Sports

AMMAN — As 18 more coaches on Wednesday began their bids to become Level Two certified through the Jordan Olympic Committee’s National Coaching Certification Programme (NCCP), news from Baku can give them all confidence that they are on the right course, according to the Jordan Olympic Committee (JOC )News Service.

Jordan secured medals at the 4th Islamic Solidarity Games and the coaches of those successful are all Level Three NCCP qualified. It is reassuring news for the JOC who are investing heavily in time and resources to ensure that our athletes are nurtured by coaches equipped with the most up to date training techniques.

“Baku is proof that the NCCP course can help to make a difference in the way we are developing our athletes,” said Narin Hajtass, who co-ordinates the NCCP course at the JOC. “Coach Ali Al Nawaiseh [swimming] is a Level Three coach and also one of our facilitators for NCCP while both Shadi Najjar and Ibrahim Abu Aledam [karate] have come through Level Three.

These coaches, and many others, are tremendous ambassadors for the course and hopefully those that we are currently working with will also go on to train Jordanian Olympians and Champions.” Level two will include more advanced techniques along with a key module, titled ‘‘Make an Ethical Decision’’.

AMMAN — Following two tough trial matches, Jordan Rugby selectors have finalised the squad that will take on Saudi Arabia this Friday in an official test match, according to the Jordan Olympic Committee News Service.

The game kicks off at 4pm at the University of Petra pitch on Airport Road. Twenty-three players from all four Premier League sides have made the cut, with the Citadel’s Nart Kalimat named captain and the Saracens’ Ahmad Hamouqa his deputy.

Not surprisingly, the bulk of the side is made up from the dominant Citadel and Nomads clubs who stamped their authority on the 15s league this season. Abed Khlaifat from the Aqaba Sharks is also named in the squad.

“We had two testing matches which enabled us to run the rule over all of the players available and selection was not easy as the standard was very high and has definitely improved,” said head coach, Graeme Forbes.

“The match this Friday will provide us with the opportunity to see where we are at in terms of progress against what we expect to be a decent Saudi side.”

AMMAN — Jordan on Monday picked up a fourth medal at the 4th Islamic Solidarity Games taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan, according to the Jordan Olympic Committee News Service.

Following on from swimmer Khader Baqlah’s double gold in the pool, and Bashar Al Najjar’s karate gold in the 67kg weight, Halah Traish secured first glory for the girls with a bronze in karate.

Traish beat Pakistan’s Kulsoom 8-0 to secure the medal in the 68kg weight, having earlier lost her semifinal match to Turkey’s Eda Eltemur.

Jordan is guaranteed at least another bronze medal, this time in boxing, after Mohammed Al Wadi reached the semifinal of the 56kg weight with a brilliant victory over Kazakhstan’s Mirbek Sherov.

AMMAN — After a tough local season, and failing to win any local competition title, Wihdat have now set the 14th Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup title as a priority.

The 2016 Jordan Professional Football League champs have advanced to the Round of 16 of the regional event and will now face Syria’s Wihdeh in Beirut on Tuesday in the two-leg West Asia zone semis. The winner will face the team advancing from the all-Iraqi encounter of Air Force and Zawra’a in the other semifinal with the winners advancing to the West Asia final on September 11 and 29 to decide the West Asia zone’s champ.

The West Asia zone champ will face the winner from the rest of the Asian zones on November 4 to decide the AFC Cup titlist with prize money set at $1 million for the champion and $500,000 for the runner-up. 

Should Wihdat win the zonal championship, they stand a good chance of winning the AFC Cup, a feat that eluded them after it was previously won three times by Jordanian teams: Faisali won in 2005 and 2006, and Shabab Urdun won  in 2007.

Wihdat are trying hard to put things back on track after what has been their most disappointing season in years. After combining all four local competitions in past seasons, and following three successive years at the helm, last season Wihdat settled for third in the league after they won the title for the 15th time since moving up to the Professional League in 1975. With the title of the Jordan Football Association Shield and Cup winners Cup eluding them, they also lost Leg 1 of the Jordan Cup as well. The team’s coach, Adnan Hamad, resigned this week after their 2-0 defeat to Faisali in the Jordan Cup semis.

Wihdat reached the AFC Cup West Asia zone semis after they topped group C, following their 3-2 win over Bahrain’s Muharraq. On their way to the round of 16, Wihdat held Lebanon’s Nijmeh and Muharraq and Oman’s Saham 1-1. They also beat Saham 2-1 and scored a 1-0 win over Nijmeh.

