Soccer: Champions League
Celtic manager Ronny Deila has described Celtic's Champions League play-off clash with Malmo tonight as a cup final - and he's dead right as a return to the group stages is worth upwards €21.5 million to the Scottish champions.
The Hoops are 3-2 up from last week’s first leg in Glasgow but arrive in Sweden off the back of a heated first leg in which Malmo players were quoted as calling their hosts ‘Pigs’.
Yet Malmo boss Age Hareide has attacked the Scottish media, claiming that the word had been taken out of context when translated into English."If you travel abroad and you are going to write about players from Sweden or Norway or Germany or Spain or France, you have to learn the words," he said.
Back in the Premier League and Liverpool and Arsenal played out one of the most unstereotypical 0-0 draws at the Emirates last night. Only for Petr Cech and Liverpool would have been nicely ahead after a strong first half, although the home side regained a foot hold after the break to salvage their first points in the Emirates this season. Aaron Ramsey had a goal wrongly ruled out, Philippe Coutinho hit the woodwork twice, Cech denied Christian Benteke from point blank range, and that was all just in the one half.
Mario on his way
Meanwhile the famous Anfield club's misfit striker Mario Balotelli is set to rejoin Milan on a season-long loan.
The 25-year-old has been frozen out of Brendan Rodgers’s plans this season and forced to train away from the first-team squad along with Fabio Borini and José Enrique after a disappointing first season at Anfield .
Balotelli, who joined from Milan in a £16 million transfer last August, is due a six-figure “loyalty bonus” from Liverpool should he remain at the club after the summer transfer window but he has agreed terms with the Italian club over a loan deal. He is set for a medical at the club’s Milanello training ground today.
Golf: Walker Cup
Ireland will have a record five players on the Walker Cup team next month to face the United States at Royal Lytham and St Annes, on the Lancashire coast.
Although Scotland, as European champions, might be entitled to some grievance in only getting two players onto the team (albeit an improvement of two on 2013 when the cradle of the sport astonishingly didn’t have any), there was general consensus that the five Irishmen – Cormac Sharvin, Paul Dunne, Gavin Moynihan, Gary Hurley and Jack Hume – all fully deserved selection.
Rugby: World Cup warm-up
“Watching George Ford go through the horrors in the Stade de France on Saturday, while Freddie Michalak steered the home side to a psychologically important win, perhaps acted as a reminder that, to paraphrase Alan Hansen, you can’t win anything with kids. Or, at any rate, a team has a better chance of winning a World Cup with an experienced outhalf.”
Gerry Thornley’s column this week is addressing England and their World Cup preparations, and how they’d be foolish to pin their hopes on a young, no doubt supremely talented George Ford at 10, given his inexperience at test level.
GAA: Championship
Jim McGuinness is looking back at Tyrone's All-Ireland SFC semi-final loss to Kerry last Sunday, a game in which he felt the Kingdom displayed the patience and composure which has now become a the template for their success under Eamon Fitzmaurice.
Mickey Harte’s side had their homework done, but Kerry’s self-belief saw them through;
“Their response to Tyrone’s goal was to engineer four unanswered points that came from good play and good decision-making. One of those included a string of 24 passes when they were almost toying with Tyrone and drawing them out and then the ball was finally flicked inside for Colm Cooper, resulting in a free and the black card for Ronan McNamee. I didn’t think that it should have been a black card but Kerry’s precise play there was faultless.”
Athletics: World Championships
Just 24 hours after Usain Bolt reaffirmed his status as the fastest man on earth, Jamaican compatriot Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce came out and proved again why she's still the fastest woman – and certainly in her own familiar style.
With long, dyed green braids flowing behind her, and five yellow sunflowers neatly positioned on her fringe, Fraser-Pryce become the first woman to win three 100m titles, her time of 10.76 seconds enough to hold off the new flying Dutch woman of track and field, Dafne Schippers.
What to watch out for:
The Beijing World Championships continues today, live on BBC2 and Eurosport.
BBC 2, 11am-2.30pm, 7pm-8pm
Eurosport, 11.30am-2pm, 6pm-8pm
Celtic's Champions League decider kicks off at 7.45pm.
BT Sport Europe from 7pm
TV3 from 7.30pm
