Chelsea legend Drogba retires
LONDON: Ivory Coast and Chelsea great Didier Drogba announced his retirement on Wednesday after a 20-year career.
The 40-year-old scored 164 goals in 381 appearances for Chelsea, winning four Premier League titles, four FA Cups and the 2012 Champions League, while he is also Ivory Coast’s alltime record goalscorer with 65.
Drogba most recently played for Phoenix Rising in the United States. He won the Premier League Golden Boot in 2006-07 and 2009-10, netting 104 times in the English top flight in total, and also scored a dramatic late equaliser when Chelsea beat Bayern Munich on penalties in the Champions League final six years ago.
PSG TO FURTHER ASSESS NEYMAR, MBAPPE
PARIS: Paris St Germain said on Wednesday that Neymar had suffered a groin strain and Kylian Mbappe a bruised shoulder while on international duty, a week ahead of a crucial Champions League clash against Liverpool.
“They will undergo a 48-hour period of treatment before further evaluation,” PSG said in a statement.
EPL HAS MADE ME STRONGER, SAYS PEP
MANCHESTER: Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola believes the competitive nature and sheer unpredictability of the Premier League has presented him with his biggest career challenge.
“I am a better manager than I was in Germany, and I am a better manager now than I was in Barcelona by far, just for the fact of being there,” he said.
“It is the toughest one, for the amount of games, for the weather and the referees saying: ‘play (on), play (on), play (on)’ and the competitors, there are many. It is the only country that five or six (teams) can win the Premier League.”
‘IMPROVED LIVERPOOL HAVE MORE TO OFFER’
LIVERPOOL: Liverpool have made their joint-best start to a Premier League campaign since it was launched in 1992, but manager Juergen Klopp sees no reason why they cannot improve further heading into the packed English festive fixture schedule.
“We can improve... we have to and we will,” the German said. “But between our best football and now, we have to win football games. That’s how it is and that’s what we’ve done already.”
BOLT APPROACHED BY TURKISH CLUB: STATE TV
ANKARA: Turkish top-tier football club Sivasspor has contacted Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt over a potential deal for the second half of the season, staterun TRT television reported.
Earlier this month, Bolt finished his football trial at Central Coast Mariners in Australia and will leave the club after failing to agree on commercial terms, the A-league side said on Friday. BRIEF SCORES:
SVDD Secondary School 35 (Dhawal Mate 5/9, Vedant Shah 4/18) lost to Parle Tilak English 37/0 by 10 wickets; St Joseph 175 (Zaid Shaikh 61, Younis Dakshini 36; Himanshu Kumar 4/59) beat Chhatrapati Shivaji Vidyalay (Hindi) 37 (Aryan Mishra 7/13) by 138 runs; Swami Vivekanand International School 422 (Ayush Jethwa 228, Ayush Vartak 75, Ishan Roy 36; Rupesh Dhayfulle 3/116) beat SIES School 69 (Arif Ansari 31; Ayush Jethwa 6/13) by 353 runs; IES Modern English, Dadar 102 (Harsh Sonawala 4/28, Arav Rawle 3/20) lost to St Mary’s ICSE
High School
Swami Vivekanand International, Kandivili 232/9 (Pratik Gond 117*, Shreyas Hirlekar 49; Adwait Kalamkar 3/41) beat St John High School, Borivili 27 (Kshity Singh 6/6) by 205 runs; Greenlawn High School 132 (Soham Rane 3/35, Mayank Daruwale 4/29) lost to SPS Mumbadevi Vidya Niketan 133/6 (Soham Rane 51, Mitansh Dharia 3/18) by 4 wickets; Bombay Scottish, Powai 76 (Atharva Karande 5/24, Prajyot Shah 4/15) lost to KEM High
runs;
274 (Mohd Ibrahim Shaikh 68, Jash Sahani 32, Fardeen 30, Shivam Varma 30) beat BKM High School 73 (Fardeen Shaikh 3/16, Ajit Mishra 3/8) by 201 runs; Fatim High School 122 (Shaun Gomes 32; Abhivansh Bait 3/40) lost to Parle Tilak Vidyamandir (Marathi) 123/2 (Prathamesh Jawle 55*) by 8 wickets; Podar International School IB/CIE Khar 77 (Raine Parikh 54; Atik Qureshi 3/20) lost to Anjuman Islam (English) Allana 80/3 (Hansraj Dubey 53) by 7 wickets; Rustomjee International 173 (Rishi Bhosale 45; Aman 4/30) lost to Dhirubhai Ambani International 177/6 (Aditya Anand 86*; Mihir Mehta 4/42) by 4 wickets; The Cathedral & John Connon High School 271/9 (Arnav Shah 115, Adarsh Agarwal 51*, Divyansh Yashavi 35; Jaffer Khan 5/72) beat JJ Fort Boys High School 32 (Aditya Baliga 5/25, Arnav Bakshi 3/6) by 239 runs; SVKM JV Parekh International 176 beat Rustomjee Cambridge 100 by 76 runs; Don Bosco High School, Borivili 171 lost to
MD Bhatia
Gyan Kendra, Andheri
English, Charkop
ONGC OUTCLASS MUMBAI CUSTOMS
Defending champions Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) eased to a comfortable 3-1 win againstmumbaicustomsintheir Elite Division encounter of the MDFA League, on Thursday.
The victors took the lead through Sunil Lohar in the 69th minute, but Customs restored parity through Hekmat Singh in the 80th minute. ONGC then scored twice in the final seven minutes to wrap up the match. RESULTS (Elite Division)
Western Railway SA 4 (Reuben D’souza 2, Charanjit Singh, Akshay Kamble-og) beat Central Railway 0; ONGC 3 (Sunil Lohar, Nitesh Monde, Arif Shaik) beat Mumbai Customs 1 (Hekmat Singh).
DE GRASSE TAKING IT SLOW AND STEADY
TORONTO: Andre De Grasse’s business is speed but the Canadian sprinter was selling the slow and steady approach on Wednesday as he prepared to make his return to the starting blocks after two