Representing Jordan in the AFC Cup for the first time, Jordan Cup titleholders Ahli finished third in the Group A after they were held 1-1 with Iraq’s Zawra’a. They earlier lost 2-1 and 1-0 to Syria’s. They beat Oman’s Suweiq 2-1 and were held 0-0. They also held Zawra’a 1-1.

Ahli started the season beating Wihdat 2-1 to win the 34th Super Cup . However, they struggled and finished 7th in the league and were eliminated from the Jordan Cup. 

It’s Wihdat’s 10th time in the competition after their ambitions of competing among top tier teams were dashed early when they were eliminated from the preliminary round of 2017 AFC Asian Champions League.

AMMAN — Jordan’s swimming sensation Khader Baqlah has won his second gold medal on Sunday at the 4th Islamic Solidarity Games in Baku, Azerbaijan, according to the Jordan Olympic Committee News Service.

The 18-year-old followed up Saturday’s 400m freestyle gold by winning the 200m in a time of 1:49.85 minutes, almost half-a-second ahead of Turkey’s Erge Gezmis on 1:50.31 minutes with another Turkish swimmer, Doga Celik in third in 1:50.44.

Meanwhile, late Saturday, Bashar Al Najjar won a superb gold in the 67kg karate contest. Najjar beat Algeria’s Abdelatif Benkhaled in the final having earlier defeated Saudi Arabia’s Fahed Al Qattami, Syria’s Mohammad Darweesh, and Egypt’s Ali Al Sawi.

AMMAN — Khader Baqlah sliced more than three seconds off the national record on his way to winning Jordan’s first gold on Saturday at the 4th Islamic Solidarity Games taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan, according to the Jordan Olympic Committee News Service.  The University of Florida student won the 400m freestyle in 3:55:37 minutes.

Meanwhile, Jordan’s judo Olympian Ibrahim Khalaf carried the Kingdom’s flag on Friday at the spectacular opening ceremony.

Jordan have taken a delegation of nearly 80 athletes to compete in 12 sports over the next 10 days and they joined 51 other countries at a glorious ceremony held in the country’s Olympic Stadium.

Prior to the opening ceremony, Olympic boxer Obadah Al Kesbeh put on a masterclass as he booked a place in the quarter-finals of the 64kg category.

Kesbeh breezed past Pakistan’s Soleman Baloch, 3-0, ito book a last eight match-up with Turkmenistan’s Volcan Gokcek on Tuesday.

His teammate Mohammad Abu Jajeh missed out in the 60kg weight, losing 3-0 to Turkmenistan’s Hursand Imankuleve.

BARCELONA — Up against a baying Vicente Calderon crowd and a battle-hardened Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid could not produce the same dominant display as in their 3-0 win in the first leg, but reached another Champions League final on Wednesday thanks to their experience.

Goals from Saul Niguez and an Antoine Griezmann penalty inside 16 minutes gave Atletico tangible hope of pulling off the latest of a sensational set of comebacks in this season’s Champions League, but Real could not be intimidated.

The 11-times European champions, who were playing in their seventh consecutive semifinal and targetting a 15th final berth, waited for Atletico to run out of steam and Isco delivered a knockout blow before halftime to make it 2-1, putting them 4-2 up on aggregate.

“We knew Atletico were going to start well and they had a bit of luck in scoring the two goals, but we knew that if we scored it would kill them,” Cristiano Ronaldo told reporters.

“We’re Real Madrid and we showed that we have more experience,” added the prolific Portuguese, whose hat-trick at the Santiago Bernabeu in the first leg had given Real a huge advantage in the tie.

Unlike last season’s relatively straightforward run to the final, when they faced Roma, Wolfsburg and Manchester City before beating Atletico on penalties, Real have had a bruising path to the final to face Juventus in Cardiff on June 3, knocking out Napoli and Bayern Munich as well as Atletico.

Their talent-packed squad has allowed coach Zinedine Zidane to pick different starting line-ups from one week to the next and still be able to call upon 11 internationals, such as the side that swatted Granada aside 4-0 last Saturday.

“We have a great squad, it’s very complete, and we show that in every game,” added Ronaldo, who drew a blank in the second leg after scoring eight times in the previous three Champions League games.

“No-one said it was going to be easy, but we achieved our objective which was to get through,” said captain Sergio Ramos.

“I’m proud of this team for showing character when we were 2-0 down and go looking for the goal.”

Real are now chasing a first league and European Cup double since 1958 and could become the first team to defend the Europe’s biggest prize in the Champions League era, which began with the change in format in 1992.

“I’m delighted to be in a third Champions League final in four years,” added Ramos.

“Tomorrow we have to reflect on how huge an achievement this is after spending 11 years without playing the final. This group has a lot of hunger.”

