Latest news with #Oviedo
BBC News
04-08-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Cazorla ready for fairytale finish after son's words of inspiration
As Santi Cazorla prepares for the final season of his career in the colours of boyhood club Real Oviedo, the words of his son Enzo still resonate with the 40-year-old. While the former Arsenal midfielder spent two years on the sidelines with ankle issues which almost claimed his leg, all Enzo wanted was to see his dad play again. During his 636 days out, 11 operations and gangrene which ate into his Achilles, Cazorla was ready to quit - only for Enzo, now 15, wife Ursula and daughter India, 12, to keep him going. "In some moments I called my family and said 'I will stop. After a year, I want to be with you,'" he tells BBC Sport. "'I'm alone here, I don't have family, nothing, things are not going well'."My son would say 'no daddy, please try again - tomorrow will be better and you will start to feel better. I want to see you again, I love to see you playing for Arsenal and other clubs so please come back and play football again.'"Finally, I did it. But in that moment it was difficult to say 'yes, I will be back'. These words, they are my support and my power for every day."They have allowed him to end a career on his terms. One which has gone full circle, having helped Oviedo - the team he left in 2003 without playing a first-team game - return to La Liga for the first time in 24 years after winning the Segunda Division play-offs last will be a fairytale finish for the lifelong Carbayones fan, having signed his final deal, a one-year contract, three weeks ago. "This will be my last season, I have to listen to my body and it's already asking me," added Cazorla."When I was a kid I always dreamed to play in the club and I'm here now - lucky and able to play with my club in the top division."I love to play football, but as with everything you have to know when it is the end. I have a lot of problems, pains every day." 'If you have a dream, you have to fight every day' To speak to Cazorla is an uplifting experience. He beams, clearly loving the extra years he has fought hard to get here has been a journey. After an innocuous kick while playing for Spain against Chile in 2013, he endured ankle issues but played on for three years. By then the pain was too much and treatment was needed, but Cazorla did not expect the multiple operations, one leading to infection which destroyed almost 11 centimetres of his Achilles and nearly cost him his leg. His bone had gone soft. One operation was a reconstruction of his Achilles, surgeons grafting skin from his left arm - featuring a tattoo of his daughter's name - to his right explained he should be content with walking again, let alone playing. Yet, when asked what the conversation was like, Cazorla - who describes his ankle as a "jigsaw puzzle" - recalls his defiance. "I never believed this kind of thing," he says. "The injury was really hard. I was never honest with the injury, I was thinking I had a small one." Cazorla kept putting surgery off, until he could do no longer."It was the most difficult moment in my career, not only in football but my life," he adds. "I was without my family, my wife and kids but you have to fight - if you have a dream, you have to fight every day. "My wife, kids, my mum, brother... I had to fight for them. It was a very difficult time for me as a person."One day you are at the Emirates to play and a week later you are alone in hospital. It's difficult to control these kind of emotions."Arsenal, though, did not share Cazorla's confidence of making a comeback. They had renewed his contract once but he was unable to convince the Gunners to give him a new deal in 2018, eventually returning to Villarreal for three years where he added another 86 appearances to his previous 233. "I remember when I started to feel better after a year and a half, I came back and asked, 'please give me the chance to do pre-season and after I would like to sign one year more,'" he says, having made 180 appearances, scoring 29 goals, in six years at Arsenal. "They told me they felt I wouldn't come back to the top level. It's normal when you are out for two years."I was very honest with them - give me the chance because I'm ready again. They said no and I have to understand that position."He still speaks about the Gunners with affection, though, and remains close with Mikel Arteta, his captain at Emirates Stadium. He is also open to a return once he retires. What comes next will be "something in football" but Cazorla will assess his options. "If Arsenal call me my door is open to listen to them because I love this club. It was the best decision of my career to go to Arsenal," he adds. Cazorla's experience has naturally changed his perspective, especially as he enters his final season, determined to savour it."I always try to enjoy the small things now," he adds. "When you are old you try to enjoy everything, when you are young you are not ready. "It's my last year, so for pre-season, normally you suffer a lot but now I try to enjoy it. The travel from the hotel to the stadium, to follow the fans walking around the city, before I never thought about this."Cazorla and Oviedo's La Liga comeback next month is, coincidentally, at Villarreal. The first home game? Real Madrid. While he does not take the credit, Cazorla's return was the catalyst. He helped Oviedo reach the Segunda Division play-offs in 2023-24, where they lost to Espanyol, before inspiring an historic promotion, in their centenary free-kick against Almeria sent them to the play-off final against Mirandes. Cazorla missed the first leg but returned to score a crucial penalty and spark Oviedo's recovery from 2-0 down on aggregate to win 3-2. Oviedo tumbled to the