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Arsenal stuns Man City to reach �nalARSENAL is heading back to Wembley.
The once-feared Gunners, who have struggled mightily this season and currently sit 10th in the Premier League standings, will play for England’s second-most prestigious trophy after stunning mighty Manchester City on Saturday on Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s two goals, advancing to next month’s FA Cup final in London.
Arsenal will meet Chelsea or Manchester United in the Aug. 1 finale at Wembley Stadium. Those two English titans face off in the other semifinal.
The victory by Mikel Arteta’s team is as instantly famous as it was unexpected — visiting City entered the match as the overwhelming favorite — but it wasn’t an accident, either. The home side was just sharper in the first half, and they could’ve taken the lead even earlier had Aubameyang not squandered a golden scoring chance that looked easier than either of the two he eventually converted. Moments after that miss though, the Gabonese striker made up for the mistake, finishing off a slick passing play by Arsenal with a scrumptiously delicate touch.
City players strangely lacked the precision and execution that made them back-to-back Prem champs in 2018 and 2019
and kept them in second place (behind Liverpool) by a country mile for most of this coronavi-rus-interrupted season.
City had arrived in superb form, too, having gone 4-1 in its last five league matches and outscoring its foes 16-2 over that span. But while they had most of the ball Saturday, as usual, the end product was nowhere to
be found. By the time the final whistle blew, just two of their 11 shots had been on goal.
Saturday’s match was over when Aubameyang scored his second with about 20 minutes still to play.
The victory is especially sweet for Arteta, the former Gunners playmaker and City assistant coach, who was lured back to
the capital after Unai Emery was fired in November.
For Arteta’s former boss Pep Guardiola, it’s this season’s latest disappointment. After losing out on its bid for a Pre-mier League three-peat, City was hoping to retain the FA Cup after winning the domestic double last season.
(SD-Agencies)
Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (C) scores their second goal against Manchester City during their match in London, Britain, on Saturday. SD-Agencies
Hamilton sets new record
‘Messi feels lack of support at Barcelona’
Barcelona’s Lionel Messi reacts after the match against Osasuna in Barcelona, Spain, on Thursday. SD-Agencies
THE West Virginia athletic department in the United States announced Saturday that 28 members of its football program have tested positive for COVID-19.
In total, 41 members of the department have reportedly tested positive out of 518 coronavirus tests since June. Five members of the men’s basketball program have also reportedly tested positive.
West Virginia said that everyone who tested positive has self-isolated, with contact tracing also deployed.
The announcement is yet another wave in the tide threatening the college foot-ball season. Several programs have announced a concerning amount of coronavirus cases, highlighted by Clemson’s total of 36 as of last month.
The Big Ten and Pac-12 have already announced their football teams will play only conference games in 2020, and the Big 12 is among the conferences trying to preserve their non-confer-ence schedules. Now, 28 cases at one of the conference’s own programs won’t help, though it’s worth noting the Mountain-eers didn’t disclose the timing of the cases and how many players tested positive. (SD-Agencies)
West Virginia: 28 members of football program have COVID-19
LEWIS HAMILTON set a new track record to qualify on pole position for the Hungarian Grand Prix on Saturday.
The six-time world cham-pion produced a red-hot lap to beat his Mercedes teammate and rival Valtteri Bottas in the fastest-ever time at the Hunga-roring.
It was Hamilton’s seventh pole at the circuit, equalling Michael Schumacher’s Hun-garian record.
It was pole number 90 for Hamilton, who reached a mile-stone that even the greatest F1 drivers in history never came close to matching.
Schumacher trails the Brit on 68 pole positions and Ayrton Senna is third with 65 poles.
Hamilton’s mighty Mercedes team filled the front row for the third time in as many grand prix since the reorganized season began in Austria.
Hamilton said after qualify-ing: “It’s crazy. I have to pinch myself. It’s quite humbling.
“I get to work with an incredi-ble group of people and the guys do something an amazing job. Valtteri [Bottas] doesn’t make it easy for me but doing laps like that is what I enjoy most.
“It’s a long run down to Turn One, so nothing is a given. I’ve got to deliver at the start tomor-row, and we don’t know what the weather will do, but I’ll be trying as hard as I can to bring a one-two home for the team tomorrow.”
Lance Stroll qualified in third ahead of his Racing Point col-league Sergio Perez, with Fer-rari duo Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc fifth and sixth and Red Bull’s Max Verstapen only seventh.
Meanwhile, Hamilton will have the chance to equal another record in the race the next day.
The 35-year-old will be gun-ning for his eighth Hungarian Grand Prix, which would bring him level with Schumacher who has won the most F1 races at a single circuit at the French Grand Prix.
Boasting 85 race victories to Schumacher’s 91 wins, he is currently six behind the great German driver in the all-time standings. (SD-Agencies)
BRAZIL full-back and former Barcelona star Dani Alves said Saturday that Lionel Messi is justified to be angry with the current situation at the club. The Catalan giants lost their two-year grip on the La Liga title when Real Madrid play-ers sealed their 34th win with a 2-1 victory over Villareal on Thursday.
Barcelona has lost six games in the league this season and currently sits seven points behind Real. A visibly frus-trated Messi said after they lost 2-1 to 10-man Osasuna at home that they have been “an erratic and weak team” throughout the season.
Messi told Spanish TV chan-nel Movistar: “To be honest, this is not the way we wanted things to end, but tonight’s game is a microcosm of our entire season.
“We’ve been too weak and vulnerable. It’s not normal that another team beats us for inten-sity and desire. We dropped too many points along the way and that sums up our season.
“Real Madrid did what they had to do after the restart and didn’t drop any points, we helped them along the way by losing points that we should not have let slip.
“We need to take a look at ourselves. We are Barcelona and we should be winning everything.”
In the aftermath of last week-end’s narrow win over Real Val-ladolid, manager Quique Setien was asked if the Argentine needs a rest. “Absolutely,” Setien said, along with a concession that he must be on the field at all times for Barca to stand a chance of remaining competitive.
“Leo is a natural winner. He doesn’t like losing,” Alves, who spent eight seasons at Barcelona
while they dominated Spain and Europe, told Catalunya.
“When the team loses, it’s normal he gets angry, he always wants to win. Just like me. We always want to win.
“He’s been doing what he does for so long, he knows when a team gives one thing and when it gives another. That’s why he says what works and what doesn’t because he knows.
“He’s spent so many years at Barca, experienced so many things, and he knows exactly what the team needs to win. He sees, what I feel, a lack of support,” he said.
Messi is the top scorer in the league with 23 goals and also tops the assist table by a sig-nificant margin with 20. While Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema is only two goals behind him on the goalscorer’s list, the 33-year-old Argentine is the runaway leader on the stand-ings for assists, with the clos-est man being Real Sociedad’s Mikel Oyarzabal on 11.
Messi alone has thus been directly involved in 43 of the 81 goals that Barca has scored this season.
“I’ll always say that Messi is the main course and we were the perfect ingredients for that plate. Now I have the feeling that he’s doing everything, all the time, and we must remem-ber he’s only human,” said Alves. (SD-Agencies)
Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton wears a face mask as he celebrates qualifying in pole position in Budapest, Hungary, on Satur-day. SD-Agencies