MANAMA — FIFA President Gianni Infantino has failed to change the way the organisation is run, according to HRH Prince Ali, a former candidate for world football’s top job.

Infantino replaced Sepp Blatter at the helm of the sport’s global ruling body in February 2016, with Prince Ali among the defeated candidates.

At FIFA’s annual congress on Thursday, Infantino declared “New FIFA is a transparent organisation… it is a deeply honest organisation.”

But shortly after the end of the congress, which included little debate about a series of issues and unopposed electoral slates of committees elected by over 95 per cent of the delegates, prince Ali told reporters that the organisation remained in deep trouble.

“I think it is fairly obvious that a lot of things have not changed,” Prince Ali said.

“I am not going to judge anyone but what I will say is that the system, the way business is conducted is the same. I don’t see the refreshing change, the openness, the transparency that everybody talks about really taking effect on the ground,” said the prince, who is president the Jordanian Football Association.

On Tuesday, the FIFA Council opted against renewing the mandate of its two leading ethics officials who had handled the expulsion of a series of officials involved in corruption allegations.

The pair were replaced at congress with two nominations made by the FIFA Council, headed by Infantino.

Prince Ali said that move had been a mistake.

“Obviously, their term ran out but, having said that, they are in the middle of conducting their cases and what this is going to do is delay the process.

“To be honest if it not broken, don’t fix it. There seem to be many reasons we are hearing about why it is done but we were not given an explanation and that is the basic right of congress to know what the reasons are behind the changes — that reminds me of things that have happened in the past,” he said.

Asked whether, with US and Swiss authorities still investigating the body, Infantino’s actions represented a danger to FIFA, Prince Ali said: “I think so. It has already lost the battle of public opinion, we had a good chance to rebuild that and we need to, this is the world we live in — things cannot be conducted behind closed doors, everyone wants to know what is going on.”

Prince Ali is also concerned about the tone taken by Infantino over the ethics case and other issues.

“We are in a crisis, you can’t have a FIFA president who says everything is fine, as we have heard before, when obviously it is not,” he said. 

“Every other week something new comes to light and there are very serious allegations.”

TURIN — Juventus defender Dani Alves produced an inspired display capped by a stunning volleyed goal in a 2-1 win over AS Monaco on Tuesday that took the Italians into their second Champions League final in three years.

Brazilian Alves crossed for Mario Mandzukic to net the first goal in the semifinal, second leg and then scored the second through an explosive strike which, with Juve leading 2-0 from the first game, effectively finished off the tie by halftime.

Juventus were coasting until Monaco’s exciting 18-year-old forward Kylian Mbappe pulled a goal back in the 69th minute, ending a run of six successive clean sheets in the competition for the Serie A side and veteran goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon.

Tempers then flared when Monaco defender Kamil Glik appeared to stamp on forward Gonzalo Higuain, although the referee took no action against the Pole, leading to a bad-tempered final 20 minutes as Juve ran out comfortable 4-1 winners on aggregate.

They will face either Real Madrid or Atletico Madrid, who meet in the other semi at the Vicente Calderon on Wednesday with Real leading 3-0. The showpiece match is in Cardiff on June 3.

“I’m very happy with the way the lads played,” said Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri, whose side lost 3-1 to Barcelona in the 215 final. “It wasn’t easy to play in the Champions League and they deserved to get to the final.”

Monaco started brightly as they began the thankless task of trying to breach the Juve defence and the home side’s 39-year-old keeper Buffon flapped at Bernardo Silva’s cross in the first minute, although nobody was on hand to take advantage.

Mbappe then hit the inside of the post from a narrow angle, though he was flagged offside, and Radamel Falcao drove over from long range as the visitors pressed forward.

But Juventus always seemed to have too much guile and Higuain had already squandered one chance, with a failed attempt to dink the ball over goalkeeper Danijel Subasic, before Mandzukic put them ahead after 33 minutes.

The move started with Alex Sandro breaking out of defence to charge 50 metres down the left and the ball eventually found Alves who lofted a high cross over from the right.

Mandzukic’s header was brilliantly saved by Subasic but the keeper could do nothing as his fellow Croat fired home the rebound from close range.

Both teams had further chances as the game ebbed and flowed, but Juve were sharper in attack and struck again just before halftime.

Alves, who in the previous attack had played in Paulo Dybala with a precision pass, met Subasic’s punched clearance with a full-blooded volley from 25 metres and the ball flew into the net with the goalkeeper out of position. 

Juventus were able to drop the pace in the second half and neither Mbappe’s goal nor Glik’s tackle were anything more than mild annoyances as the reigning Italian champions cruised into next month’s final.