fourth tier after relegation from La Liga in 2001. They were in Segunda Division B in 2014-15, the same season Cazorla was lifting his second FA Cup with Arsenal. He was born in Fonciello, a small village 10 minutes outside Oviedo and grew up a fan of Los Azules. He joined the club aged eight, watched as they were relegated and then, yet to play in the first team, left for Villarreal at 18 with the club under financial Spain international bought shares in 2012 during one of the club's many hours of need and two years ago returned still wanting to help. Cazorla was willing to play for free but, with league rules prohibiting it, collected the minimum wage allowed, £80,000 a year, with 10% of his shirt sales also going to the academy. "The important thing now is when you are on the street you can see a lot of kids with Real Oviedo t-shirts," says Cazorla. "The future is the young people in the street. They support Oviedo - not Barcelona or Real, Arsenal or Liverpool. A few years ago it was impossible to see the kids with Oviedo shirts."When he penned his new contract, the club called him an emblem and a took the microphone to sing - surprisingly well - the club's unofficial anthem by Melendi, an Oviedo-born musician, at the promotion party in front of thousands of despite being centre stage, Cazorla, a two time European Championship winner with Spain, is happy to snub the spotlight as he ponders his legacy. "I don't want to feel like this, I'm one more player. I'm 40-years-old, I only try to help the young players and club to get into the top division. I don't feel like a symbol," says the humble playmaker. "I know I'm an example for my team-mates and they look at me like I'm a superstar, I don't want them to look at me like this. "They are young, some have only played in the second division and when I came in, my first day, they look at me like I've played at Arsenal and in the national team. They respect me a lot, but I don't want this position."You always feel proud of what you did in your career, but I prefer [to be remembered] as a person than a player. I try to help everybody, it's what I did all my career and it's how I am human."
Yahoo
31-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Friendly matches: Genoa beat Villarreal, Lecce defeat to UAE
Genoa beat Villarreal 3-1 and lost to Real Oviedo on penalties in their friendly tournament, while Francesco Camarda was not enough for Lecce against the UAE national team. The pre-season friendlies continue and Genoa were in action for two mini-matches today as part of a three-way tournament in Oviedo. Genoa victory and Lecce setback Genoa sign Brooke Norton-Cuffy from Arsenal They brushed Villarreal aside 3-1 in the first game, including a truly odd goal from Brooke Norton-Cuffy, who charged down a clearance that ricocheted into the net with the goalkeeper off his line. Willy Kambwala scored the equaliser for Villarreal, but Vitinha and new signing Albert Gronbaek rounded out the scoreline. Il Grifone trionfa contro il Villarreal 😏 Ecco tutti i 3 gol ⚽#DAZN #Genoa — DAZN Italia (@DAZN_IT) July 31, 2025 The Grifone played the second mini-game as a 0-0 draw with hosts Real Oviedo, losing on penalties. Lecce suffered a 3-1 defeat to the United Arab Emirates national team in their pre-season training camp. Official: Francesco Camarda joins Lecce on loan with an option to buy, and with a buy-back clause in favour of AC Milan. Teenage centre-forward Camarda continues to impress during his loan from Milan, converting a penalty, but Kialonda Gaspar's foul allowed Alghassani to score from the spot. Lucas Caio turned in for 2-0 and in the second half Bruno De Oliveira completed the 3-1 result.
The Sun
25-07-2025
- The Sun
Parents of twins & bro, 8 & 10, held captive in nappies in Spanish ‘House of Horrors' since Covid face 25 years in jail
THE parents of three children who were allegedly trapped in a hellish "House of Horrors" since the Covid pandemic face 25 years in prison. The three boys were found by cops after parents Christian Steffen, 53, and his wife Melissa Ann Steffen, 48, were arrested on suspicion of child abuse. 7 7 The young German boys, two eight-year-old twins and one 10-year-old, were said to have been found in horrific conditions at the property in Spain. Each of them had allegedly been forced to wear three face masks and wear nappies - and made to sleep in caged beds, a source close to the investigation revealed. Pictures from inside the house in Oviedo showed the boys' bed frames covered in horrifying drawings while they were trapped inside blacked out rooms devoid of any sunlight. But despite the piles of rubbish and excrement inside the house it is thought that the two parents were terrified of germs getting into their home. Referring to the parents, the public prosecutor's office said it "seeks convictions for each of them totalling 25 years and 4 months in prison, among other penalties and measures". They are accused of habitual psychological violence and unlawful detention after allegedly keeping their children locked up from December 2021 to April 2025. The prosecutor confirmed speculation that the children were "locked up due to an unfounded fear of contracting some disease" at the home in the small Asturian town of Fitoria. Authorities also demanded that the parents be barred from ever contacting their children ever again, as well as pay a £13,000 fine. The parents have also reportedly recently filed an appeal against their pre-trial detention - but it was rejected, La Voz de Asturias reported. It was previously revealed that the youngsters were only saved thanks to a university professor's secret diary. Connecticut woman who allegedly held stepson captive for over 20 years pleads not guilty The female neighbour, called Silvia, handed cops a 