IN EURO 2024
England will face Spain in the Euro 2024 final in Berlin on Sunday after beating the Netherlands two-one in the semi-final.
A last-minute strike from England star Ollie Watkins sealed victory over the Netherlands.
Gareth Southgate’s side looked to be going into extra time for the third successive game after Harry Kane’s contentious first-half penalty equalised a thunderous early strike from Xavi Simon.
Instead, a superb late strike on the turn from Watkins, sent England into their second successive European Championship final on dramatic day in Dortmund.
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Five people suffered minor injuries after England fans were attacked by the Netherlands supporters in Dortmund before Wednesday’s Euro 2024 semi-final.
UK police said a group of the Netherlands fans attacked England fans in bars and attempted to steal flags.
They said the majority of the Netherlands fans were there to enjoy the game but there were some groups of supporters deemed a risk.
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Spain captain Luis De La Fuente has advised Barcelona star Lamine Yamal to remain humble.
Yamal is currently having the best of performances at the ongoing Euro 2024 after he scored a sublime goal in Spain’s two-one win over France in the semi-finals.
Yamal’s goal broke a record held by Switzerland’s Johan Vonlathen since 2004.
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NIGERIA
Former FIFA referee, and now FIFA senior technical instructor Felix Tangawarima, has expressed confidence that if Nigeria’s next generation referees receive the necessary support and encouragement from the NFF, the absence of Nigerian referees from major international tournaments will soon be a thing of the past.
Tangawarima, who is at the head of the FIFA team that superintended a five-day training programme for the country’s Young Talents, spoke during a courtesy call on President of NFF, Ibrahim Gusau at the NFF Secretariat, Abuja.
He appealed to the NFF President to find the enablement for Nigerian international referee instructors to periodically engage upcoming instructors at the zones with a view to enhancing their capacity.
Responding, Gusau stated that he was always pained any time there was a report of a list of referees for major tourneys was released without a single Nigerian referee.
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The Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, has requested for applications from suitably qualified candidates for the vacant position of the Coach of Beach Soccer National Team, otherwise known as Supersand Eagles.
The public notice, which is on the Federation’s website has specified for candidates to have attended at least one beach soccer refresher course organised by the NFF, be conversant with, and abreast of, the ever-changing rules and dynamics of the game and possess at least CAF C Coaching License.
Applications will close on 12th July, with a successful candidate to be named in a matter of days, as the Supersand Eagles get set for a two-leg Beach Soccer Africa Cup of Nations qualifying fixture against their counterparts from Mauritania.
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The duo of Super Falcons stars, Asisat Oshoala and Ifeoma Onumonu have joined their teammates in camp ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games.
Oshoala and Onumonu arrived at the team’s Jerez de la Frontera camp.
The duo’s arrival increased the number of players in camp to sixteen.
The remaining players are expected to hit camp latest Friday.
The Super Falcons will take on reigning Olympic champions Canada in a friendly next week Wednesday.
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Nigeria women player, Jennifer Echegini has joined French D1 Arkema side Paris Saint-Germain.
Echegini put pen to paper on a three-year contract with PSG.
The Nigeria international who announced her departure from Italian club Juventus, spent six months at Juventus.
The midfielder scored ten goals and provided one assist in sixteen appearances for the Bianconeri last season.
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Cagliari are looking to bring Nigeria forward Cyriel Dessers back to Italy.
The team has inquired about Dessers’ availability from Rangers.
Rangers are willing to sell the striker but want five million euros for the former Feyenoord player.
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Roma have identified Super Eagles forward Terem Moffi as a transfer target this summer.
The team are looking for a new striker to bolster their squad, following Romelu Lukaku’s return to Chelsea after his loan spell.
Roma have lined up Moffi as a potential replacement for Lukaku.
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Niger Tornadoes have unveiled seven new players ahead of the upcoming 2024/2025 football season.
The Ikon Allah Boys have set July 22nd as resumption date for the new season.
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The Professional Fighters League, PFL, has decided to bring the sport to Nigeria and Africa in addition to PFL Europe and PFL MENA as part of its network of regular leagues.
Its Chief Executive Officer, Pete Murray, who stated this in Lagos, said PFL Africa would introduce an engaging sport-season format with a regular season, playoffs and championship featuring top African fighters with all events for the first time hosted in Africa.
Murray stressed that the sport will commence in Nigeria in April 2025 with enough professional PFL athletes.
