Sports

LONDON — Olympic champions Usain Bolt and Mo Farah lead a cast of the world’s leading athletes descending on Glasgow to compete in the Commonwealth Games starting in Scotland’s biggest city on Wednesday.

World-record holders, decorated Olympians and novice participants make up the 6,500 athletes representing 70 Commonwealth nations who share the aim of claiming prizes in 261 medal events in 17 sports.

Scotland hosts the 20th edition of the multi-sport event for the third time and instead of trying to emulate the success of the London 2012 Olympic Games, it will offer something quite different over 11 days of competition.

Although the Games may not be held in the same regard as the Olympics or a World Championship without superpowers such as the United States, China and Russia, there will be plenty of household names and fairytale stories.

Six-time Olympic gold medallist Bolt will bring a dose of showmanship to the Hampden Park running track when the towering Jamaican attempts to win his first Commonwealth medal in the 4x100 metres relay.

“I am available for relay duty if the selectors feel I can be an asset to the Jamaican team in Glasgow,” Bolt said.

“I have received lots of requests, invitations and messages of support from my fans in Scotland who are looking forward to a great event.”

England’s double Olympic and world champion Farah, who is fit to take part in the 5,000m and 10,000m after recovering from abdominal pains, will join Bolt in Glasgow and the pair will be hoping to perform their customary “lightning bolt” and “Mobot” celebrations.

“The Commonwealth Games is different from the Olympics,” the 31-year-old Farah said.

“In terms of which countries are involved, you have everyone at the Olympics so it’s not going to be the same, but at the same time it’s another title.

“I’m very excited to compete for England and go out there.”

David Rudisha, Kenya’s Olympic 800 metres champion and world record holder, will return to Glasgow after romping to victory at the Diamond League meeting last week and New Zealand’s Olympic and world shot put champion Valerie Adams remains unbeaten in her last 53 competitions.

Home favourite

Australia is expected to dominate the swimming with the likes of Cate Campbell, Christian Sprenger and James Magnussen, but home favourite Michael Jamieson will receive strong support in his bid to become the 200 metres breaststroke champion.

South African Chad Le Clos, who beat the great Michael Phelps to Olympic gold in the men’s 200 metres butterfly in London two years ago, will also try to add to the five Commonwealth medals he won in New Delhi four years ago.

“Hopefully, I can get one or two gold medals,” Le Clos said. “I’m hoping to do better than I did four years ago.

“It’s not quite like the Olympic Games or the World Championships where it’s the best in the world. It’s still going to be tough having the Aussies, the Brits, and the Canadians there.”

At cycling’s Velodrome, named after Scotland’s six-time Olympic champion Chris Hoy, England possesses a strong team and Hoy’s former sprint partner Jason Kenny is the man to beat in the individual sprint, while 2012 Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins takes part in the time trial.

But for all the talk surrounding the likes of Bolt and Farah, the Games also provides a platform for athletes from the lesser-known sports to make their name.

Squash is not recognised as an Olympic event and was rejected in favour of retaining wrestling at the 2020 and 2024 Games, meaning medals in Glasgow are the top prize for international competitors.

England’s three-time world champion Nick Matthew, who won the men’s singles and doubles titles in New Delhi, is the top seed in Glasgow and Malaysia’s defending champion Nicol David leads the women’s draw.

The integration of disability sports into the able-bodied programme ensures that the some of the world’s best athletes, regardless of classification, will be given equal billing.

Glasgow 2014 is a far cry from the games that were held four years ago in New Dehli. The Indian hosts were dogged by preparation and security issues whereas the Scottish organisers’ main concern will be the reliability of the British weather.

Whatever the conditions, the historic Celtic Park, home of former European Cup football winners Celtic, hosts the opening ceremony on Wednesday before the competition sprawls across the city, taking in venues mirroring the diversity of the events.

It all culminates in the finale at Hampden Park on August 3 but not before some familiar faces, along with a few new ones, have made their mark.

NEW DELHI — England skipper Alastair Cook is running out of time, excuses and places to hide after Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s India became the latest side to expose his weaknesses with a thumping victory at Lord’s to open a 1-0 lead in their five-match series.

His bright start to life as England captain at the end of 2012 now appears like a dim and distant memory as Dhoni carried on a trend started by Australia’s Michael Clarke before handing the baton on to Sri Lanka’s Angelo Mathews.

