Sport news in brief
United drawn against Ibrahimovic-inspired Milan
Zlatan Ibrahimovic will return to Old Trafford after Manchester United were drawn against AC Milan in a mouth-watering Europa League last-16 tie. The 39-year-old striker established himself as a fan favourite during his short spell at United, scoring in the Community Shield and EFL Cup triumphs in 2016/17. Ibrahimovic played a key role in that season’s victorious Europa League run, but a serious knee injury in the quarter-finals against Anderlecht ruled him out of the remainder of the campaign. The Swede only made seven more United appearances after that and looked set to wind down his career when he moved to LA Galaxy in March 2018, but has flourished since returning to Milan.
Tottenham will face Croatian champions Dinamo Zagreb and are due to play the second leg at home, but Uefa said that the “fixtures may be switched pending confirmation of Covid-19 travel restrictions” in this tie. Arsenal have been drawn against old foes Olympiacos, who knocked them out of the Europa League at the round-of-32 stage last season. The match will see them return to the Stadio Georgios Karaiskakis in Piraeus, where they played Thursday’s last-32 second leg against Benfica due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.
Meanwhile, runaway Scottish Premiership leaders Rangers’ reward for impressively beating Royal Antwerp
was a clash with Slavia Prague, who shocked Premier League high-flyers Leicester on Thursday.
Government plays down Euro talk
Suggestions that Uefa are considering staging the rescheduled Euro 2020 solely in England this summer have been dismissed as “speculation” by Downing Street. The competition was postponed last year amid the coronavirus pandemic but is due to begin on 11 June. For the first time, the tournament is set to be played across 12 countries – although the continued travel complications linked to coronavirus have seen some reports claim that is now being reconsidered by the organisers. England has the infrastructure and stadia to play host and, following a successful Covid vaccination drive, was touted as being where Uefa could look to stage the finals – but that has now been played down by the Government.
“This is just speculation,” a spokesman for the Prime Minister told reporters. “How the tournament will be hosted is a matter for Uefa. As they stated yesterday, they remain committed to the current format of the tournament. We are focused on the matches we are scheduled to host in the UK, including seven at Wembley and matches also being hosted at Hampden Park in Glasgow.”
England must learn from defeat, says Silverwood
England head coach Chris Silverwood is hoping hard times will help him make hard cricketers and wants his side to use the stinging two-day loss to India to stiffen their resolve. Silverwood saw his side bowled out twice in less than 80 overs at the crease, mustering a grim total of 193 in their two innings on an Ahmedabad pitch that he holds clear misgivings about. Like captain Joe Root, he would not be drawn into a direct critique of the extreme spinning conditions but did make it clear the case was not considered closed within the England ranks, who could yet opt to pursue the matter through official channels.
“We will be talking about certain things behind the scenes. Joe and I have to have a sit down, have a conversation and see where we go with it,” he said, without elaborating. “I’m not saying we’ve just got to accept things, I’m just saying at this moment in time I’ve not got anything to add.”
Ferrari quietly confident of 2021 revival
Ferrari held a pre-season team launch yesterday with some confidence that their new Formula One car, to be unveiled next month, would be a lot better than last year’s flop. Team principal Mattia Binotto told reporters in a video conference from the Ferrari museum in Maranello, against a backdrop of winning cars from the past, that the data looked promising.
“Last year the main issue was the speed on the straight lines, both power and drag,” he said at the team presentation. “We’ve worked a lot on the power unit and the car aerodynamics to reduce the drag. Based on our simulations today, based on what we can see from the power output on the dyno and the drag of the car from the wind tunnel, I think we’ve recovered quite a lot of speed on the straight lines. So I’m expecting the speed not to be such an issue... we hope to be competitive but we will know it only when in Bahrain. We believe that our car is certainly more efficient compared to the one we had last year.”
The new car is due to be unveiled on 10 March, with the season starting in Bahrain on the 28th after three days of testing there. Ferrari finished sixth overall in 2020, their lowest championship position since 1980 when they were 10th, and failed to win a race.