'forensic detective' diary made up of a series of data which showed kids were being held at the Steffen's home. German -born Christian was registered as the only resident in the affluent home after he started to rent the property in October 2021. Silvia, who lives just 65ft away from the home, first jotted down claims that she witnessed a little girl playing in the garden. This later evolved into a slew of evidence as Silvia continued to note what she saw going on in the home. They included details of the days and times the curtains on the second floor moved and even when the blinds were opened or lowered. Notes even kept tabs on every occasion the man believed to be Christian left the house to meet delivery drivers or collected food deliveries. She said she never saw a child leave the home or playing around in the time since making the diary. Her suspicions continued to grow after she saw the amount and size of supermarket deliveries which the homeowner was receiving. 7 7 Despite only one person appearing to live in the house, Silvia noted that there was enough food and drink to feed a whole family each time. At one point, Silvia even claims she started to hear children's voices coming from across the street. After collecting the detailed dossier, the professor handed her notes over to the cops on April 14. They started to investigate the serious accusations and soon discovered nappies were being purchased. This sparked a major search inside the property so police could see what was going on inside shortly before Spain's historic blackout. Police would go on to thank Silvia for noticing the peculiar shopping list as they labelled the spot as the key clue which helped them arrest the parents. A city hall source told respected Spanish daily El Mundo: 'The neighbour had collected evidence that during school hours no-one left the house and expressed with certainty there had to be children living there, and even claimed to have seen them. 'The shopping list was the clue that set it all off. 'It was the list of a family, not a single person, and there was something that didn't fit at all which was the striking amount of nappies.' The source added: 'Without that neighbour, the children would almost certainly have gone undetected in that house for many more years." It was also revealed that many of the neighbours didn't even realise that the house was being lived in at all due to how secretive the dad had been. 7 7 Since the arrests, cops have spoken out about the horrors inside the home as well as the treatment of the young children. Police who raided the property told local press the youngsters were made to wear nappies and told when and how many times they could use the toilet. The three boys were reportedly told they could only lower the blinds in their bedrooms at 5.10pm each day after being allowed to raise them exactly halfway up the windows during daylight hours. Prosecutors say filthy diapers were even piled up in one of the bedrooms. A shocking paediatric report on the kids later identified they were suffering from 'severe constipation', El Español reports. This is reportedly due to them only being allowed to go to the toilet at specific times. An unnamed investigator Spanish media quoted said: 'The children's parents claimed the youngsters didn't know how to control their bowel movements but the paediatric report has shown that to be false.' Police say once the children were freed one of them knelt down on the grass and 'touched it with amazement'. Oviedo Police Chief Inspector Francisco Javier Lozano said: 'We have given three children back their lives.' German freelance tech recruiter Christian and his US-born wife are both now facing 25 years and four months behind bars if found guilty. They are currently being investigated on suspicion of domestic violence, psychological mistreatment and child abandonment.
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Ex-Liverpool midfielder close to joining Santi Cazorla's Real Oviedo
Real Oviedo have been busy in the transfer market since earning promotion through the playoffs, as they look to make their return to La Liga a successful one. Following a 24-year absence from Spain's top division, Los Carbayones will have one of the most intense atmospheres in La Liga next season at the Nuevo Carlos Tartiere. The big deal that all Oviedo fans were keen to see done was a contract renewal for Santi Cazorla, with the 40-year-old confirming he would live the dream of taking his boyhood club back to La Liga. He has already been joined by new signings Luka Ilic, Ilyas Chaira, whose loan was made permanent, Alberto Reina, Brandon Domingues, Horatiu Moldovan and Salomon Rondon, who returns to Spain to play with Cazorla 13 years after coinciding at Malaga. Real Oviedo take former Liverpool midfielder on trial basis On Monday Oviedo announced that they would be taking ex-Liverpool midfielder Ovie Ejaria on a trial basis. A former England youth international, Ejaria has been through a tough spell with knee problems meaning he has not played since 2022. The 27-year-old midfielder, who can play on the left or in the middle, officially terminated his contract with Reading in January of 2024. How did Ovie Ejaria get here? Coming through the academy at Liverpool, he was one of the most promising talents at Anfield for some time, spending time on loan at Sunderland and Rangers. After two loan spells at Reading, in 2020, the Royals spent €3.9m on Ejaria. Image via Cordon Press That spell of his career was perhaps his best, and probably explains his trial period at Oviedo. Current Oviedo coach Veljko Paunovic is familiar with him having spent 18 months together at the Madejski Stadium, a spell during which Ejaria played 53 games under the Serbian, scoring five goals and giving five assists.