Cook’s poor form and questionable leadership have come under intense scrutiny with some critics suggesting he should give up his place at the top of England’s batting order and take a break from the game following Monday’s painful 95-run defeat.

The England skipper has little time to rally his troops ahead of the third Test starting in Southampton on Sunday, needing to lift his underperforming senior players and without the services of injured wicketkeeper Matt Prior for the rest of the series.

Cook’s malaise began with the 5-0 Ashes rout in Australia, continued when a modest Sri Lanka eked out a 1-0 series win in England earlier this summer and was amplified by being forced to eat humble pie by an average Indian attack in his own backyard.

The gravity of the latest defeat gains even more perspective when it was carried out by a notoriously poor-travelling India side that had not tasted an away Test victory since beating West Indies at Kingston in 2011.

Cook’s captaincy in the Lord’s Test provided further ammunition to detractors like Shane Warne, a constant critic of the Essex player’s “negative and boring” leadership.

England baffled the fans and pundits alike when Cook asked India to bat first at Lord’s on a greenish wicket and their pacemen proceeded to dish out a barrage of ineffective bouncers in the first session of the Test.

Similarly surprising was Cook’s decision to spread the field for India’s number 10 batsman Mohammad Shami, that too when his premier bowler James Anderson had the second new ball in his hand.

However, those frailties pale in comparison to how one-by-one his batsman succumbed to India’s hook trap after lunch on the final day, bounced out with an old ball by an erratic Ishant Sharma, who needed to be goaded into bowling short by Dhoni.

“He’s not scored a hundred in 27 innings, tactically he’s been all at sea for a while now,” former England captain Michael Vaughan told BBC, summing up Cook’s situation.

The often outspoken former opener Geoffrey Boycott was even harsher in his assessment.

“Only Alastair Cook, his wife and family want him to remain as captain — nobody else,” he said.

Astute Dhoni

Cook’s lack of tactical nous at Lord’s stands in stark contrast to the way Dhoni marshalled his team so skilfully, with the Indian skipper also going into the match under considerable pressure.

Regularly poor away from the sub-continent, India entered the contest with a 15-match winless streak in overseas Tests leaving critics like Ian Chappell believing it was time for Dhoni to hand the reins over to a new driver.

The 33-year-old from Ranchi, however, sniffed a rare opportunity against an English side still smarting from the Ashes rout in Australia and an aftermath that prompted wholesale changes to the composition of the Test squad.

Dhoni set attacking and innovative fields, smartly rotated his bowlers and then came up with a masterstroke on the final day when he asked a reluctant Sharma to target the confidence-sapped Englishmen with a battery of bouncers.

“To start with it was a bit difficult to convince him, so the last two overs when he came in, I just told him to bowl short,” Dhoni told reporters after the victory.

“I set a field to him so that he doesn’t even think of bowling up, so that was the strategy — give him a field where he is forced to bowl the kind of length I want him to bowl.”

Sharma, whose seven second innings wickets earned him the man-of-the-match award, was naturally effusive in his praise for his astute captain who persisted with the old ball.

“With the new ball the batsman can judge the bounce with ease, while with the old one he cannot gauge the bounce as some might take off and an odd one will keep low,” Sharma told www.bcci.tv.

“I feel all the wickets I got today should go to MS bhai [brother] because he planned them and set the field for them.”

HOCKENHEIM, Germany  — Where have all the German Formula One fans gone?

The glamour sport was asking itself that question after tens of thousands stayed away from a home Grand Prix that should have been box office gold in the land of Mercedes but instead left plenty of empty seats on Sunday.

Some pointed the finger at the country’s reigning quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel, struggling for form at a below-par Red Bull this season and unhappy with the new rules and engine format.

Others blamed World Cup fatigue, Germany’s strict tax rules on corporate hospitality or the absence of Michael Schumacher — the most successful driver of all time who retired in 2012 and is still in hospital after a near-fatal ski accident.

Whatever the reason, the facts on Sunday were stark.

The dominant Mercedes team, with championship leader Nico Rosberg triumphant, had just won their home Grand Prix with a German driver for the first time since the 1930s.

Such a result had looked on the cards for months — Mercedes have now won nine of 10 races so far — and yet instead of queues of cars on the autobahns and crowds thronging through the turnstiles, the race at Hockenheim drew an attendance of just 52,000 on Sunday.

