Football: Atletico Madrid game lost in Spanish snowstorm

Spain's heaviest snowfall in decades has forced Atletico Madrid's game against Athletic Bilbao on Saturday to be postponed, LaLiga announced.

"With the exceptional situation due to the storm over a large part of the peninsular which has forced the Madrid-Barajas airport to close for the day, and the impossibility of providing a pitch in ideal conditions LaLiga, after discussions with the two clubs, has postponed the game", the federation said.

The fixture was scheduled for 1515 GMT at the Spanish league leaders' Wanda Metropolitano stadium.

A new date for the encounter will be published in the coming days, LaLiga's statement added.

Athletic were unable to land in Madrid because of the extreme weather brought by Storm Filomena on Friday and had to return to Bilbao early in the evening.

The blizzards have caused chaos in Spain, with the capital's airport closed, hundreds of motorists stranded, and more snow forecast Saturday.

Diego Simeone's Atletico lead the table by two points from city rivals Real with two games in hand.

Agence France-Presse

Benitez fired as Real Madrid coach, replaced by Zidane

MADRID — Real Madrid fired coach Rafa Benitez after only seven months on Monday and replaced him with its former star player Zinedine Zidane.

Club president Florentino Perez announced the decision at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium on Monday, a day after Madrid’s 2-2 draw at Valencia deepened a crisis that started with an embarrassing 4-0 home loss to rival Barcelona in November.

“We have to do our best so that the team is able to win something,” said Zidane. “I’m going to put all my heart into Real Madrid.”

Madrid has won seven of nine matches since the demoralizing defeat to Barcelona but fans continued to demand the departure of Benitez, whose Liverpool side won the Champions League in 2005.

Real Madrid is third in the Spanish league, four points behind leader Atletico Madrid and two behind Barcelona, which has a game in hand.

France soccer great Zidane, who was Carlo Ancelotti’s assistant in 2014 when Real Madrid won the Champions League, has been coaching Madrid’s “B” team in the third division.

Zidane was at the Bernabeu with his wife and four kids.

“I’m more emotional now than when I signed as a player,” said Zidane, who ended his career at Madrid in 2006.

It will be the first major coaching job for the former playmaker, whose career was marked by greatness on the field but also by his head-butting of an Italian defender in the 2006 World Cup final.

“He is clearly conscious of how tough this job is,” Perez said. “Zidane doesn’t know the word impossible.”

Zidane leaves Real Madrid Castilla in second place in the third division, with 37 points from 19 games.

Perez had supported Benitez since the Barcelona loss, saying the Spaniard “was the solution, not the problem,” to Madrid’s crisis. But fans kept showing their discontent even in an 8-0 win over Malmo in the Champions League and a 10-2 rout of Rayo Vallecano in the Spanish league. They also were not happy with the team’s embarrassing elimination from the Copa del Rey for using an ineligible player.

Zidane’s name was mentioned by Spanish media every time Real Madrid struggled. The 43-year-old former playmaker kept dismissing the possibility of taking over Benitez, but always made it clear that his ultimate goal was to coach the main team. Perez recently praised Zidane and said that naturally he would become Madrid’s coach one day.

There had been speculation about former Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho taking over at Madrid, but Perez said the Portuguese coach’s return wasn’t in the team’s plans for now.

Madrid’s next match is at Granada on Sunday in the 22nd round of the Spanish league.

Zidane said he would begin training for the Madrid squad on Tuesday, the first session of the year and one that is traditionally open to the public.

source: sports.inquirer.net

Clash of soccer fans in Spain leaves 1 dead, 11 injured

MADRID — One man died and 11 others suffered minor injuries after a fight broke out outside Atletico Madrid’s soccer stadium between its fans and those of visiting team Deportivo La Coruna, officials said Sunday.

Madrid’s Clinico San Carlos hospital said a man died of injuries sustained in the clash between rival fans that broke out hours before the game near the Vicente Calderon stadium. Police made several arrests.

The man, identified only as a 43-year-old Deportivo fan, had to be removed from Madrid’s Manzanares River and attended to by emergency services, which initially resuscitated him before transferring him to hospital where he died hours later.

Televised images on Canal Plus showed large groups of men wielding what appeared to be metal poles, tossing chairs and firing flares on the wide pavement along the bank of the river. Images also showed at least one man falling into the water.

The presidents of both clubs appeared together on television to lament the incident.

“This has nothing to do with football,” said Atletico president Enrique Cerezo. “Neither Atletico nor Deportivo have anything to do with these incidents, they are organized by radical groups who have their histories and accounts to settle.”

Sports minister Jose Ignacio Wert also said the clash was not linked to sport, but it nevertheless tarnished its image and “had to be eradicated.”

Two people who were at a bar linked to Atletico’s fan club in the northwestern city of A Coruna were slightly injured in a separate incident at noon when they were involved in a barroom brawl with six hooded men, Europa Press news agency reported.

Police said on its Twitter account they had made 24 arrests among four radical groups linked to football clubs, and named them as: “Riazor Blues, Atletico Front, Buccaneers, and Alkor Hooligans.”

The 11 injured included a police officer who suffered a broken finger.

“We are very sad, and we condemn this completely,” said Atletico coach Diego Simeone. “We hope these types of situations don’t happen again.”

The Spanish league said in a statement that it had tried to suspend the match before it began.

“The Spanish football league was firm in its conviction to suspend the match, but that wasn’t possible,” the league said in a statement without explaining why the match started as scheduled at 1100 GMT.

In December 1998 a Real Sociedad fan was killed outside Atletico’s stadium and a man was sentenced to a 17-year jail term for his murder.

source: sports.inquirer.net