Sports

Portugal striker Andre Silva believes the European champions are well equipped to beat Morocco ahead of their upcoming World Cup group stage clash in Moscow.   “I think we are stronger than Morocco if we compare the two teams, but I’m not saying the game will be easy for us,” Silva told reporters at Portugal’s team base on Monday.  “We ...

Argentina legend Diego Maradona says the team’s draw with Iceland was a “disgrace” and warned manager Jorge Sampaoli “he can’t come back to Argentina” playing like that.   Lionel Messi missed a penalty as his side were surprisingly held by debutants Iceland in their opening Group D game on Saturday.  Maradona, a former national team coach, watched on at the ...

Sweden will be hoping to kick-start their Group F campaign with a victory, but face a tough test against a South Korean side who are appearing at their ninth consecutive World Cup. Sweden pulled off a major scalp in reaching the World Cup, by knocking out Italy over two legs to book their place in Russia. Getting out of Group ...

 Neymar’s Brazil were held 1-1 by Switzerland in their opening World Cup game at Rostov-on-Don on Sunday.   Philippe Coutinho opened the scoring with a magical curling long range shot on 20 minutes, but Steven Zuber headed the Swiss back level five minutes after the restart.  The stalemate left Serbia, who had beaten Costa Rica 1-0 earlier Sunday, top of ...

Germany were stunned 1-0 by Mexico in the opening game of their World Cup defence on Sunday as Hirving Lozano finished off a sharp counter-attack that exposed the ragged defending that the four-times winners had displayed in their warm-up games. Germany’s defence had looked stretched to breaking point on several occasions in the opening half-hour, and it was no surprise ...

Peru’s Christian Cueva, left, duels for the ball with Denmark’s Yussuf Yurary Poulsen during the group C match between Peru and Denmark at the 2018 soccer World Cup in the Mordovia Arena in Saransk, Russia, Saturday, June 16, 2018. Saransk, Jun 17 : Whether Kasper Schmeichel was making an acrobatic save or just getting lucky, it was his night. In ...

St. Petersburg, Jun 17 : Mohamed Salah celebrated his 26th birthday with a Chechen cake and the news that he will play in Egypt’s next World Cup match. A statement from the Egyptian soccer association gave no details about his fitness except that the Liverpool striker participated fully in training Saturday in Grozny, the team’s base in Russia’s Chechnya region. ...

Kaliningrad, Jun 17 : Even in a more defensive role, Luka Modric can still lead the attack. The Croatia midfielder scored one goal and set up the other in his team’s 2-0 victory over Nigeria on Saturday at the World Cup. Modric sent in a corner that was headed by two teammates and then deflected into the net by Nigeria ...

Gros Islet, Jun 17 : Resuming the second test under protest, Sri Lanka strongly denied it tampered with the ball on a third day in which it finished trailing the West Indies by 13 runs on Saturday. Sri Lanka was charged with altering the condition of the ball by umpires Aleem Dar and Ian Gould, who reviewed video of the ...

Moscow, June 16 : Lionel Messi had a penalty kick saved and Iceland held on for a 1-1 draw against Argentina at the World Cup on Saturday. Messi failed to give his team the lead when his 64th-minute penalty was stopped by Hannes Halldorsson. The Iceland goalkeeper dived to his right and got two hands behind the ball. Argentina took ...