In total, 95,000 turned up over the three days — a small crowd in one of the world’s largest car exporting nations and home of sporting marques like Porsche, BMW and Audi.

The Sunday figure represented a 38 per cent drop on the previous race at the circuit two years ago, when seven-time champion Schumacher was in the last season of his comeback with a then-uncompetitive Mercedes team.

When Schumacher — the first German world champion and a four-time winner in Hockenheim — announced his comeback with Mercedes in 2010, the circuit sold 10,000 tickets straight away.

Quiet engines

Katja Heim, the circuit adviser who was involved in the race promotion, said the crowd was better than the 45,000 at the Nuerburgring last year but Hockenheim was always more popular.

She blamed Vettel, and the return of the Red Bull-owned Austrian circuit which hosted its first race in 11 years in June, in part for some of the empty seats.

Vettel told reporters early in the season that the new V6 turbo hybrid engines, which are much quieter than the old V8s, sounded “shit”. He was not the only one of that opinion, but his words had resonance.

“It certainly didn’t really help that Sebastian in his frustration about the new Formula One and his car gave loads of interviews about how bad Formula One is now and that it’s not worth going there,” Heim said.

“As a four-time world champion from Germany, people believe him more than they would the salespeople. So if he says there’s nothing any more for the fans, it’s not Formula One like it used to be, that was 100 per cent quite damaging.”

Mercedes motorsport head Toto Wolff was inclined to agree.

“We’ve talked the sport down at the beginning of the year and we are all to blame, or many of us,” he told reporters on Sunday as he faced yet more questions about the poor turnout.

“The last couple of races were really good to watch. Lots of overtaking everywhere, so the sport is in good shape. We have to analyse properly why there are not more spectators in Hockenheim. It’s a shame,” he added.

“Is there a general trend that people just have many more options in what they do in the digital world? I don’t have an answer because from the sporting side all of us are doing it right.”

High prices

High ticket prices, with a category one weekend pass costing 515 euros ($700), were also seen as a factor — particularly with Austria offering a cheaper alternative as well as novelty value in the same German-speaking catchment area.

Austria was a sellout attraction, with tickets limited to 225,000 over the three days. An estimated 80,000 turned out on race day. Silverstone, home of the British Grand Prix, drew around 120,000.

Heim said Austria had probably taken six- or seven-thousand spectators away from Hockenheim, while seats that might have gone to corporate guests in the past were harder to shift.

Germany’s World Cup success, with the national team winning their fourth title in Brazil only the weekend before Hockenheim was also seen as contributing.

“Germany won the World Cup, and all the sports-mad people bought a ticket to Brazil,” Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. “They’re just worn out after so many major sports events.”

Heim agreed that was a consideration.

“For Formula One, it would may have been better if Germany had done an England and gone out in the first round. I really believe that,” she said with a smile.

But there are also deeper concerns, one to do with demographics and the need for the sport to appeal to a younger audience with other demands on their time and attention.

“Someone asked me yesterday ‘Do you think all your spectators died away?’” laughed Heim. “They were referring actually to the point that we need to find a trick to get new, young fans. That is something the whole sport has to embrace. We need to get cooler.”

HOYLAKE, England — The celebration began long before Rory McIlroy had a chance to drink out of the claret jug.

McIlroy was upstairs in the clubhouse at Royal Liverpool for the traditional toast with the R&A, unable to ignore the chants below from club members waiting for a glimpse of the British Open champion.

“Rory! Rory! Rory!”

It was a raucous scene for a club that starts with “Royal”, but such is the personality of Liverpool. The members booed anyone who came down the stairs who did not have curly brown hair, freckles and a claret jug. And their cheers shook the brick clubhouse when Boy Wonder finally descended with the oldest trophy in golf.

The scene was so much different a year ago.

McIlroy stood on a podium in a makeshift tent outside Muirfield, speaking to reporters with a vacant look in those brown eyes. He had just opened with a 79, his worst start ever in a major in what was shaping up as a year to forget. He had no idea what was wrong with him or his game.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m walking around out there and I’m unconscious,” he said that day. “I just need to try to think more. I’m trying to focus and trying to concentrate but, yeah, I can’t really fathom it at the minute.

