The Malaysian Insider :: Sports
The Malaysian Insider :: Sports |
| Leverkusen out to put brakes on PSG’s Ibrahimovic Posted: 17 Feb 2014 02:44 PM PST Having hit the net eight times in five Champions League matches this season, Ibrahimovic's goalscoring prowess is second only to Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo, who has nine in this campaign so far. "Even if you play perfectly against him, he is always able to score a goal," said Leverkusen coach Sami Hyypia, the former Liverpool centre-back who knows a thing or two about keeping strikers quiet. "But we have to fight to make sure he gets as little ball as possible." Bosnia defender Emir Spahic has the unenviable task of marking Ibrahimovic, but captain Simon Rolfes said the Bundesliga side must make life as uncomfortable as possible for the Swedish star. "You can't completely switch him off, but we have to at least permanently annoy him," said Rolfes. "We have to go to our limits and then we'll have to see if that is enough to cause Paris some problems." PSG coach Laurent Blanc said Ibrahimovic is more than capable of coping with the extra attention. "He has experience to spare, he will always score and he will score goals until the end of his career," said Blanc. "For him to be decisive at this stage in the competition is more difficult, because the defences are better organised. "But he remains our greatest asset to score and he's the player on which Bayer will focus, this type of match motivates him more than a championship." The Parisians come to Leverkusen's BayArena as clear favourites. They finished as comfortable winners of Group C, scoring 16 goals in the process, while Sami Hyypia's Leverkusen reached the last 16 despite a 5-0 hammering at home to Manchester United as Group A runners-up. Leverkusen need no reminding of their last foray into the knockout rounds two years ago when they lost 3-1 at home to Barcelona, only to be humiliated 7-1 in Spain when Lionel Messi hit a record five goals. "Paris are the favourites, but we are confident challengers and will run out with heads held high," insisted Rolfes, as Leverkusen look to reach the last eight of the Champions League for the first time in 12 years. "What we saw against Manchester will not happen again." Recent results suggest Bayer are far from the assured outfit Rolfes insists they are ahead of the visit of the French league leaders after back-to-back home losses. Leverkusen crashed to a 2-1 league reverse to Schalke last Saturday, which followed their shock 1-0 extra-time defeat to second-division Kaiserslautern last Wednesday in the German Cup quarter-finals. Blanc said possession will be key for PSG with unseasonably mild day-time temperatures of 13 degrees Celsius forecast in Leverkusen today. "We have to make sure we have the better share of the possession, we know Bayer are athletic and they like to stand deep and are then deadly on the counter-attack," said Blanc. "We have to be efficient, but possession is everything and when we don't have it, we'll have to work hard to get it back as quickly as possible." – AFP, February 18, 2014. |
| FIFA expects Brazilian police to bring violent World Cup protests under control Posted: 17 Feb 2014 02:40 PM PST FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke, who is touring some World Cup host cities this week, said Brazilians are democratically entitled to stage peaceful protests during the global sporting event. "But unpeaceful demonstrations by people who are just trying to create problems and fight against the authorities, there is only way to bring them down, and that is to use the police to make sure these people are under control," Valcke said at a news conference in Brasilia, the capital. Brazilian authorities are bracing for a new wave of protests during the World Cup and plan to deploy tens of thousands of police and have military troops on standby to secure the 12 stadiums across Brazil where the games will be played between June 12 and July 13. In an unexpected outburst of discontent, more than a million people took to the streets during a warm-up for the World Cup last year to protest against poor public services, corruption and the high cost of the stadiums built for the FIFA event. The protests have continued this year, though they have become smaller and more violent with anarchist groups vandalising storefronts and banks and clashing with police. The violent nature of the protests was brought home to Brazilians last week with the death of a TV cameraman who was struck by a homemade bottle rocket days earlier during a protest against a hike in bus fares in Rio de Janeiro. The potential for violence marring the World Cup was highlighted by a member of one of the anarchist groups known as "Black Blocs" who threatened to attack foreign delegations in an interview published by the Estado de S.Paulo newspaper on Sunday. Any disruption of the football tournament, which was meant to mark Brazil's coming of age on the global stage, would embarrass President Dilma Rousseff's government and undermine her popularity as she prepares to seek re-election in October. The ruling Workers' Party, many of whose leaders suffered repression under military dictatorship in the 1970s, has opposed attempts in Congress to pass a bill that would equate violent protests with terrorism. Instead, Rousseff's government is proposing legislation to crack down on vandalism by introducing harsher prison sentences and banning demonstrators from wearing masks that hide their identities. Brazilian authorities expect protests during the World Cup to be smaller and more violent than those seen last June. – Reuters, February 18, 2014. |
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