Two days after Southampton held Manchester City to a 1-1 draw at St Mary’s last weekend, the club’s new majority owner, Dragan Šolak, looks extremely pleased with his purchase. It was “an absolutely supreme performance playing against probably the best team in the world”, says Šolak, visibly excited by memories of watching his new team end City’s 12-match winning streak.
Born in Serbia and based in Switzerland, Šolak met the Guardian in a suite of offices tucked away in an elegant apartment block in central Milan, one of many places he spends time, he says. He plans to attend as many Southampton games as his travel schedule allows.
Southampton confirm takeover involving Serb magnate Dragan SolakRead more
Rewind to 27 July 2022, the night Alessia Russo wrote herself into the history books. In the heat of a Sheffield semi-final, England’s “super sub” produced one of the most audacious goals seen at a European Championship. “The Russo” as it has come to be known – the cheeky angled backheel that befuddled a Sweden defender and nutmegged Hedvig Lindahl in goal – is now adorned on T-shirts and mugs and earned her a nomination for the 2022 Puskas Award. It was the moment the world woke up to exactly what England’s calm blue-eyed assassin could do.
‘People still like me’: Wiegman pledges future to England before World Cup finalRead more
Fast forward to July-August 2023 and Russo’s stock has risen rapidly while her role for the …
One of my biggest pet peeves in sports is when divisions are broken down by geography but don’t follow geographic rules. Dallas in the NFC East? Minnesota Timberwolves in the Northwest? All the teams in the Southwest are in the American south. That’s a start. But why are teams on the Mississippi River considered “west?” Has anyone looked at a map? Does anyone share my outrage? Probably not. But it’s OK because, as my colleague Jesse Spector notes, NBA divisions don’t matter much besides scheduling purposes and divvying up division preview assignments for sportswriters. Luckily, I got a fun one. The Houston Rockets have won the Southwest division four years in a row. James Harden could stay or go [he’ll probably go]. Still, with or without Harden, the Southwest will have …
Following in the grand tradition of pre-Olympic fuck-ups, the International Olympic Committee and 2016 Summer Olympics host city Rio de Janeiro have teamed up to bring us the summer games’ first big problem: shit water. Rio’s waterways are notoriously sewage-laden, something that is obviously a concern for the athletes who will be competing in water sports in 2016. The IOC would have you believe that the water is just fine, though, because they’ve been testing the bacterial levels and have found everything to be relatively clean. They have not, however, been testing for viral pathogens, which according to an Associated Press investigation, is the real problem: The AP viral testing, which will continue in the coming year, found not one water venue safe for swimming or boating, acc…
The Seattle Kraken and forward Jordan Eberle have agreed on a two-year, $9.5 million extension, the team announced Friday. Eberle, 33, has recorded 37 points (14 goals, 23 assists) through 58 games this season, his third with the Kraken. The 14-year NHL veteran is one assist shy of 400 and two games shy of 1,000 for his career. He is a three-time All-Star. Eberle is playing in the final season of a five-year, $27.5 million deal signed with the New York Islanders in 2019 and was due to become an unrestricted free agent this summer. He went to Seattle in the 2021 expansion draft. He has 695 points (296 goals, 399 assists) in 998 games with the Edmonton Oilers (2010-17), Islanders (2017-21) and Kraken. The Oilers drafted him in the first round (22nd overall) in 2008. —Field Level …