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No fewer than twelve youngsters have been selected to represent Nigeria at the forthcoming World Youth Scrabble Championship in Sri Lanka.
In a statement by the Nigeria Scrabble Federation, NSF, highlighted the list of the players which consists of eight boys and four girls.
The team’s list has Joy Nwabuzor who won gold for Edo State during the 7th National Youth Games held in Asaba, Delta State, and talented wordsmith players including Abdulqudus Aliu who led Kwara State to sweep the top honours at the Games.
The championship is billed to take place from 6th to 8th September in Sri Lanka.
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87 athletes will represent Team Nigeria in 12 sports at the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics.
The Sports Ministry confirmed this in statement, confirming that the breakdown of the athletes as follows: Athletics, 35 athletes; Women’s Football, 18 athletes; Women’s Basketball, 12 athletes; Wrestling, 6 athletes; Table Tennis, 4 athletes.
Others are Boxing, 3 athletes; Canoeing, 2 athletes; Weightlifting, 2 athletes; Aquatics, 2 athletes and Cycling, 1 athlete.
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Nigeria’s male senior cricket team, the Yellow Greens, are in Kenya to take on the Simbas in a seven-day bilateral series from 12th till 20th July.
The series will be played in the T20 and ODI formats with five games in the former and two games in the latter.
The Nigeria Cricket Federation on Wednesday released a 15-man squad for the series with captain Sylvester Okpe being joined by the trio Isaac Okpe, Isaac Danladi and Emmanuel Udekwe who are currently engaged in the Zimbabwe National Premier League.
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There is ‘no cause for alarm’ ahead of the 12th July final judgment by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on allegations by the World Anti-Doping Agency that the country is non-compliant with the anti-doping code.
This is according to the Secretary General of the Nigeria Olympic Committee Tunde Popoola.
Popoola allayed the fears, noting that the Nigeria Olympic Committee has been able to put things in order.
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ENGLAND
Bournemouth have signed striker Daniel Jebbison from Sheffield United on a four-year deal.
Jebbison’s contract with the Blades expired at the end of the season and Bournemouth have paid a one point five million pounds training fee for the twenty year-old.
It is likely the England Under-20 international will be loaned out for the start of the season.
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Aston Villa midfielder Philippe Coutinho has joined Brazilian Serie A side Vasco da Gama on a season-long loan.
The Brazil international has been loaned out again after spending last season at Al-Duhail in Qatar.
Coutinho still has two years left on the contract he signed when he joined Villa permanently from Barcelona for seventeen million pounds in 2022, six months after initially signing on loan.
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Aston Villa have made a late move to hijack Hull winger Jaden Philogene’s move to Ipswich.
Unai Emery’s side triggered their matching rights option to equal the Tractor Boys’ eighteen million pounds offer for the England Under-21 international, who came through the Villa academy.
Villa sold the player to the Tigers last September but retained a buy-back option under certain conditions.
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Leicester City new signing Caleb Okoli has assured fans that they should expect the best from him when the Premier League kicks off in August.
He joined the Foxes from Atalanta after impressing in Serie A last season.
Okoli stated that he was ready to attack the next challenge of his career.
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Newcastle United women have signed England women defender Demi Stokes on a free transfer.
Her contract with Manchester City ran out at the end of the season following nine years with the club.
The length of her deal with Newcastle has not been announced.
Stokes, who has won sixty-nine England caps, was part of the squad that won the 2022 European Championships.
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OTHER LEAGUE
Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi has inspired Argentina to the Copa America final with a two-nil win over Canada.
He scored six minutes into the second half to double Argentina’s lead when he deflected an effort from Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez past Canada goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau.
Manchester City striker Julian Alvarez had given the World Cup holders the lead when he latched on to a pass from Atletico Madrid’s Rodrigo de Paul and converted from close range.
Its the sixth time in the last eight editions that Argentina, the 15-time Copa America winners, have reached the final.
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Liverpool footballer Darwin Núñez was involved in an altercation with spectators after his national team Uruguay were beaten on Wednesday evening.
The striker was seen physically confronting Colombia fans in the stands after the final whistle in the Copa America semi-final.
According to Uruguayan outlet El Pais, disorder broke out close to where friends and family members of players were located.
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Newly appointed Wales manager Craig Bellamy says he had not realised the emotional attachment he had to his country until taking the job.
Bellamy was announced as the successor to Rob Page on Tuesday, leaving his role at Burnley to manage his national team.
