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Home's Saswa is first casualty of SPL season

Home's Saswa is first casualty of SPL season

After barely a quarter of the Singapore Premier League (SPL) season, Home United are the first team to part ways with their head coach as they announced the mutual termination of Saswadimata Dasuki's contract yesterday.
The Protectors said that assistant coach Noh Rahman will take over on an interim basis as the club are in the process of appointing a new head coach.
They added in a media statement: "Home United FC and head coach Saswadimata Dasuki have come to a mutual agreement to part ways with immediate effect.
"HUFC would like to thank Saswa for his contributions, having joined the club as assistant coach in 2017, and being appointed head coach for the 2019 season.
"During his stint, he brought honours to the club, including the recent Community Shield. We thank him for his work and wish him the best for his future endeavours."
The former Singapore international, 49, declined comment, but it is understood that one of the contributing factors behind the decision is the club's poor results.
Despite being touted as one of the title contenders, Home are languishing in seventh spot in the nine-team SPL, winning just two out of six games as they struggled with injuries and poor form.
In the AFC Cup, they are second in Group H with seven points after four games, one point behind Indonesia's PSM Makassar.
It was in this second-tier Asian competition last year that Saswadimata enjoyed his greatest coaching success when he was assistant to Aidil Sharin as the Protectors emerged as Asean Zonal winners.
Noh Rahman, who was a strength and conditioning coach with the Football Association of Singapore before he joined Home this year, will face his first test on Wednesday against fourth-placed Geylang International.
The 38-year-old former Lion said: "It is never a nice feeling, standing in a position of a colleague whom you have worked with since the start of the season.
"As for my plans and goals, that is to improve the individual performance of the players and the team performance, at least until the new coach comes in.
"It is a big challenge, but we need to approach this positively."



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Football: Humbug! Hannover coach slashes struggling squad's Christmas break

Football: Humbug! Hannover coach slashes struggling squad's Christmas break

BERLIN (AFP) - Bundesliga strugglers Hannover have had their Christmas holiday slashed to just three days by furious coach Andre Breitenreiter, who had originally threatened to completely cancel their festive break.
He threatened his squad with extra training over Christmas if they failed to meet his target of four points from their last two league games of 2018.
The team fell short after drawing 1-1 with Freiburg on Wednesday (Dec 19), and then losing 1-0 to resurgent Fortuna Dusseldorf on Saturday.
They are now second from bottom in the table with just 11 points from 17 games. Only goal difference keeps Hannover from last place in the league, currently occupied by Nuremberg.
Although Breitenreiter has reneged on his Scrooge-like threat to scrap his squad's Christmas, he has still called them back in for training on Friday (Dec 28) - a full week before most of their German league rivals.
"We have achieved the goal of reuniting the team as a unit and I am also giving up my holiday to shake off 2018 and make it better next year," said Breitenreiter after a 45-minute session on Sunday.
"The situation is difficult for all of us, but if we take the right measures and stick together, I'm optimistic that we will stay in the league," he said of his relegation-threatened team.
The head coach, who is danger of being sacked by president Martin Kind, has however granted exceptions to Brazilian defender Felipe and midfielder Walace, who are allowed to return on Jan 3, because of the huge distances to fly home.
Their record of just two wins from their first 17 games, including four-goal defeats by Bayern Munich, Borussia Monchengladbach and Eintracht Frankfurt, is the worst start to a season in the club's history.
"It cannot go on like that," said team manager Horst Heldt, who is under pressure to strengthen the team during the four-week winter break, with striker Niclas Fullkrug facing knee surgery and ruled out for the rest of the season.



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Spurs' New 'Superhero'

Spurs' New 'Superhero'

LONDON • On June 1, Tottenham have a shot at the ultimate prize.
If they overcome Liverpool in their first Champions League final, there will surely be statues erected, not just for Lucas Moura, but for all the players and manager Mauricio Pochettino.
As it stands, Brazil forward Moura is in line to have a bust outside their new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium alongside one already planned for Bill Nicholson, the club's most successful manager with eight major trophies, including the 1961 double.
Christian Eriksen led the calls for his teammate to be enshrined after his hat-trick ensured Spurs went through 3-3 on away goals after the second leg of their Champions League semi-final tie with Ajax on Wednesday.
Having lost the first leg 1-0, Spurs got off to the worst possible start in Amsterdam, going 2-0 down on the night to goals from Matthijs de Ligt and Hakim Ziyech.
The reverse leg turned on its head after half-time, however, as Moura scored twice in quick succession before netting a 96th-minute effort to complete his treble - only the fifth player in the competition's history to do so in the semi-final stage.


  • 5th min
    AJAX 1-0 (AGGREGATE: AJAX 2-0) An early goal like the first-leg winner by Donny van de Beek. Captain Matthijs de Ligt gets away from Kieran Trippier into the box and outjumps Dele Alli to plant a header that leaves Hugo Lloris rooted.
    35th
    AJAX 2-0 (AGG: AJAX 3-0) Hakim Ziyech's wicked left-foot curler, set up by Dusan Tadic, comes as Trippier fails to track back after looking for a foul in vain for a Tadic high foot. Game over?
    55th
    AJAX 2-1 (AGG: AJAX 3-1) Not quite. A sweeping Spurs counter-attack, started by Danny Rose who nutmegs de Ligt, ends up with Lucas Moura reducing the deficit after exchanging passes with Alli. Game on.
    59th
    2-2 (AGG: AJAX 3-2) A goalkeeper-defender mix-up, created by the hugely influential substitute Fernando Llorente's point-blank effort, allows Moura to make space in a crowded box to set up a grandstand finish.
    96th
    SPURS 3-2 (AGG: 3-3) As the clock just ticks past the five minutes of added time, Llorente knees the ball to Alli, who lays it off cleverly for the charging Moura to slot into the corner for his hat-trick. Spurs go through on away goals.


