Atlético title pursuit stalled by late Madrid equalizer
MADRID >> With another stumble at home, Atlético Madrid again missed a chance to strengthen its lead at the top of the league as the club attempts to end its title drought in Spain.
Atlético conceded late to Real Madrid in a 1-1 draw in the derby on Sunday, extending its winless streak at home and increasing the risk of being caught in its pursuit of a first Spanish league title since 2014.
Karim Benzema scored in the 88th minute after Luis Suárez’s early goal for Atlético at the Wanda Metropolitano Stadium.
Atlético was coming off a 2-0 loss to Levante in its last home match.
The hosts were in control during most of the game on Sunday and squandered several chances to add to its early lead, paying the price in the end.
The draw kept Diego Simeone’s team five points in front of Madrid and only three points ahead of second-place Barcelona, which won 2-0 at Osasuna on Saturday. Atlético has a game in hand over both Madrid and Barcelona.
“We never thought it was going to be easy,” Simeone said. “People said we were going to win by 20 points but I don’t know what they were thinking. It will be very difficult for all teams until the end.”
Atlético is trying to end a streak of league titles won by either Barcelona or Madrid since 2014. It hasn’t beaten Madrid in 10 straight league matches — since 2016 — with five losses and five draws. It lost 2-0 at Madrid in the teams’ previous encounter last year.
Madrid, coming off a
disappointing home draw against Real Sociedad, had won three in a row against Atlético in all competitions.
“We are going to keep fighting until the end,” Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane said. “There are a lot of games left and things can change quickly.”
The match was played without fans but there was a large gathering of Atlético supporters outside the stadium before and during the game. Their chants and goal celebration after Suárez scored could be heard inside the venue.
They were loudly heard near the end of the match when Atlético goalkeeper Jan Oblak made two superb close-range saves off consecutive attempts by Benzema, who was back in the Madrid squad after an injury layoff. Oblak also stopped the striker’s free kick attempt a few moments later.
He couldn’t stop Benzema in the final minutes, though, as the striker found the net from near the penalty spot after a pass by Casemiro in one of the few mistakes by the Atlético defense during the entire match.
“When you miss your chances to add to your lead, sometimes 1-0 is not enough,” Simeone said. “We had our chances to seal the victory but couldn’t capitalize on them and they were able to equalize.”
Atlético started the game pressing forward and opened the scoring in a breakaway in the 15th. Suárez found the far corner with the outside of his right foot while facing Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois inside the area after a pass from Marcos Llorente.
Suárez, Atlético’s leading scorer with 17 goals, hadn’t found the net in five games in all competitions. The 34-year-old Uruguay striker who joined from Barcelona this season moved within two goals of Messi, the league’s scoring leader this season.
Madrid tried to gain control in the second half but it was Atlético that kept threatening the most in counterattacks, squandering several good scoring chances.
Madrid remained without the injured captain Sergio Ramos, while Atlético had the return of defender Kieran Trippier after he completed a 10-game ban for breaking betting rules.
TAMPA, FLA. >> Gary Sánchez has impressed the New York Yankees early on at spring training as the catcher strives to rebound from a disastrous 2020 season.
Sánchez poked an opposite-field single to right in the second inning against Zack Wheeler and scored on Brett Gardner’s grand slam as the Yankees beat the Philadelphia Phillies 4-0 on Sunday.
“I think overall just a much more confident version of the Gary Sánchez that we saw in 2020,” Yankees catching coach Tanner Swanson said. “He has really attacked the offseason. Been really accountable for his performance in 2020. I think he’s in a really good place and his process is really sound. I’ve been really pleased.”
The slugger also walked and has three hits in nine at-bats overall this spring after hitting just .147 and striking out 64 times in 156 at-bats during the pandemic shortened 2020 season.
“He has really invested himself in what we’re doing,” said Swanson, who has been working with Sánchez since January. “Has refined his process. Has put in a lot of quality work in. I think we’re seeing that transfer into the game.”
The struggles last year for Sánchez continued into the postseason, where the former All-Star was benched during the Yankees’ AL Division Series loss to the eventual AL champion Tampa Bay Rays in favor of Kyle Higashioka.
