MOURINHO MOANS AFTER LOSS TO SUCCESSOR
A season that provided the flickers of a title challenge is now turning into the worst of
Jose Mourinho’s managerial career.
Of all the managers to inflict Tottenham’s 10th loss of the Premier League season, it was Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who replaced Mourinho at Manchester United.
Maybe that explains why Mourinho was so irritated with Solskjaer after a 3-1 home loss to United saw Tottenham fall six points from fourth place. That spot is occupied by West Ham again after the east London club beat Leicester 3-2 on Sunday.
The post-match focus at Tottenham was less on Edinson Cavani’s diving header that put second-place United 2-1 in front and more on the circumstances that denied the forward the game’s opening goal.
Cavani had slotted through
Hugo Lloris’ legs after the ball was rolled into his path by Paul Pogba. But then the goal was ruled out after a lengthy VAR review penalized Scott McTominay for a push on Son Heung-min who went tumbling to the ground.
“The game has gone if that’s a clear and obvious error,” Solskjaer said. “We shouldn’t be conned but I have to say, if my son stays down like this for three minutes and he needs his 10 mates to help him up, he won’t get any food.”
Mourinho bristled at Solskjaer’s criticism of Son, who did go on to break the deadlock in the 40th minute.
“Sonny is very lucky that his father is a better person than Ole because I think a father you always have to feed their kids, it doesn’t matter what they do,” Mourinho said. “If you steal to feed your kids, you steal. I am very, very disappointed. Like we say in Portuguese, ‘Bread is bread, cheese is cheese.’ I told Ole what I think about his comments.”
More soccer
Atletico Madrid stumbled again in its bid to win a first Spanish league title in seven seasons after drawing 1-1 at Real Betis, leaving it narrowly ahead of second-place Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Local colleges
Striker Veronica Avalos provided a hat trick to lead the San Diego State women’s soccer team (8-2-0) to a 3-1 win at Nevada (1-7-2) to wrap up the Mountain West regular-season spring schedule. The Aztecs will play at New Mexico next weekend for the conference championship.
• The USD softball team (10-18, 2-1) clinched its first WCC series with a 4-1 victory over visiting Pacific.
• The SDSU softball team (18-11) edged host UC Santa Barbara (8-21), 5-4, in nine innings to complete a series sweep.
• The UC San Diego softball team (6-7, 4-14 Big West) suffered its first four-game sweep of the season, losing a doubleheader at Long Beach State (16-5, 10-1) by scores of 7-6 and 14-4 (five innings, run rule).
Tennis
Veronika Kudermetova of Russia won her first WTA title, coming up strong on the big points to beat Danka Kovinic 6-4, 6-2 at the Volvo Car Open at Charleston, S.C. The 23year-old Kudermetova did not drop a set in six matches on the way to the championship at the season’s first clay-court tournament — a feat last accomplished there by Williams in 2012.
• Lorenzo Sonego became the first Italian for 15 years to capture an ATP tour claycourt title on home soil after fighting back to beat Laslo Djere of Serbia and win the Sardegna Open at Cagliari, Sardinia. Third-seeded Sonego had to dig deep in the second set before prevailing 2-6, 7-6 (5), 6-4 in a final lasting just over three hours.
Also
Texas Tech junior guard Mac McClung intends to go through the NBA Draft process while the team’s leading scorer from last season also has his name in the NCAA transfer portal.
• Katie Ledecky won the 1,500-meter freestyle at the Pro Swim Series meet in Mission Viejo with the world’s fastest time this year. She touched in 15 minutes, 40.55 seconds in the outdoor pool on Sunday. Ashley Twichell finished second in 16:06.68. The women’s 1,500 will be an Olympic event for the first time at the Tokyo Games.
• A highly respected horseman, trainer Neil French died of heart failure Saturday at age 68 at Arcadia Methodist Hospital.