The Denmark midfielder Eriksen said of the 26-year-old: "Today it was non-tactical, more of a fight and heart performance and Lucas Moura. He deserves it.

CAST IN STONE
Today it was non-tactical, more of a fight and heart performance and Lucas Moura. He deserves it. It has been a roller-coaster of a season, for him to get us in the final, I hope he gets a statue in England after this.
CHRISTIAN ERIKSEN, Tottenham midfielder, on Brazilian teammate Lucas Moura.

"It has been a roller-coaster of a season, for him to get us in the final, I hope he gets a statue in England after this. We are blown away."
Ironically, Moura, whose January 2018 arrival remains the last player Spurs have signed, would probably not have started the second leg had injured striker Harry Kane been fit.
But Pochettino has instilled an ethos that "the team is more important than any name".
The Argentinian, who has yet to win a major honour as a manager, can now end the term with the biggest prize in European football.
With the endgame close, Pochettino was understandably in tears, branding Moura a "superhero".
He said: "To have brought the club to the final of the Champions League is very close to a miracle.
"No one believed in us at the beginning of the season, we are so close, almost in the top four and in Madrid, playing the final.
"This amazing season in our new home and this chapter that we are going to close now, to close the chapter playing a final, and if we win, it would be an amazing book."
Pochettino also spoke of "no pain, no gain" in the aftermath - in reference to his five-year stint since arriving from Southampton, a period in which he has fought to establish the club as a top-four force in the Premier League and regulars in the Champions League.
Rival fans have long mocked his team's history of perennial underachievement as "doing a Spurs".
However, that has changed under Pochettino despite the lack of silverware. The 47-year-old has worked wonders with a comparatively smaller squad to the other "Big Six" teams and a non-existent budget; they are the only club in league history not to have bought any players in the last two transfer windows.
The possibilities for the future are endless. They are overwhelming favourites to finish in the top four again for their fourth straight Champions League campaign.
And while Spurs have won just one of their last 14 matches against the Reds, there will be no shortage of belief from Pochettino's players.
They might even have Kane back for the trip to Madrid, with the England striker telling BT Sport "rehab is going well".
For now, Pochettino will bask in the glow of a "50-year highlight" for Spurs, saying: "There will be time to talk about Liverpool.
"They are heroes too, and it's going to be an amazing final between two English teams."
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Football: Ronaldo seals Italian Super Cup for Juventus

Football: Ronaldo seals Italian Super Cup for Juventus

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) - Cristiano Ronaldo scored the only goal to hand Juventus their first trophy of the season with a 1-0 win over ten-man AC Milan in the Italian Super Cup on Wednesday (Jan 16) in Saudi Arabia.
Ronaldo - signed by the Italian giants last year from Real Madrid as they target a first Champions League title since 1996 - headed in a 61st-minute winner.
AC Milan played the last quarter of an hour a man down after Ivorian midfielder Franck Kessie saw red for a bad tackle on Emre Can.
"I have my first title with Juventus so I'm happy," said the Portuguese star who now has 28 trophies including five Champions League and league titles from England and Spain, and a European Championship with Portugal.
"I really wanted this, to get off to a good start in 2019.
"This is only the start, we'll take it one step at a time. We've got this cup, now we must keep working hard to achieve the next trophy," warned Ronaldo.
The match had been overshadowed by controversy with calls for it to be relocated over human rights issues in Saudi Arabia with women only allowed to attend the game if they were accompanied by a man.
Italian football league president Gaetano Micciche hailed the match as a success, with reports there were up to 15,000 women among the 62,000 crowd in the stadium.
"It was a wonderful evening, a festival of sport in a full stadium," said Micciche.
"I hope that it's the starting point for social evolution in this country." On the pitch the players suffered in the heat with temperatures hitting 25 degrees Celsius amid freezing conditions in northern Italy.
In the end Juventus came away with a record eighth Super Cup title, one more than AC Milan who have won seven.
"It was very hot and the important thing was to win," said coach Massimiliano Allegri who won the trophy for the second time, having lost to AC Milan in 2016 and Lazio last year.
"Ronaldo? We always say the same thing... that's why we signed him. He is decisive and scores big goals, but the whole team put in a good performance."
AC Milan forward Gonzalo Higuain only played the final 20 minutes against his parent club, ahead of a touted move to Chelsea, having moved away from Turin to make way for Ronaldo last summer.
Coach Gennaro Gattuso said the Argentine was suffering from a fever and missed the team photo because they were afraid he would infect other players.
"It might seem like a joke, but it's true. Higuain wasn't in the picture when the Saudi Prince came to visit because I was afraid the virus would spread among the other players, so that was my decision.
"He had a fever last night, we did everything to get him better, but he didn't play much, so I preferred a fresher player."
Milan's best shot on goal was a Patrick Cutrone effort after the break with their hopes dwindling after Kessie's sending off.
"We had to climb a mountain and we tried," said Gattuso.



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