Translated material
Romario disqualified
Chronicle of sporting events
Famous Brazilian forward Romario has been suspended for 120 days by the Brazilian Football Confederation for doping. Romario, who fulfilled his long-time dream of scoring the 1000th goal in his career, recently played the role of player-coach at the Vasco da Gama club and rarely allowed himself on the field. However, the forward-coach took part in the match against Palmeiras, and after that the drug finasteride was found in his doping tests. Romario explained its presence in his body by saying that he was taking a medicine against baldness, which contains finasteride. Judging by the leniency of the punishment (recently, athletes have been disqualified for at least a year for a failed doping test), the control and disciplinary committee believed Romario.Hiddink's team changes plans
The Russian national football team has changed its preparation plan for the final part of the European Championship. Guus Hiddink's team will play a friendly match not with the Turkish national team in Istanbul, as previously planned, but with the Romanian team in Bucharest. The date of the control meeting has not changed - it will take place on March 26. But with another test match, which was scheduled for February, there is no certainty yet. In this game, the Russian team was supposed to meet with the Cypriots, but so far no official agreement has been reached. The Russians generally had problems with control matches. Preliminary agreements were made with the Spanish Football Federation and the German Football Association. However, the Spanish national team was in the same group with the Russians in the final part of the European Championship, and our players will meet with the German team as part of the World Cup qualifying round.
It is not yet known whether the Russian team will play against Germany under the leadership of Hiddink. Negotiations to extend his contract are difficult. The other day, the agents of the Dutch coach met with the leadership of the RFU and discussed certain points of the agreement, and after these contacts, Hiddink’s representatives had suspicions that a new contract would not be signed before the new year.
Meanwhile, RFU President Vitaly Mutko, meeting recently with the heads of Premier League clubs, tried to agree that they would not interfere with calling players to the national team training camp. The first of them is planned to be held from February 2 to 6, and the second at the end of May, and it will be the final stage of the Russian team’s preparation for the European Championship, which starts on June 7. It is on this issue that the opinions of the RFU and club leaders differ. The Premier League teams insist on holding the 11th round before Euro 2008, which is scheduled for May 17. In turn, the coaching staff of the national team would like to gather the players on May 14, train for a week in Moscow, and fly to Germany on May 23 to complete their preparations there.
Jackson knows how to beat the bulls
Basketball. NBA. Regular season. “New Jersey” – “Sacramento” – 101:106, “Chicago” – “Lakers” – 91:103, “Clippers” – “Toronto” – 77:80.
Once again, Chicago failed to defeat the Lakers. Phil Jackson, who was in charge of the Bulls in his time, seems to know how to beat his former team well, and the Lake Districts followed up a big win at home with a win away. Moreover, the outcome of the match was decided long before the final siren, and the teams finished the match with second lineups. But in the match of another team from Los Angeles, everything was decided only at the last moment. Jose Calderon brought Toronto's victory over the Clippers in the final seconds.
Spartak holds the leaders
Moscow Spartak, whose final match with Toulouse in the group stage of the UEFA Cup ended last night, signed a number of contracts before the match in France. First of all, the agreement was extended for another four years by the best scorer of the team and the last championship, Roman Pavlyuchenko, to whom the management provided additional rest and sent him on vacation a few days earlier.
In addition, Spartak signed a contract with the goalkeeper of the Russian youth team Soslan Dzhanaev, who played for the first division club KamAZ. Dzhanaev, considered one of the most promising Russian goalkeepers, will compete for a place in the starting lineup with Croatian Stipe Pletikosa, whose contract terms have also been revised upward. Dmitry Khomich will most likely remain the team's third goalkeeper, and Wojciech Kowalewski will move to another club.
Edmonton stumbled in the shootout
Hockey. NHL. Regular season. “Atlanta” - “Tampa” - 6:2 - Kovalchuk “A” (1+1), Vyach. Kozlov "A" (1+0), "Boston" -- "Ottawa" -- 2:3, "Carolina" -- "Toronto" -- 3:2 (OT), "Columbus" -- "Calgary" - - 1:3, "Rangers" - "Pittsburgh" - 4:0, "Philadelphia" - "Phoenix" - 2:3, "Montreal" - "Florida" - 2:3 - Markov " M" (2+0), "Edmonton" -- "Dallas" -- 1:2 (B), "Vancouver" -- "New Jersey" -- 5:0, "San Jose" -- "Anaheim" " -- 0:2.
Edmonton does not want to decide the outcome of their matches during playing time. For the fourth match in a row, the Oilers have brought things to shootouts. But if in the three previous series luck was on the side of Edmonton, then this number did not work against Dallas. It’s not for nothing that the “Stars” hold the league record for most shootout wins in a season. In the championship before last, they prevailed in 12 series, and remembering the past, Dallas punished Edmonton. Moreover, the winning throw was scored by Sergei Zubov.
The Russians were in the lead roles in other matches as well. But Andrei Markov’s scoring exploits did not save his Montreal from defeat, and Markov scored his second goal in this meeting only 20 seconds before the final siren. But Ilya Kovalchuk continues to hold the lead in the sniper dispute - the puck against Tampa was already the 27th for the Russian forward in this regular season.