Champions draw pairs German, English teams
One of the fiercest international rivalries in soccer will play out three times in the last 16 of the Champions League when a trio of English teams take on German opposition.
Five-time European champions Liverpool and Bayern Munich were drawn Monday to face each other, Manchester City was paired with Schalke and Tottenham will play Bundesliga leader Borussia Dortmund.
“It was clear it would be difficult, they are obviously a top side,” said Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp, who lost the 2013 final to Bayern when coaching Dortmund. “For me it’s nice, going to Germany.”
While Bayern is third in the Bundesliga, Liverpool leads the Premier League. Two goals from former Bayern winger Xherdan Shaqiri lifted Liverpool to a 3-1 win Sunday over Manchester United.
“They’re the team of the hour. They’re the league leaders in England,” Bayern sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic said of Liverpool. “They play good football, they’re very physical, and they’re full of energy.
The first leg is at Anfield on Feb. 19 with the return match in Munich on March 13. The draw included nine former champions with a combined 40 of the 63 Champions League or European Cup titles since the competition began in 1955.
Three-time defending champion Real Madrid was paired with Ajax. Madrid and Ajax have won 17 of those 63 titles those but have never met in a final.
The potential first-time winners include Paris Saint-Germain, which will play Manchester United. The first leg is at Old Trafford on Feb. 12.
Elsewhere: Major League Soccer is shortening its season by a month, going to singleelimination playoffs and scheduling the 2019 MLS Cup final for Nov. 10 in its earliest finish since 2002. The league said it will have an all-knockout postseason in place of a two-leg format for the conference semifinals and finals. that causes a long absence. The changes were prompted, in part, by the experiences of former No. 1 players Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka, both of whom returned to competition after giving birth. The WTA announced that players returning to the tour may use a special ranking for up to three years after the birth of a child, and the exemption can be used for seedings at big events.
Baseball: Plunking an opponent paid off for CC Sabathia. The New York Yankees gave Sabathia a $500,000 performance bonus, even though the 38-year-old left-hander was ejected from his final regular-season start six outs shy of the 155 innings specified in his contract for the payment. Sabathia hit Tampa Bay’s Jesus Sucre starting the sixth inning on Sept. 27 with his 55th pitch of the night, retaliation for Andrew Kittredge throwing a pitch behind Austin Romine in the top half.
Skiing: Marcel Hirscher extended his dominance in Alta Badia, Italy, by winning a parallel giant slalom night race and tied fellow Austrian Annemarie Moser-Proell for third on the World Cup’s all-time wins list. Hirscher beat unheralded Thibaut Favrot of France in the final by 0.14 seconds. It was Hirscher’s second win in two days after taking the traditional GS race on Sunday. It was also the 62nd World Cup victory of Hirscher’s career, putting him level with MoserProell and behind only record-holder Ingemar Stenmark (86 wins) and Lindsey Vonn (82).