“I’m definitely under thinking on the golf course. Maybe overthinking off it.”

He looked lost.

Now he looks like the best player in golf. And odds are, the worst of times might lead to the best.

If he felt unconscious on the golf course a year ago, he looked unconscious at times at Royal Liverpool. His golf was simply explosive on Friday afternoon with two bursts of birdies, and plenty of chances in between, on his way to a 66. The defining moment of this championship was Saturday, when McIlroy went from a share of the lead to six shots clear in just over an hour. He made eagle on two of the last three holes with two mammoth drives, two pretty swings and two perfect putts.

Nothing came easily to McIlroy over the last 18 months.

He was criticised for swapping out equipment when he signed a megadeal with Nike. He showed his age when he quit in the middle of the Honda Classic and initially blamed it on a sore wisdom tooth. He changed agents for the second time, and lawsuits followed that are still to be decided in court. He got engaged to tennis player Caroline Wozniacki to start the new year, then broke it off with a telephone call in May.

And there he was on Sunday, introduced as the “champion golfer of the year”, his name etched in silver, his eyes gazing at all the names on that claret jug.

Asked for a low point during his struggles, McIlroy didn’t hesitate.

“This time last year,” he said.

Through it all, the 25-year-old from Northern Ireland never doubted he could return. He won the US Open and the PGA Championship by eight shots. That wasn’t an accident. He won the money title on both sides of the Atlantic. There was never a question of his skill.

“It was just trying to find a way to make it come out again,” McIlroy said. “But yeah, definitely, missing the cut at Muirfield last year was a very low point. I never missed a cut at the Open before. I said to myself, ‘I’ll try to never make that happen again.’ It’s been huge what a difference a year makes. But it’s turned into a great year.”

And the tough times should only lead to better times.

Tom Watson knows that as well as anyone. He flopped badly in his first couple of shots at a major until he won the Open at Carnoustie in 1975, the first of eight majors and a career that ranks among the best. He played the British Open for the 37th time. Watson has seen a lot in his career, and failure piques his interest as much as success.

“He’s gone through a struggle with his golf game over a period of time,” Watson said of McIlroy. “And now it seems like he’s got it back. And you learn a lot from your failures. And he’ll come back stronger if you fail. I know it was a burden on him. The frustration was there with him. All golfers feel the same frustration. You’ve gone through the low spells. You’ve gone through the times where you couldn’t break an egg.

“And then finally, all of a sudden, the light switch will turn on... and it gets easy. That’s what happened to me many times in my career. And it seems like it’s happened to Rory.”

Where does McIlroy go from here? He has moved to No. 2 in the world behind Adam Scott. Even though the PGA Championship is three weeks away, his eyes already are looking ahead to Augusta National in April, a shot at the Masters to become only the sixth player to complete the career Grand Slam.

“When he’s in rhythm, he’s phenomenal,” Scott said. “He doesn’t have weaknesses and he has more strengths than most anyone else. When he’s in rhythm, you’ll see him shoot low numbers all the time.”

AMMAN — Jordan’s national basketball team finished fifth at the 5th FIBA Asia Cup that ended in Wuhan, China.

Jordan beat Japan 79-72 after trailing 40-35 at halftime. Jordan lost to Taiwan 85-63, beat Singapore 70-53, lost to the Philippines 71-70. In Round 2, the them lost to Iran 75-60 and eventually settled to play from 5-8th spots. They beat India 69-65 and played Japan for fifth place. India finished in 7th spot.

The Philippines took third place after beating China 80-79 while Iran retained its title after beating Taiwan
89-79 in the final match. 

The winner of this tournament automatically qualifies for the FIBA Asia Championship in 2015 that qualifies three teams to the World Championship. 

Jordan moved to the 5th FIBA Asia Cup after it won the title of the West Asian Basketball Association (WABA) Championship in Amman for the second time in the absence of both the Lebanese and senior Iranian teams, that dominated the event in the past few years. 

Coach Murad Barakat acknowledged the absence of two top teams helped the squad’s results, while also noting that technical director Serbian Rajko Truman was new to the squad and many players did not have ample time to prepare with the line-up.

The team later played at the Alexandria Championship before heading to the Asia Cup that had 10 teams playing. Hosts  China, as well defending FIBA Asia Championship titleholders Iran automatically qualified to the event held every two years and previously known as the Stankovich Cup. Qatar was champs in 2004, Jordan in 2008, Lebanon in 2010 and Iran in 2012.

