WORLD OF SPORT
▷▷▷ Best recce trip of the day
England coach Eddie Jones says he wants his players “close to normal life” during the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan after taking his backroom staff on a reconnaissance mission to the country. The Six Nations champions will likely be one of the favourites as they go in search of a second World Cup title to follow their 2003 triumph. Now Jones, the former Japan coach, plans to take members of his England staff to Tokyo, Yokohama, Miyazaki and Kobe while looking at venues for potential training bases and hotels. But Jones said success in Japan would also depend on adjusting to the local climate and culture. “People don’t have the impression of Japan being a hot country,” Jones said. “It’s not seen as a hot and humid country for foreigners. The English in particular describe Japan as the ‘Far East’ which is a lovely quaint old term. In Japan it’s important to establish relationships in person.”
▷▷▷ Best paint job of the day
A superstitious top-tier Chinese team repainted their whole stadium gold to bring better luck following a dismal run, and this week duly celebrated a fifth home win on the bounce. Guangzhou R&F last month took the drastic action believing that gold made for better feng shui than blue, the colour of the Chinese Super League club’s strip, badge and originally its home ground too. It followed a poor sequence of just one home win in four months. But since painstakingly repainting their 20,000-capacity Yuexiushan Stadium in mid-July, the team in southern China have seen their fortunes dramatically reverse. On Wednesday they beat Fabio Capello’s big-spending Jiangsu Suning 4-2 at home to climb to third in the CSL and make it four home wins on the trot in the CSL, scoring 18 goals in the process.
▷▷▷ Best show of decisiveness of the day
Borussia Dortmund yesterday said they had rejected an offer from Barcelona for Ousmane Dembele, as the want-away forward was suspended for missing training. Dortmund said a move by Dembele to the Camp Nou, where he is being lined up as a replacement for Neymar, was unlikely, after they turned down an offer that did not reflect the young winger’s “extraordinary” value or the state of the transfer market. “As there is no other offer on the table, a transfer by the player to FC Barcelona is not at this time expected, nor currently very likely,” a club statement said. Dembele, who at the age of just 20 is considered one of the top talents in Europe, has been hotly pursued to fill the void left by Neymar’s move to Paris Saint-Germain for a world record €222 million (Dh960m) last week.