GROWING

OO
19
SATURDAY I FEBRUARY 18 I 2017
SPORTS
OMANDAILYOBSERVER
Hat-tricks
for United’s
IBRAHIMOVIC,
Roma’s DZEKO
Manchester United’s striker Zlatan
Ibrahimovic shoots from the penalty
spot to score his team’s third goal
during the UEFA Europa League
Round of 32 first-leg match. — AFP
Roma’s Edin Dzeko (left) vies with Villarreal’s Manu Trigueros during the Europa
League round of 32 first leg match at El Ceramica stadium in Vila-real. — AFP
LONDON: The goals continued to flow for
Manchester United’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic and
AS Roma’s Edin Dzeko as they bagged hattricks
to help their teams take commanding
leads in the first legs of their Europa League
last 32 ties on Thursday.
United swept aside St Etienne 3-0 at Old
Trafford and Roma made light work of last
season’s semifinalists Villarreal with a 4-0
win in Spain, leaving their sides with little
work to do in next week’s return encounters.
Tottenham Hotspur’s Europa League
campaign, however, got off to a frustrating start
as they were beaten 1-0 at mid-table Belgian
outfit Gent, while Olympique Lyonnais beat
AZ Alkmaar 4-1 away and Fiorentina edged
Borussia Moenchengladbach 1-0.
St Etienne will be totally sick of the sight
of Ibrahimovic as the Swede took his tally
against the Ligue 1 side to 17 goals in 14
games, having terrorised Les Verts during his
four years at Paris St Germain.
“Every time I’ve played against St Etienne,
with hard work there has been a couple of
goals. I’ve scored a couple of goals tonight
and hopefully I can do the same next week,”
Ibrahimovic told BT Sport.
He opened the scoring with a deflected
free kick in the first half and added two
more — a tap-in and a late penalty — after
the break as United quelled the visitors’ early
enthusiasm.
The match was billed as a battle of the
Pogba brothers with younger sibling Paul
facing St Etienne’s Florentin for the first time
in a competitive encounter.
It was the 35-year-old Ibrahimovic who
stole the show, however, grabbing his first
United hat-trick and taking his tally in a
remarkable maiden season at Old Trafford
to 23.
RICH VEIN
Dzeko is in a similarly rich vein of form
at Roma, who swatted aside a Villarreal team
United swept aside
St Etienne 3-0 at Old
Trafford and Roma
made light work of
last year’s semifinalists
Villarreal with
a 4-0 win in Spain,
leaving their sides
with little work to do
who are in freefall having now won just one
of their last 10 games in all competitions.
Emerson Palmieri gave Roma the lead
after 32 minutes and then Dzeko took over
after the break, netting for the seventh
straight game to double the lead in the 65th
minute before adding two more goals to take
his tally for the campaign to 28.
Spurs, who have dropped into the
competition from the Champions League,
were off colour throughout in Belgium
and were undone in the second half when
journeyman French striker Jeremy Perbet
stroked home at the second attempt on the
hour.
Spurs had arrived looking to restore
pride in north London football after Arsenal
were thrashed 5-1 by Bayern Munich in the
Champions League on Wednesday but were
stifled in a poor performance and were lucky
to escape with a one-goal deficit.
After Perbet scored, Gent, eighth in the
Belgian league, had a golden chance to double
their lead but Danijel Milicevic’s effort was
tipped onto the post by keeper Hugo Lloris.
Gladbach came into their encounter
with Fiorentina on a hot streak having won
their last four games and they dominated
possession and made several chances against
the Italians.
The Serie A side were resilient at the back,
however, and grabbed the only goal when
Federico Bernardeschi fired home a fine free
kick in the dying seconds of the first half.
Lyon will take a commanding lead into
their second leg against AZ Alkmaar after
teenager Lucas Tousart scored his first senior
goal and Jordan Ferri rounded off the scoring
in stoppage time either side of Alexandre
Lacazette’s double.
Alireza Jahanbakhsh had reduced the
deficit for AZ with a 68th-minute penalty.
Schalke 04’s Klaas-Jan Huntelaar netted
his 50th European goal to round off a 3-0
win at PAOK Salonika while Anderlecht
overcame a sluggish Zenit St Petersburg,
playing their first competitive game in 10
weeks, to win 2-0 in Belgium. — Reuters
Arsenal boss Wenger says future
will be settled soon
Fifa boss unworried about
Russia 2018 hooligans
LONDON: Arsenal manager Arsene
Wenger said his future would probably
be decided “in March or April” as he
pondered whether to take up the offer
of a contract extension or leave the
club he has managed for 20 years at
the end of the season.