Jordan reached the World Championship once in 2010, after it beat Lebanon in the third place match at the 25th FIBA Asia Championship.

Jordan had previously won the West Asia title in 2002 and qualified to the FIBA Asia Championship. In the 2011 qualifiers, Jordan finished second behind Iran and qualified to the 26th FIBA Asia Championship where, for the first time in the country’s history, it reached the finals but lost the chance to qualify to the 2012 Olympic Games. Jordan then played at the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) for Men but lost to Puerto Rico and Greece and was eliminated. The OQT gave Asia’s second and third teams a chance to qualify to the London Games basketball event. In the past two seasons, Jordan had finished third at WABA Championship.

AMMAN — The men’s Olympic team will host Iran in two matches this week as part of a rigorous agenda aimed at getting the squad ready for the 2015 Asian Games qualifiers as well as the 2016 Olympic qualifiers.

Jordan will play Iran on Monday in the first of two matches before it plays Bahrain on August 9 and hosts the Uzbek team on August 30.

Coach Jamal Abu Abed again expressed his dissatisfaction with the preliminary phase of preparations as his efforts to regroup the line-up have so far been hampered with players not released either by their teams in the league as well as being on national team duty. Even now, the line-up has five players missing as they are with Wihdat’s camp in Turkey.

Jordan lately tied Kuwait 1-1 in two matches before holding Qatar 0-0. The coach said he was satisfied with the team’s performance in latest matches despite the agenda. “We are exerting all efforts and will aim to amend any gaps in upcoming friendlies. We hope to be able to have a final camp in east Asia before heading to South Korea for the Asian Games,” Abu Abed was quoted as saying by the local media.

Jordan lately settled for second place after losing 1-0 to Palestine in the final of the Palestine International Championship. Earlier this year, the team hosted the England C squad in a historic match, losing 1-0.

HOCKENHEIM, Germany — Nico Rosberg won the German Grand Prix on Sunday to stretch his lead in the Formula One drivers’ championship over Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton, who finished third after starting 20th.

“It’s an amazing feeling to win at home. It’s a very special day,” said Rosberg, who led throughout to become the first German to triumph at Hockenheim since Michael Schumacher won in 2006.

Hamilton, who crashed in qualifying and survived a number of scrapes throughout the race, could not pass Valtteri Bottas in the closing laps and the Finn took second to give Williams its 300th F1 podium finish.

“It was not easy and required input from all the engineers. Thanks to all the fans. I saw many Finnish flags so thank you,” Bottas said.

Hamilton was pushed back to the penultimate row of the grid due to his qualifying crash and a penalty for changing his gearbox, but threaded his way through the field despite a broken front wing caused by a collision with former teammate Jenson Button of McLaren.

His super-soft tyres wore quickly in his final stint and he did not have the grip to get past Bottas. Rosberg leads Hamilton by 14 points going into next weekend’s race in Hungary.

Four-time defending champ Sebastian Vettel was fourth, ahead of Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, who won his exciting battle with Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo for fifth.

Alonso and Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, who finished seventh, are the only drivers to have scored points in each of the 10 races so far this season, and the Spaniard’s points finish means Ferrari has finished in the points for 77 consecutive races.

There was a collision at the first corner between Kevin Magnussen’s McLaren and Felipe Massa’s Williams, which flipped over and slid across the run-off area in a shower of sparks.

The McLaren also left the track and Ricciardo had to steer wide around them to avoid the damage, dropping him down to 15th and compromising his race.

Magnussen had to pit to repair damage to his left front tyre but Massa’s race was over. The Brazilian emerged unhurt from the car to cheers from the crowd.

“I’m okay. The accident was a little bit more scary watching than being inside. I just saw everything the other way around, but I am fine,” Massa said. “I am so disappointed at what happened. It’s another race and another car that has pushed me out and finished my race. With a car that is very competitive and fast that’s so disappointing.”

Massa said the Danish driver was at fault although a stewards’ review found no wrongdoing.

“I was in front and doing the corner in front. If someone needs to watch, it’s the car behind,” Massa said.