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
RSNA: AI Tool Accurately Detects Tumor Location on Breast MRI
An AI model trained to detect abnormalities on breast MR images accurately depicted tumor locations and outperformed benchmark models when tested in three different groups, according to a study published today in Radiology, a journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). OAK BROOK, Ill., July 15, 2025 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- An AI model trained to detect abnormalities on breast MR images accurately depicted tumor locations and outperformed benchmark models when tested in three different groups, according to a study published today in Radiology, a journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). "AI-assisted MRI could potentially detect cancers that humans wouldn't find otherwise," said the study's lead investigator Felipe Oviedo, Ph.D., a senior research analyst at Microsoft's AI for Good Lab. Screening mammography is considered the standard of care in breast cancer screening. However, mammography is less effective in patients with dense breasts. Breast density is an independent risk factor for breast cancer and can mask a tumor. Physicians may order breast MRI to supplement screening mammography for women who have dense breasts and those at high risk for cancer. "MRI is more sensitive than mammography," Dr. Oviedo said. "But it's also more expensive and has a higher false-positive rate." To enhance the accuracy and efficiency of screening breast MRI, Dr. Oviedo's research team closely collaborated with clinical investigators in the Department of Radiology at the University of Washington to develop an explainable AI anomaly detection model. Anomaly detection models distinguish between normal and abnormal data, flagging the anomalies, or abnormalities, for further investigation. "Previously developed models were trained on data of which 50% were cancer cases and 50% were normal cases, which is a very unrealistic distribution," Dr. Oviedo said. "Those models haven't been rigorously evaluated in low-prevalence cancer or screening populations (where 2% of all cases or less are cancer), and they also lack interpretability, both of which are essential for clinical adoption." To address these limitations, the researchers trained their model using data from nearly 10,000 consecutive contrast-enhanced breast MRI exams performed at the University of Washington between 2005 and 2022. Patients were predominately white (greater than 80%), and 42.9% had heterogeneously dense breasts, while 11.6% had extremely dense breasts. "Unlike traditional binary classification models, our anomaly detection model learned a robust representation of benign cases to better identify abnormal malignancies, even if they are underrepresented in the training data," Dr. Oviedo said. "Since malignancies can occur in multiple ways and are scarce in similar datasets, the type of anomaly detection model proposed in the study is a promising solution." In addition to providing an estimated anomaly score, the detection model produces a spatially resolved heatmap for an MR image. This heatmap highlights in color the regions in the image that the model believes to be abnormal. The abnormal regions identified by the model matched areas of biopsy-proven malignancy annotated by a radiologist, largely surpassing the performance of benchmark models. The model was tested on internal and external datasets. The internal dataset consisted of MRI exams performed on 171 women (mean age 48.8) for screening (71.9%; 31 cancers confirmed on subsequent biopsy) or pre-operative evaluation for a known cancer (28.1%; 50 cancers confirmed by biopsy). The external, publicly available, multicenter dataset included pre-treatment breast MRI exams of 221 women with invasive breast cancer. The anomaly detection model accurately depicted tumor location and outperformed benchmark models in grouped cross-validation, internal and external test datasets, and in both balanced (high prevalence of cancer) and imbalanced (low cancer prevalence) detection tasks. If integrated into radiology workflows, Dr. Oviedo said the anomaly detection model could potentially exclude normal scans for triage purposes and improve reading efficiency. "Our model provides an understandable, pixel-level explanation of what's abnormal in a breast," he said. "These anomaly heatmaps could highlight areas of potential concern, allowing radiologists to focus on those exams that are more likely to be cancer." Before clinical application, he said the model needs to be evaluated in larger datasets and prospective studies to assess its potential for enhancing radiologists' workflow. ### "Cancer Detection in Breast MRI Screening via Explainable AI Anomaly Detection." Collaborating with Dr. Oviedo were Anum S. Kazerouni, Ph.D., Philipp Liznerski, Ph.D., Yixi Xu, Ph.D., Michael Hirano, M.S., Robert A. Vandermeulen, Ph.D., Marius Kloft, Ph.D., Elyse Blum, M.D., Ph.D., Adam M. Alessio, Ph.D., Christopher I. Li, M.D., Ph.D., William B. Weeks, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., Rahul Dodhia, Ph.D., Juan M. Lavista Ferres, Ph.D., Habib Rahbar, M.D., and Savannah C. Partridge, Ph.D. Radiology is edited by Linda Moy, M.D., New York University, New York, N.Y., and owned and published by the Radiological Society of North America, Inc. ( RSNA is an association of radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical physicists and related scientists promoting excellence in patient care and health care delivery through education, research and technologic innovation. The Society is based in Oak Brook, Illinois. ( For patient-friendly information on breast MRI, visit Media Contact Linda Brooks, Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), 630-590-7762, lbrooks@ View original content: SOURCE Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