“He was grinding but he was always a great teammate,” Yankees second baseman DJ LeMahieu said. “Always positive. He’s the same guy this year. It’s early, but he’s had some really good at-bats so far and it’s great to see.”
Sánchez sought out extra at-bats over the offseason by playing in the Dominican Winter League, where he batted .245 with two homers in 15 games.
Those numbers weren’t encouraging, but he’s come out firing this spring. Sánchez’s two hits previous to Sunday were long homers, including a rare drive over the 40-foot batter’s eye in center field at Steinbrenner Field. He has also displayed defensive improvements after a 2020 filled with miscues.
“Pretty amazing to see the improvements he’s made in the short period of time,” Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge said.
Swanson feels that Sánchez never got fully comfortable with significant adjustments made during spring training last year.
“When we broke camp year last year, and really when we got disrupted with the pandemic and had to come back, we kind of had a foundation laid but weren’t really able to expand much beyond that,” Swanson said. “So, I think this year with the work he’s done this offseason we’ve been really able to open the playbook.” NOTES >> Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Gardner’s homer gives the outfielder something to talk about with the team’s power hitters. “That will put some wind in his sails for a couple days as far as the smack
talk goes,” Boone said . ... The Yankees wore their pinstripe uniforms. They will be doing it on Sunday home games at spring training. It is a change from previous years when New York
would only wear them at the spring training home opener . ... RHP Corey Kluber will have a live batting practice session at the minor league complex on Monday’s day off.
Philadelphia 76ers teammates Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons were ruled out of Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game after being flagged by coronavirus contact tracing, prompting some players to question again why the exhibition was being played during a pandemic.
The 76ers and the NBA learned of the situation with Embiid and Simmons — which stemmed from getting haircuts — on Saturday night and made the decision Sunday morning that neither could play about nine hours before the scheduled tipoff.
The game in Atlanta is going forward as scheduled.
“It’s just an unfortunate time in the world where our health and safety should be at the front of the helm,” AllStar Paul George of the Los Angeles Clippers said Sunday from Atlanta. “I personally didn’t agree with the game but, you know, it is what it is.”
A person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press that Embiid and Simmons have both tested negative for COVID-19, and that their barber has tested positive for it. Both players saw the barber a day or two before before flying to Atlanta, according to the person who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity Sunday because those details were not released publicly.
“It’s kind of messed up,” Washington All-Star Bradley Beal said. “It’s unfortunate.”
Embiid would have been a starter for Team Durant, which will be coached by Philadelphia’s Doc Rivers. Simmons would have been a reserve for Team LeBron. New Orleans’ Zion Williamson will start in Embiid’s
place, the NBA said, and both teams will have 11 players on the active rosters instead of the usual 12.
Embiid and Simmons are in Atlanta, though it was not immediately clear if they would have to remain there and quarantine or if they could leave and resume their All-Star break elsewhere.
“I would say it’s not looking great,” Rivers said Sunday morning, when asked about the situation before the final determination on the status of Embiid and Simmons was made.
It’s not a great look in any respect.
A number of players — All-Star captain LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers among them — openly wondered in recent weeks why the game was being played. And Sunday’s
news provided a reminder of why those concerns seemed valid.
“Obviously, I love our league and I love playing the game of basketball at
the highest level and doing what I love to do,” James said. “But I just think, under the circumstances and what we’re going through still with the pandemic and
everything with the season, I just thought we could have looked at it a little bit differently . ... And I hate the fact that Joel and Ben will not be able to play today.”
The league and the National Basketball Players Association went ahead with plans for the game for multiple reasons, including because it will pay tribute to historically Black institutions and generate at least $3 million for scholarship funds that aid Black students.
“Throughout this pandemic, we’ve sought to find the right balance between the health and safety of our players, the community that’s involved in producing NBA basketball, and of course our fans, along with the economic interests as well of our community,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Saturday in his annual All-Star address. “Add into that social justice issues . ... Again, we feel we’ve struck the appropriate balance here, looking out for the interests of everyone involved.”
The collective bargaining agreement between the league and its players also stipulates that the game be played, and Silver has said multiple times in recent weeks that millions of fans around the globe want to see the game happen.