It was looking like it could be another a 1-2 for Mercedes as Hamilton quickly worked his way through the field. The Briton hit Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari to overtake both the Finn and Ricciardo in a brave move at the hairpin on lap 13. A piece of Raikkonen’s front plate flew into the air.

On lap 30, Hamilton tried to overtake Button on the hairpin but damaged his left-front wing and that proved critical in finishing third rather than second.

“I did as good as I could. It was hard to get through the pack safely and I had a little bit of a collision with Jenson,” Hamilton said.

“I thought he was going to open the door which he has done a couple of times lately but that was my bad judgement.”

Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat retired on lap 46 when his car burst into flames. The Russian was visibly annoyed, hitting a barrier in frustration.

Adrian Sutil of Sauber spun on lap 50 of 67 and stalled in the middle of the start-finish straight. The race director had to make a big decision on whether to bring out the safety car, which would have pulled Rosberg back to the field, or let the race continue, and he chose the latter even though it took a couple of laps before they moved the car.

“That would have made it more difficult,” a relieved Rosberg acknowledged.

It has been a remarkable couple of weeks since the German’s first non-finish of the season at the British Grand Prix. The 29-year-old married his girlfriend, watched Germany win the World Cup, signed a contract extension with Mercedes, and he has now won his home GP for his fourth victory of the season.

Rosberg had previously not finished higher than eighth place at Hockenheim, in 2010. The best he managed at a German GP was fourth at the Nurburgring the year before that.

HOCKENHEIM, Germany — Formula One leader Nico Rosberg put Mercedes on pole position for his home German Grand Prix on Saturday after a brake failure dumped title rival and teammate Lewis Hamilton out of qualifying.

Hamilton, who is four points behind Rosberg in the standings after nine of 19 races, ended up sore and 16th after a heavy crash but should start 15th when a penalty is applied to Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez ahead of him.

Finland’s Valtteri Bottas joined Rosberg on the front row for Mercedes-powered Williams, with Brazilian teammate Felipe Massa qualifying third on a searingly hot afternoon at Hockenheim with temperatures in the 50OC.

The pole was Rosberg’s fifth of the season, fourth in the last five races and ninth of his career, but less satisfying than some.

“It’s great, a home race and to be on pole is fantastic,” the 29-year-old, who got married last week and signed a new multi-year contract with Mercedes while also celebrating Germany’s football World Cup win, told reporters.

“Of course I would have preferred it if it was an open fight with Lewis, so a little less happy as a result because Lewis didn’t have a shot at it again,” said Rosberg.

McLaren’s Danish rookie Kevin Magnussen qualified a strong fourth, with 2009 world champion teammate Jenson Button only 11th, to ensure Mercedes-powered cars filled the two front rows of the grid.

Red Bull’s quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel, a home winner last year when the race was held at the Nuerburgring, will line up sixth and behind Australian teammate Daniel Ricciardo in fifth place.

Victory on Sunday would make Rosberg the first German to win his home Grand Prix in a German car since Rudolf Caracciola in 1939, as well as the first driver in 60 years to win in Germany for a works Mercedes team.

With five of the eight races to date at the redesigned circuit won from pole, Rosberg also knows he has a great chance to extend his lead considerably although the weather could play a hand.

“It is supposed to be a bit colder [on Sunday], so it should make it easier on the tyres. The weather could play a role, so I just need to take it as it comes,” said Rosberg.

Hamilton crash

The German had been fastest in final practice, after Hamilton had been top of the timesheets on Friday, with Saturday expected to be another duel between the top two for pole but it did not turn out that way.

The Briton provided the early drama when he crashed heavily at the Sachs Kurve section of the stadium complex, where Mercedes have a grandstand, bringing out red flags to stop the session in the first phase of qualifying.

The team blamed a right front brake disc failure for the accident, with a puff of smoke visible before the car spun and was pitched into the tyre wall.

Hamilton — who uses a different brand of brakes to Rosberg as a matter of personal choice — stepped out of the car and was taken to the medical centre before returning to the paddock, declared OK but sore.

The crash continued a run of bad luck for 2008 champion Hamilton, who has retired from two races this season through no fault of his own while Rosberg suffered his first blank in Britain two weeks ago.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, winner of the last two races held at Hockenheim, qualified seventh while struggling Finnish teammate Kimi Raikkonen starts 12th.