The former forward won seventy-eight Wales caps during his career, scoring nineteen goals, which ranks as seventh best for the international men’s team.
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Bayern Munich star Thomas Müller is set to retire from international football.
Muller was part of the squad for the European Championships in his country Germany, however featured little.
He has had a stellar career with Germany, playing in the last four Euros and World Cups for his nation, notably winning the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
He has played one hundred and thirty-one times for Germany scoring forty-five goals.
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Napoli have announced the signing of Italy defender Leonardo Spinazzola from Serie A rivals Roma.
Spinazzola, who has twenty-four international caps, was part of his country’s squad which won Euro 2020.
Spinazzola will work under former Chelsea and Tottenham manager Antonio Conte at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.
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Ivory Coast manager, Emerse Fae, believes it would be easier for organisers and players if the Africa Cup of Nations tournament was played every four years, instead of every two years.
Fae who helped carry out the recent qualifying draw for the 2025 Afcon in Morocco, said it would be good to be as in Europe and South America and play every four years.
The Nations Cup has long had issues around its scheduling, and the repeated battles between clubs and countries over its timing and player release could ease with fewer tournaments.
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OTHER SPORTS
In Basketball; Kawhi Leonard will not be part of the U.S. men’s basketball team that will compete in the Paris Games after all.
It would have been the first Olympic trip for Leonard, who missed 12 of the LA Clippers’ final 14 games this past season with right knee inflammation.
USA Basketball said it, along with the Clippers, made the decision on Leonard’s status.
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In Tennis, Italian Lorenzo Musetti has produced a superb performance to defeat American Taylor Fritz in a thrilling five-set quarter-final to set up a Wimbledon semi-final with seven-time champion Novak Djokovic.
The Serb had earlier moved into the final four without having to play his quarter-final after scheduled opponent Alex de Minaur, the Australian ninth seed, had to withdraw because of a hip injury.
Musetti fought back from a set and a break of serve down to win 3-6, 7-6, 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 and will face Djokovic on Friday on Centre Court.
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Still on Tennis, Former champion Elena Rybakina has cruised into the Wimbledon semi-finals with a clinical win over Elina Svitolina on Centre Court.
Kazakhstan’s Rybakina was a level above Svitolina in a 6-3, 6-2 victory that took just sixty-two minutes, and will play in the last four for the first time since she won the competition in 2022.
The 25-year-old will face Czech Barbora Krejcikova, who battled past Jelena Ostapenko on Court One to reach the last four at Wimbledon for the first time.
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In Rugby, Former Wales scrum-half Rhys Webb has been banned for four years by the French Anti-Doping Agency.
Webb was suspended soon after joining second tier French side Biarritz last summer after returning a positive test for human growth hormone during a training session.
Both A and B samples came back positive.
Webb will now be ineligible to play until 2027, meaning he will be thirty-eight by the time the ban runs its course.
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In Athletics, Kenyan marathon runner Lawrence Cherono has been given a seven-year ban for breaching anti-doping rules.
The 35-year-old was given four years for testing positive for a banned substance, plus four more for tampering or attempting to mislead the investigation, although that was reduced by one year for early admission and acceptance of the sanction.
Cherono was provisionally suspended in July 2022 after testing positive for heart medication trimetazidine.
The ban is backdated to his initial suspension, meaning Cherono will not be able to compete until 2029.
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In Golf, Rory McIlroy says he will learn a lot from his late collapse at the US Open but insists it was not the toughest defeat of his career.
Four-time major winner McIlroy led last month’s championship by two shots with five holes to play but bogeys on three of his last four holes allowed Bryson DeChambeau to snatch a dramatic victory.
He immediately left Pinehurst without speaking to the media – which he says he does not regret – and has not played since.
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In Cycling, Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard won stage eleven of the Tour de France following a sprint to the line with rival and overall leader Tadej Pogacar.
Defending champion Vingegaard, of Visma-Lease a Bike, edged out Pogacar of UAE-Team-Emirates as the pair raced for the line after several climbs on the two hundred and eleven kilometres stage to Le Lioran in France’s Massif Central region.
Pogacar remains in the yellow jersey and is now one minute six seconds ahead of Remco Evenepoel, who was third on the stage, with Vingegaard a further eight seconds behind.
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TODAY’S THOUGHT
It is not the will to win that matters everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters…words from Paul Bear Bryant.
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