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News18
18 hours ago
- Sport
- News18
Inter Milan, Borussia Dortmund Reach FIFA Club World Cup Last 16
Last Updated: Inter Milan beat River Plate 2-0 to reach the Club World Cup last 16. Monterrey also advanced, defeating Urawa 4-0. Dortmund topped Group F and will face Monterrey next. Inter Milan maintained their composure to overcome a nine-man River Plate with a 2-0 victory, securing their place in the Club World Cup last 16 on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Mexican side Monterrey also advanced from Group E. Borussia Dortmund edged out Ulsan HD 1-0 to top Group F and will face Sergio Ramos' Monterrey, who dominated Urawa Red Diamonds with a 4-0 win. Argentine giants River Plate were eliminated following their defeat by Inter, who will next face another South American team, Fluminense, on Monday in Charlotte. Fluminense managed only a 0-0 draw against South Africa's Mamelodi Sundowns, but it was sufficient to secure second place behind Dortmund. In Seattle, Champions League runners-up Inter faced a tough challenge against an aggressive River Plate side that had Lucas Martinez and Gonzalo Montiel sent off in front of 45,000 fans at Lumen Field. Francesco Esposito scored his first goal for Inter to give the Italians the lead, and Alessandro Bastoni sealed the win late in the game for Christian Chivu's side. 'In the first half we were surprised by their intensity, aggression and pressure," said Chivu. 'Then in the second half we raised our level of intensity… we're strong, confident and have players who can play such a game." With Monterrey leading against Urawa, River needed a win to progress, but their task became more difficult when Martinez was sent off after 66 minutes for a foul on veteran Henrikh Mkhitaryan. There were chaotic scenes at the end as River fans threw objects at Inter players as they left the pitch. Both Argentine teams at the tournament, River and their rivals Boca Juniors, have been eliminated despite their fans creating vibrant atmospheres. 'It's a shame for all the people who came en masse to watch the team that we couldn't give them the chance to keep going," said a disappointed River coach Marcelo Gallardo. Three goals in a nine-minute first-half spell helped Monterrey defeat Urawa at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, in front of a crowd of only 14,000. Nelson Deossa smashed home a spectacular long-range effort to open the scoring, and German Berterame tapped in the second at the far post. Former Porto winger Jesus Corona blasted home the third with another impressive effort from over 30 yards out, and Berterame struck again late on, as the Japanese side exited with three defeats. 'This is what we were looking for, we gave everything — from the first match until this one, they've all been tough," said Berterame. Monterrey will face Dortmund in Atlanta on Tuesday. A solitary first-half goal by Daniel Svensson earned Dortmund top spot in Group F in the intense Cincinnati heat. Dortmund's second consecutive one-goal victory, following their 4-3 win over Mamelodi Sundowns on Saturday, was witnessed by just over 8,000 spectators in Cincinnati, including US Vice President JD Vance and FIFA chief Gianni Infantino. 'We can be satisfied. I think our performance was better than in the first two matches," said Dortmund coach Niko Kovac. He has frequently mentioned the challenges posed by the scorching June heat in the United States. 'What the boys are doing is incredible. Thirty-six degrees Celsius (96.8 degrees Fahrenheit) and 43 degrees in the stadium," Kovac said. Ulsan return home with three defeats from three games, while Fluminense advance after their draw against Sundowns, meaning all four Brazilian teams in the competition have progressed to the knockout stage. Sundowns' exit means none of the four African clubs at the tournament will feature in the last 16, but their performances allow them to leave with pride. 'We leave and go home with our heads up because we are much stronger than we were when we came here," said the South African champions' coach, Miguel Cardoso. On Thursday, Manchester City will face Juventus in a battle for top spot in Group G, while Spanish giants Real Madrid take on RB Salzburg as they aim to progress from Group H. With AFP Inputs tags : club world cup dortmund FIFA Club World Cup FIFA Club World Cup 2025 inter milan Location : Seattle, Washington State, USA First Published: June 26, 2025, 10:37 IST News sports » football Inter Milan, Borussia Dortmund Reach FIFA Club World Cup Last 16
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The Independent
13-03-2025
- Sport
- The Independent
Atletico and Julian Alvarez were knocked out of the Champions League by the worst rule in football
Somehow, Atletico Madrid experience a different way to lose to Real Madrid in the Champions League. The same old story, given this shootout made it six eliminations from six meetings, but with a new twist. And what a twist. The key decision felt a contortion of how the game's rules should actually work, as Julio Alvarez's penalty was disallowed for a perceived double touch. Atleti consequently shouldn't feel any of the desperate fatalism they did with Sergio Ramos' header in the 2014 final or the penalty shootout of 2016. There should only be searing injustice. To go out because of a virtually imperceptible touch, that gives no advantage to the kicker, is an utter absurdity. It is a vintage case of the rules being divorced from the reality of how the game is played. Put bluntly, what player is going to try and touch a penalty twice? It makes it much harder to score. Anyone could tell you that. There's no advantage, and arguably only disadvantage. That's before you even get to fair questions about how quickly they came to the decision. Despite social media noise about sensors and other tech, Uefa have confirmed it was just VAR used. They ruled on Julio Alvarez's penalty in what looked like less than a minute, even though it was virtually impossible to perceive contact from multiple watches of many camera angles. It was certainly not 'clear and obvious', although the threshold for intervention is whether it was a factual error. It's still hard to say it was. The replays we have seen so far are too jittery between shots to conclude there was another touch, and the ball doesn't appear to change trajectory. You really are getting down to scrutinising slow-motion images repeatedly. Thibaut Courtois later said he 'felt' that Alvarez had touched the ball twice. Diego Simeone, ruefully laughing with disbelief, asked journalists in the press conference to raise their hands if they felt the same. Many were still trying to judge. The infinitesimal margins seem all the worse given the massive cost of missing a penalty in a shootout. It dramatically increases the chances of going out. The punishment just does not fit the nature of the offence, if you can even call it an offence. This is just the wrong way for a game to be settled. The penalty should be retaken, at worst, if even that. A response already being made to such arguments is that you can't have different rules for penalties in normal play as you have for shootouts. But that's fine because the rule doesn't really make sense in normal play, either. Again, who is going to try and double-tap it? There's no advantage. It's a farcical reason to outright disallow a goal. An extreme theoretical view on this is that a player could feasibly chip the ball up and volley it past the goalkeeper, or similar. It just wouldn't happen but, if it did, the intent is obvious. That is something that could be brought into the rule. There would usually be a fair counter-argument here about how getting into judgments on 'intent' is a slippery slope, but that is for live play, and moments such as fast slide tackles. It is a lot easier to judge for a clean set-piece like a penalty. This case is obviously always going to be binary. We're either going to see moments like Alvarez's, or absurdly theoretical attempts like chipping it up, that just wouldn't happen. It's impossible to even perceive other ways in which this might work. That alone shows how badly this rule works. It should now be reviewed and probably will be, given the likely backlash. That will be too late for Atletico, though. That should double the frustration, to say the least.