Russian rookie Daniil Kvyat qualified eighth for Toro Rosso, with the Force India duo of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez 9th and 10th.

AMMAN  — Jordan climbed up six spots to 57th place in the latest FIFA rankings issued over the weekend.

Following the recently concluded World Cup, there were big changes on FIFA top 10 rankings as newly crowned champs Germany took top spot followed by runners-up Argentina, the Netherlands, Columbia, Belgium, Uruguay, Brazil, Spain, Switzerland and France. 

The Kingdom, which qualified to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup 2015 in Australia, went up to fifth among Asian Football Confederation teams, and is now the top ranked Arab team in Asia and fourth ranked Arab team after Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia.

Asian rankings are led by Japan at 45th spot, followed by Iran (49), Uzbekistan (52), South Korea (56), Jordan (57), the UAE (65), Oman (69), Australia (76), Saudi Arabia (78) and Palestine (98) — after they qualified to the Asian Cup for the first time and shot up 71 spots last month.

Jordan advanced to the Asian Cup finals after finishing second in Group A qualifiers behind leaders Oman. They will play in Group D with 2011 titleholders Japan, Iraq and Palestine.

The qualifiers included 25 teams playing in five groups of four teams each. The top two teams from each group and the best third-placed team qualified to the tournament set for January 9, 2015. Teams qualifying automatically to the finals include 2011 Asian Cup champions Japan, third-placed South Korea, hosts and runners-up Australia, AFC Challenge Cup 2012 winners North Korea and 2014 AFC Challenge Cup champs Palestine. 

Jordan last played Columbia in June, losing 3-0 in an important friendly as the squad kicked off a series of high level friendlies in preparation for Asian Cup 2015. The Jordan Football Association (JFA) has now scheduled six other matches aimed at giving the line-up optimum competitive experience against leading teams as they prepare for their third participation in the Asian Cup. 

Jordan is set to host Uzbekistan on September 3, China on September 9, Malaysia on October 11, South Korea on November 14, the UAE on December 31 and Bahrain on January 4, 2015.

In its past eight times since first taking part in Asian Cup qualifiers in 1972, Jordan reached the finals twice. In the 13th Asian Cup, it lost to Japan in the quarter-finals and jumped to the best ever FIFA ranking of 37th place in August 2004. In 2011, Jordan again reached the quarter-finals where it lost 2-1 to Uzbekistan.

During 2013, Jordan climbed 30 spots and ended the year in 65th place overall and 5th among AFC teams.

BERLIN — The omens were not good.

In late May, as the Germany football team gathered at their World Cup training camp in Italy, news broke that manager Joachim Loew had been stripped of his driver’s license for six months after a series of speeding tickets.

Days earlier, Kevin Grosskreutz, a versatile defender, had been caught urinating in the lobby of a luxury hotel in Berlin.

Two other players, attending a public relations event, had been involved in a high-speed car crash that seriously hurt two pedestrians.

The troubled start fuelled public panic about Loew’s coaching strategies.

The training camp, designed to get the players ready for the tropical heat of Brazil, was beset by cold temperatures and heavy rain. Then, in a friendly against Armenia before their departure for Brazil, Germany lost Marco Reus, one of the team’s best players, to an ankle injury.

With a “golden generation” of some of the best football players Germany has ever produced, there is little doubt the pressure on the 54-year-old Loew was building as he set off for Brazil.

Eighty one million Germans — desperate for a fourth world title after wins in 1954, 1974 and 1990 — felt it was time for the sharply dressed, mop-haired manager to deliver or quit.

The “Bundestrainer” — as Germans call the head coach — had taken his talent-laden team to the semifinals of their last four major international tournaments, but failed to win a trophy.

That was just not good enough in a country where the World Cup has been an integral part of post-World War II identity ever since the 1954 “Miracle of Berne”.

That improbable triumph, historians say, gave the broken, bombed-out nation such a boost it helped spark West Germany’s economic miracle.

So how did Germany overcome all their problems and go on to beat hosts Brazil in a sensational 7-1 semifinal thrashing before edging Argentina 1-0 in extra-time in the final?

The answer: Attention to detail, ignoring distractions and milkshakes.

Talking to reporters after arriving at Germany’s Brazilian base in Santo Andre, an isolated town on the Atlantic shore, Loew outlined his thoughts.

