Aguero nudges Man City to brink of Premier title
With a stunning goal during his long farewell to Manchester City, Sergio Aguero nudged the team to the brink of another Premier League title on Saturday.
The Argentine striker showed his scoring instincts are still sharp ahead of his departure from City after 10 years by rifling a finish into the net in the 57th minute to set up a 2-0 win over Crystal Palace.
His record-extending 258th goal for City left Pep Guardiola in awe.
“What a goal, what an action, what a man,” the City manager said. “We are going to enjoy the last games with him.
“He showed, with his goal, what he is. I am in love as a person.”
Just 84 seconds later, Ferran Torres — a player at the opposite end of his City career — scored the 10th goal of the 21-year-old Spain winger’s debut season in England by curling home a low, left-footed finish from the edge of the area.
If United wins or draws at Old Trafford, the next opportunity for City to secure a third league crown in four years will come next Saturday in a home match against Chelsea.
A Elsewhere: Lille showed it is a serious contender to win the French league by beating Nice 2-0 to stay one point ahead of Paris SaintGermain. Defending champion PSG scraped past Lens 2-1 at home to pressure
Lille, and Christophe Galtier’s Lille side responded. ... Inter Milan won at last-placed Crotone 2-0 to give it a chance to clinch the Serie A before the weekend ends. Inter moved 14 points clear of Atalanta with four games to play. If Atalanta doesn’t win at Sassuolo on Sunday, Inter will clinch its first title since 2010. ... Atletico Madrid needed a goal by Marcos Llorente and a penalty miss by Elche in injury time to grind out a
1-0 win and open a fivepoint advantage at the top of the Spanish league. ... Real Madrid stayed two points back after late goals by Eder Militao and Casemiro defeated a feisty Osasuna 2-0. ... Barcelona will appeal a two-game suspension handed to coach Ronaldo Koeman that will rule him out of a critical clash against Atletico Madrid in the wide-open Spanish league title race. Koeman was shown a red card during Barcelona’s 2-1 home loss to Granada on Thursday for his use of what the referee considered disrespectful language. That defeat cost his team the chance to take the lead of the Spanish league.
ETC.
A Tennis: Ashleigh Barty and Iga Swiatek, the two most recent champions of the French Open, will meet in the last 16 of the Madrid Open. The top-ranked Barty needed three sets to beat 80th-ranked Tamara Zidansek. Barty struggled with her first serves, but she compensated by striking nine aces and saved nine break points to outlast Zidansek 6-4, 1-6, 6-3. That took her win streak on clay to 13 matches after claiming the Stuttgart title last week. Swiatek brushed aside Laura Siegemund 6-3, 6-3 for the Pole’s ninth win in a row on clay. ... Nikoloz Basilashvili set up a meeting with Jan-Lennard Struff in the Munich Open final by winning two matches. Basilashvili was leading 5-4 in his quarterfinal with Norbert Gombos when it was suspended on Friday due to rain. The Georgian served out the first set on Saturday and broke Gombos once in the second for a 6-4, 6-4 win. He then blew away Casper Ruud 6-1, 6-2 in the semifinals, breaking the Norwegian five times.
A College basketball: Rasir Bolton, Iowa State’s leading scorer last season,is transferring to Gonzaga. Bolton averaged 15.5 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game for the Cyclones, and will have one year of eligibility as a graduate transfer at Gonzaga.
A Olympics: The Tokyo Olympics torch relay will take another detour this weekend when it enters the southern island of Okinawa. A leg of the relay on Okinawa’s resort island of Miyakojima on Sunday was canceled with coronavirus cases surging in Japan. Other legs on Okinawa will take place. The relay, which will involve 10,000 runners from all over Japan, started six weeks ago and has kept to the schedule despite major rerouting in some areas.
A Cycling: Geraint Thomas crashed to the rainsoaked road in a sprint finish in the main mountains stage of the Tour de Romandie at Thyon, Switzerland,\ gifting victory and the leader’s yellow jersey to Michael Woods. Thomas, the 2018 Tour de France winner, had taken the lead in a two-rider race to the finish of a chilly, 100-mile) stage when he slipped out of the saddle with about 30 meters left.