The Frenchman was speaking to
German television station ZDF before
Arsenal’s 5-1 Champions League
humiliation by Bayern Munich
on Wednesday, but details of the
interview emerged only on Thursday
as speculation intensified about
Wenger’s intention.
Asked when he would decide
whether to continue next season,
he said: “March, April probably.”
Separately, the BBC reported, without
sources, on Thursday that his future
would be determined at the end of the
season, when his existing deal expires.
The 67-year-old Frenchman was
stunned almost into silence after
Wednesday’s game, answering just
three questions in a press conference
that lasted under three minutes.
Wenger is due to speak publicly
again on Friday, by which time he will
have had time not only to digest the
5-1 defeat but also the hostile reaction
from pundits and former Arsenal
players who lined up to predict his
demise when his contract expires this
summer.
Such is Wenger’s standing at the
club, he will effectively decide his
Arsenal’s Francis Coquelin (left) and manager Arsene Wenger (right) speak
together during the UEFA Champions League round of sixteen match against
Bayern Munich in Munich. — AFP
own fate. British media reported that
a new two-year deal had been offered
but Arsenal legends Lee Dixon, Ian
Wright and Bob Wilson all said they
felt Wenger might decide to walk away.
“I doubt he will sleep very much
between now and a horrible (FA Cup)
game on an artificial pitch at Sutton
on Monday night,” said Wilson. “He
might say enough is enough.”
Critics were quick to point out that
Wenger’s explanation for the Munich
mauling — that his players were “jaded
and lacking organisation” — reflected
his own managerial shortcomings,
and almost mirrored his remarks the
last time his side were thumped, also
5-1, by the same opponents 18 months
earlier. The only support seemed to
come from Bayern manager Carlo
Ancelotti. “This is football,” he said. “I
think Arsene has a lot of experience,
the experience to manage this
moment, this result and look forward
to the next game. It’s only one game.”
The trouble is, it isn’t.
Six successive eliminations at the
same stage of the knockout phase
do not suggest coincidence and a
tactically disjointed Arsenal side
I doubt he will sleep
very much between
now and a horrible
(FA Cup) game on an
artificial pitch at Sutton
on Monday night
BOB WILSON
Arsenal legend
were well beaten by opponents below
their best. Arsenal’s two biggest stars
Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil,
underperformed in wildly contrasting
fashion and did little to suggest either
is worth the enhanced new contracts
they seek.
While Ozil was anonymous,
confirming the critical view that he
goes missing in the big games, Sanchez
got visibly agitated in chasing the ball,
often on his own.
NON-LEAGUE CHALLENGE
It was unclear whether his solo
defiance accorded to a game plan
that he had just invented, or one put
in place by Wenger which his teammates
were ignoring. Either way, it did
not reflect well on the manager at the
heart of it all.
— Reuters
Fifa president Gianni Infantino (centre) cuts the ribbon as part of a
ceremony to open the national football academy in Yangon. The opening is
part of a push to reinvigorate grassroots football in Myanmar. — AFP
DOHA: Fifa president Gianni
Infantino said on Thursday he was
not worried about hooliganism at
next year’s Russia World Cup, amid
growing fears the tournament
could be blighted by fan violence.
Speaking in Qatar following a
Fifa executive summit meeting,
Infantino also said that football’s
governing body has not asked
Russian Deputy Prime Minister
Vitaly Mutko to resign as the
tournament’s chief organiser.
“I am not concerned about
trouble and violence in 2018,”
Infantino told AFP and a small
group of reporters on the sidelines
of the meeting.
“I have full confidence in the
Russian authorities, they are taking
this matter very, very seriously.”
He added that Russian
organisers had been in touch with
Fifa, UEFA and the organisers
of Euro 2016 in France, where
Russian and English fans clashed in
bloody street battles, especially in
Marseille, leading to the expulsion
of several Russians.
He added that Russia was a
“welcoming country, which wants
to celebrate football”.
Infantino’s comments came
ahead of the broadcast of a
television documentary in Britain
on Thursday in which Russian
hardline fans are said to threaten
trouble against English fans who
go to the World Cup.
Hardline hooligans warned that
the 2018 World Cup would be a
“festival of violence”. — AFP