“I’ve been around long enough to realise that some of these same kinds of debates repeat themselves from tournament to tournament,” he said.

“Obviously people are going to have different opinions on the line-up and on the tactics. But I’m going to try to stay away from of all that.”

Six warm-ups

More than any other squad at the World Cup, Loew and his players treated each of their six matches as warm-ups along the way to the final they always seemed confident of reaching — and winning.

Victories in the group stage and the early knock-out phase brought not celebrations but a quiet round of banana milk shakes at the German compound.

Loew repeated a simple sporting mantra after each win — victory was meaningless unless they won the cup.

With customary German thoroughness, Loew and his coaches were as well prepared as possible. They spent two years focusing on every detail from tactics to vegetation.

A team of 50 students at the University of Cologne compiled an enormous database of information about every team, their strategies and their players.

German staff took care to make sure the grass on their training pitch near their compound was “South American” and identical to that used in Brazilian pitches.

Loew picked the base because it was two hours flying time from the bright lights of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where many of the other 31 teams set up.

He also wanted his players to be in a tropical part of Brazil to get ready for the scorching afternoon conditions they would experience.

To blot out distractions further Germany struck a deal with a German developer in Brazil to build them a spanking new 14-villa luxury compound they dubbed “Campo Bahia”.

The fortress, erected in the middle of a poor town of 800 residents, was protected by high walls and armed guards.

Some 30 kilometres and a 15-minute ferry-crossing from the nearest city of Porto Seguro, the camp’s isolation meant no distractions, no sponsors, no well-wishers and no journalists to stir dissent.

“We’re glad that none of you tried to climb over the walls and sneak into the camp,” team manager Oliver Bierhoff told reporters on the eve of the final. “The conditions for the team to focus and concentrate were ideal.”

Loew and his players kept their distance from the 100 or so German reporters who followed the team. Unlike his predecessors Rudi Voeller and Juergen Klinsmann, Loew did not speak to journalists on the plane journey to the World Cup.

Once in Brazil, reporters were fed information in tightly controlled daily news conferences.

Only the odd player and occasionally an assistant coach were sent up to answer questions. Loew attended just two in five weeks and even bluntly told the reporters that he was not reading German newspapers — and neither were his players.

The manager was spotted almost every day jogging or walking along the beach.

“That’s where he lets off steam,” said captain Philipp Lahm.

New phones

The players also got new cell phone numbers before the tournament, effectively cutting off their media contacts.

“Sorry, I don’t have my cell phone anymore so I can’t get your text messages,” Loew told one exasperated tabloid reporter.

Klinsmann’s assistant coach from 2004 to 2006, Loew was part of a revolution in the German team.

Klinsmann, a former Germany striker, added physical fitness specialists, a psychologist and urged the team to play more open, attacking football. That was credited with helping Germany to the European Championship final in 2008 and the semifinals of the World Cup in 2006 and 2010.

But after Loew’s entertaining squad lost yet another semifinal at the 2012 European Championship to outsiders Italy, the mood began to turn.

Loew had made wholesale changes before the Italy match. When Germany lost, critics said Loew was guilty of over-coaching and was a control freak.

In Brazil he decided he would not get burned like that again and re-jigged his high-scoring team to give it more defensive strength by including four towering centre-backs, sacrificing speed and crossing proficiency for a tighter defence.

The move was poorly understood and widely criticised. The German public wanted attractive, high-scoring play and assured victories.

In the eyes of many, Loew also committed a cardinal sin by putting his captain Lahm, considered by many to be the world’s best right back, into midfield for the first four matches.

Germany struggled at times and the criticism escalated. When a reporter accused Loew of appearing to be content with the shaky 2-1 extra-time win over Algeria in the last 16, Loew snapped.

“Should I really be disappointed that we made it to the quarter-finals?,” he said.

An opinion poll showed 93 per cent of Germans wanted Lahm to return to full back and Loew moved him there for the final three matches.

“No, I don’t have a closed mind when it comes to advice,” Loew said. “A team needs to improve their performance through the course of the tournament. That’s the art that a team needs to master.”

After the victory over Argentina, Loew smiled for the first time in weeks and said he was keen to fulfil his contract, which has another two years to run.

“This is something for eternity,” he said. “We’re the first European team to win the World Cup in South America. It took 10 years of hard work to get here.”