at home to Lorient.
Carlos Bocanegra and the Greens of St. Etienne return home just days after a narrow victory over
the weakest team in Ligue 1, to face the leaders from Lille.
Indonesia Premier League
PSMS v Persebaya 1-2Persiraja v Persija (!) 3-3
Other games were scheduled but never happened. Arema flew all the way to Papua to play
Persipura...but last year's champions had already withdrawn from the league and were playing n the
Inter Island Cup. Who the hell allowed them to fly when they had no opponent?
An Italian walks into a bar in Tokyo and asks for a local brew, but not wishing to disappoint,
the barman discreetly pours the visitor a Peroni instead.
It's a plausible scenario in a country like Japan, where citizens are eager to please and
equally desperate to avoid criticism.
Perhaps that's why the Japanese press were quick to turn a blind eye to another poor performance
from the Samurai Blue at the Asian Cup in Qatar, as Alberto Zaccheroni's men laboured to a 2-1 win
over a spirited but technically inferior Syria.
The Richmond Kickers winning streak continued in emphatic fashion with a 6-0 rout of the Dayton
Dutch Lions.
The USL Pro leaders have one five-straight game to begin the season and have racked up a +9 goal
difference in that time.Â
Not to be outdone, Antigua Barracuda FC put seven by Puerto Rico United on Wednesday before
squeaking out a narrow victory over River Plate Puerto Rico over the weekend.
Milwaukee Wave midfielder Matt Stewart scored, but the U.S. national team was
eliminated from the CONCACAF Futsal Championships with a 2-1 loss to defending champion Guatemala
on Wednesday night in Guatemala City.
Stewart collected the rebound of Bato Radoncic's shot that bounced off the post
and finished for his sixth career goal in CONCACAF play, tying the score at 1 in the 10th
minute.
Patrick Vieira is writing about les Bleus for the English-speaking world in a column in the
Telegraph.
In his article this morning, he leads with the highly optimistic premise that France's front
three of Nasri, Benzema, and Ribery will be the key to the France-England match because they're so
awesome.
Messi celebrates goal in narrow victory over Levante (Photo: REUTERS/Albert Gea)
A second-half brace from Lionel Messi earned Barcelona a hard fought 2-1 victory at Levante,
trimming the gap atop the La Liga standings to four points ahead of next weekend's El
Clasico showdown with Real Madrid.
As usual, it was a fierce and heated battle in the Old Firm derby.
While the Scottish Premier League title race is over (Celtic have a commanding 18 point lead),
there was much at stake. It was a match which saw three red cards and drastic momentum swings.
Rangers would start off strong as Sone Aluko made it 1-0 in the 11th minute.
Olympic Qualifier
Bahrain v Malaysia 2-1 (;Hazwan Bakri) 2,000
Malaysia managed a late equaliser in Bahrain but the hosts, coached by former England manager Peter
Taylor, scored a couple of minutes later to earn the win. Heaps happening in the last few moments
with two yellows for the home team and a Malaysian seeing red in the 5th minute of injury time.
For the second straight week, the top teams in the nation suffered through some shocking upset
defeats.
In its penultimate game of the regular season, top-ranked Maryland lost to Clemson, 2-1. The
Terps had a man advantage for much of the match, but Clemson was able to exploit the makeshift back
line Maryland used, scoring twice in the second half to win the game.
England only just managed to scrape a narrow victory against Wales a few days ago in the Euro
Championship Qualifiers, yet player for player England outclassed the Welsh players (well, with the
exception of Bale and Ramsay perhaps), so the burning question on everyone's lips seems to be why
are England so inconsistent?
The Metro State men enjoyed a Friday rout, but settled for a tie on Sunday, while the Roadrunner
women got a narrow victory on Friday and followed it with a goal explosion on Sunday.
Metro State men 2, University of Mary 2: Nikola Nikolic headed in a throw-in
with 25 seconds left in regulation to force a tie for visiting University of Mary (N.
ASEAN Football Federation Cup Semi Final Second Leg
Indonesia v The Philippines 1-0 (Christian Gonzalez) 70,700
Divisi Utama
PSIM v Mitra Kukar 0-1 (Bayu Sutha)
Persik v Gresik United 1-0 (Adrian Trinidad)
Mitra Kukar, coached by former national team coach Benny Dollo, rebounded from their 4-0
disaster last time out against Persik with a narrow victory away to early pacesetters PSIM.
STUTTGART, Germany Bruno Labbadia made a fine start at the Stuttgart helm as two goals from Timo
Gebhart helped the German side round off Group H in style with a 5-1 victory over Odense BK. Timo
Gebhart got the ball rolling with the first of his two goals on 20 minutes and by the [...]