“I don’t want to say we didn’t have a choice, but it’s in our CBA and our CBA says there has to be an All-Star Game every year,” Beal said. “There’s a lot of language in there that can kind of get ugly if we didn’t necessarily come down and go through with the All-Star Game. There’s still guys reserved about it, I’m sure. I’m still reserved about it.”
There have been NBA 31 games this season postponed because at least one team would not have enough players eligible to play due to virus-related reasons, including positive tests and contact tracing situations.
In past cases where contact tracing has detected an issue that was eventually confirmed as a positive case, players have typically had to sit for a week. That means Embiid and Simmons potentially could miss at least two games; Philadelphia, which has the best record in the Eastern Conference, opens its second-half schedule with games at Chicago on Thursday and at Washington on Friday.
No other All-Stars or members of the 76ers’ coaching staff in Atlanta were affected, because they “were not exposed to the individual in Philadelphia,” the NBA said.
NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. >> By the time Rick Pitino got to town, the coronavirus was already there.
When Iona hired the Hall of Fame coach last March 14, there was no celebration for the new biggest man on campus. The more noteworthy arrival in the New York City suburb that week was the National Guard, sent in by Gov. Andrew Cuomo when he set up a “containment zone” that closed schools and banned large gatherings within a one-mile radius of a synagogue just down the street that was the center of one of the earliest COVID-19 outbreaks in the U.S.
Nearly a year later, the virus never fully let go of its grip around Pitino’s program.
Forced to stop four times this season because of virus issues — including one 51-day hiatus that sidelined them longer than any team in the country — the
Gaels come out of their latest pause hoping to put together a good ending to a frustrating season starting Tuesday at the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament.
“It hasn’t gone well for us because we’ve missed two months of practice and games. We’re trying to make the best of it in very difficult times,” Pitino said. “We probably have been hit harder than any program in the nation. That being said, I’m very proud of our guys because they’ve hung in there. They’ve been basically in jail four different times for 14 days.”
Though it’s the best time of year in college basketball, Pitino never wanted this March Madness. He advocated for the season to be pushed back from its November start to February, culminating with the NCAA Tournament being played in May, when perhaps enough people would have been vaccinated to have a safe and realistic season.
Maybe that would have given him belief in more postseason success, the kind he enjoyed at Kentucky and Louisville. Now, forget playing like his teams did in the SEC or Big East tournaments. He doesn’t even believe the Gaels can play as well as they did when they last took the court on Feb. 20.
“Honestly, I don’t. I don’t believe that, but we’re going to make the best of it,” Pitino
said.
Iona had just completed a good run under Tim Cluess, who made six NCAA Tournament appearances and won five MAAC Tournament titles in nine seasons before stepping down for health reasons, when it hired Pitino. The Gaels hoped things might be even better under the first coach to win national titles at two schools (Kentucky, Louisville) and the first to take three schools (Providence) to the Final Four.
And Pitino hoped the job could help repair a reputation that was tarnished when Louisville fired him in 2017 while being investigated as part of a federal corruption probe.
But this season never got off the ground.
An 11-game nonconference schedule that was to include a trip to the Bahamas was scrapped entirely after the NCAA determined the season wouldn’t start until Nov. 25. Iona set up a new slate of six nonconference games, only to cancel four of them after its initial pause of activity in November.
Iona twice had cancelations on the day of games in December, the latter on Dec. 29 followed later that night by a positive test within its program, necessitating another two-week pause.
A night before the Gaels were set to return to action in mid-January, another positive test triggered the third pause. During that one, some players who tested positive began to show symptoms, unlike the previous times.
Pitino himself couldn’t escape the bad luck, contracting the virus after he had received his first vaccination shot. He quarantined in a small apartment on campus rather than risk getting his wife sick, and by the time Iona finally played a game on Feb. 12, it came after a 51-day break following its last game on Dec. 23.
The Gaels got in five games, concluding with an impressive sweep of MAAC co-champion Monmouth, before announcing another positive test that would leave them unable to play again until the conference tournament.
They tried to schedule a game, with Pitino saying Marist understandably declined because they would’ve had to play wearing masks. So the Gaels ended 8-5, 6-3 in their league, and they drew the No. 9 seed.