Eubank farming for boxing glory
BAYERN Munich players must work harder to motivate each other to maintain a winning mentality while playing in empty stadiums, coach Hansi Flick said yesterday.
The Bundesliga became the first major sports league to restart last week after more than two months following an easing of Covid-19 pandemic restrictions in Germany, but games are played without fans for health safety reasons.
“What is decisive is mentality. Obviously, it is an advantage if you have higher quality on the pitch but this is a situation which is not very easy,” Flick, speaking in a virtual news conference, said of the empty stadiums.
“It is key that you bring that mentality to the pitch. It is important that the team pushes itself so as to cover the level of motivation that has gone missing with the empty stands.”
Bayern, who host Eintracht Frankfurt at the Allianz Arena today, are chasing a record-extending eighth consecutive Bundesliga title and are four points ahead of second-placed Borussia Dortmund.
They played their first game behind closed doors, beating Union Berlin 2-0.
“Everyone of us has now played at least one time in front of empty stands,” Flick said. “We know what to expect. Before our game last week we had also trained at the Allianz Arena so we know what to expect in terms of atmosphere.”
Only some 200 people are allowed on, around the pitch and in the stands during the game. Another 100 mainly security staff are outside the stadium to keep any fans wanting to celebrate with the team away. | Reuters
Paderborn v Hoffenheim (3.30pm), Wolfsburg v Borussia Dortmund (3.30pm), Freiburg v Werder Bremen (3.30pm), Borussia Moegladbach v Bayer Leverkusen (3.30pm), Bayern Munchen v Eintracht Frankfurt 6.30pm).
Schalke 04 v Augsburg (1.30pm), Mainz 05 v RB Leipzig (3.30pm), Koln v Fortuna Düsseldorf 6pm).
DANIEL MATTHEWS
THE sun is setting over one of boxing’s more remote breeding grounds. Another day spent alongside the roosters and Rambo the American Bully.
For Chris Eubank Jnr and Roy Jones Jnr, another 15 rounds on this Florida farm with firearms and new friends.
“Roy has a whole bunch of animals — peacocks, chickens, dogs,” says Eubank. “I saw a chicken run across the damn gym one time. Where can you ever say that’s happened before?
“I was able to shoot a few guns on the range and I’ve actually never fished before but Roy caught some fish the other day and cooked it.” “Amberjack,” says Jones. 40kg of it.
A couple of months ago, the son of Britain’s finest fighting peacock arrived on this Pensacola farm to work with a boxer who, with dizzying speed and reflexes, won titles from middleweight to heavyweight. En route up the ladder, Jones even shared the super-middleweight throne with Chris Eubank Snr.
These days, Jones is back home growing more familiar with his new pupil.
“I didn’t know much about him,” says Jones. “I knew his dad — their personalities are probably a lot different but they both have that brutal punching power.”
It was Eubank Snr who negotiated this new partnership, and when boxing resurfaces after the Covid-19 crisis they are plotting a renewed assault on the middleweight division.
For now, life exists only within those farm gates.
“There really is nothing to do but train,” says Eubank Jnr. “I think they opened the beach up, so I might check that out.”
On this Friday night, though, Eubank and Jones are on Zoom for their first joint interview — speaking to us over the constant crowing of Roy’s roosters.
“I was in Vegas,” he said. “I’ve got my apartment out there, I’ve got my friends, the parties… everything is easy, it’s nice, it’s comfortable.
He had been training at Floyd Mayweather’s gym. In late February he met Jones at a local fight. When coronavirus plunged the Strip into darkness, Eubank had an ‘epiphany’. The 30-year-old rang his dad and asked him to pull some strings.
“I think I was on a flight the next day,” says Eubank.
It’s a sharp detour for a fighter who, for so long, had trained himself. For recent wins over James Degale and Mat Korobov, he worked with Nate Vasquez, who once claimed: “His style isn’t meant to be a boxer like Roy Jones Jr.”
Now he is only “mad” it took him so long to meet Jones.
Eubank will be the highest-profile test of whether Jones can help bamboozle opponents outside the ropes, too.
“I teach boxers like Chris to fight smart because they can have more longevity,” he says. “You don’t want to fight with your heart, you want to fight with your smarts first.” Improved footwork, Jones says, will sharpen Eubank’s defensive reflexes. The key to expanding his attacking arsenal?
“I do a lot of mental training,” says Jones. By adding more method to his malice, Eubank can be a “super-duper-awesome fighter”.
“That’s definitely a part of my game that I feel needed improvement,” adds Eubank. “I’d been doing the same thing for a long time. And when you do that, you’re not thinking, you’re just going through the motions.”
In Eubank’s sights when boxing returns are the sport’s biggest names.
“I want Canelo Alvarez, Gennady Golovkin, the Charlos twins (Jermall and Jermell), anybody who has a belt in the middleweight division.”
It comes after a yo-yo 2019, which began with a win over James Degale but ended with only two more rounds after Matt Korobov injured his shoulder during their December showdown.
Eubank says: “That’s why I’ve stayed out here with Roy because I just want to be ready as soon as a card is available. These are my prime years now, I need to be in the ring as much as I can.” The signs are certainly encouraging. “I haven’t had anyone to continuously train me like Roy is,” says Eubank. “I was left to my own devices. It worked up until a certain point but once you’re at that elite level you need someone who’s going to be on you at all times.”
Together, they hope to write a new chapter in boxing’s long history of sons who follow fathers into the ring. | Daily Mail