Page 22 - Aruba Today

A22
SPORTSFriday 15 January 2016
Spanish Preview:
Zidane looks to keep Real Madrid on a roll approach to teams’ Serie A lead
TALES AZZONI
AP Sports Writer
MADRID (AP) — Zinedine
Zidane gets a chance
to keep Real Madrid’s
momentum going in a
home game against strug-
gling Sporting Gijon in the
Spanish league this week-
end.
After routing Deportivo
La Coruna 5-0 at the San-
tiago Bernabeu Stadium
in Zidane’s debut as head
coach on Saturday, Ma-
Real Madrid’s new head coach Zinedine Zidane gives instructions from the side line during a
Spanish La Liga soccer match between Real Madrid and Deportivo Coruna at the Santiago Ber-
nabeu stadium in Madrid, Saturday, Jan. 9, 2016. Zidane gets a chance to keep Real Madrid’s
momentum going in a home game against struggling Sporting Gijon in the Spanish league this
weekend.
drid plays an opponent
that has lost seven of its last Sergio Ramos is nursing a
eight games, including the
last four. Sporting hasn’t
won a match since early
December and is only 18th
in the 20-team standings.
It has a game in hand,
but it’s against Barcelona.
To make things worse, the
team just found out that
it will be without defend-
er Bernardo Espinosa for
about seven months be-
cause of a knee injury sus-
tained last weekend.
Madrid, meanwhile, is
boosted by the arrival of
Zidane, who breathed new
life into the Spanish giant
after it struggled under
coach Rafa Benitez.
Another victory under the
command of the former
player will keep fans sat-
isfied and can move the
team closer to the top of
the table. At the halfway
point, Madrid is third with
40 points, two less than Bar- — Barcelona and Malaga
celona and four less than
Atletico Madrid.
Zidane has had a full week
to train the squad and try
to reinforce his playing
style, which is based on try- been enough to keep the
ing to retain ball possession wins coming. Atletico leads
and avoid long ball transi-
tions from the defense to
the attack.
The only bad news for the
former France great going
into Sunday’s match at the
Bernabeu is that captain
lingering shoulder injury
that forced him to be sub-
stituted at halftime against
Deportivo last Saturday.
Here are other things to
know about the 20th round:
ATLETICO’S DOMINANCE
Atletico Madrid, which
plays at 16th-place Las
Palmas on Sunday, is the
hottest team in the Span-
ish league with eight wins in Enrique rested striker Ney-
its last nine games. Its only mar and defender Gerard
setback was a 1-0 loss at
Malaga four rounds ago.
Diego Simeone’s team
continues to rely on solid
defense to stay on top. At-
letico has conceded eight
goals in 19 matches, and
the only time it conceded
more than one goal in a
game was in a 2-1 home
defeat to Barcelona in the
third round. It’s by far the
Italian Preview:
Napoli coach taking a pragmatic
best defense in the league ANDREW DAMPF
AP Sports Writer
come next with 15 goals ROME (AP) — Diego Maradona has already prom-
each. ised that he will make a splashy arrival by helicopter
Atletico has scored 27 times if Napoli wins its first Serie A title in more than a quar-
— Real Madrid has 52 goals ter of a century.
and Barcelona 44 — but it’s Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri is taking a more prag-
matic approach after the southern club claimed Se-
rie A’s symbolic “winter title” last weekend.
the league with 14 victo- “I don’t attribute any importance to it,” Sarri said of
ries, one more than Bar- Napoli’s two-point lead over four-time defending
celona. Real Madrid and champion Juventus and Inter Milan after 19 of 38
fourth-place Villarreal each rounds in Serie A.
won 12 times in 19 rounds. The halfway champion has gone on to win Serie A
“We’ve been improving nearly seven out of every 10 seasons.
The last time Napoli earned the mid-term honor was
in 1990, when the team went on to claim its last title.
Maradona was the star of the 1990 team and also
helped Napoli to the title in 1987 — the club’s only
two Serie A championships.
“It’s useless to look at statistics from the past,” Sarri
added. “We’ve got to imagine ourselves like mar-
(AP Photo/Francisco Seco) athon runners. We’ve reached the race’s halfway
point but we’ve still got 21 kilometers (13 miles) to
game after game,” Sime- go.” The next test comes Saturday against a Sas-
one said. suolo lineup that is in sixth place and beat Inter 1-0
last weekend.
FULL-STRENGTH BARCELO- Inter can put pressure on Napoli with a win at Ata-
NA lanta earlier Saturday, while Juventus will be seeking
After resting some players its 10th consecutive win at Udinese on Sunday.
in the 2-0 win over Espan- Fourth-place Fiorentina, which is three points back,
yol in the Copa del Rey on visits struggling AC Milan on Sunday.
Wednesday, coach Luis Fifth-place Roma, which fired Rudi Garcia on
Enrique is expected to field Wednesday, hosts last-place Hellas Verona.
the team’s regular start- Also this weekend, it’s: Torino vs. Frosinone; Genoa
ers when Barcelona hosts vs. Palermo; Bologna vs. Lazio; Carpi vs. Sampdoria;
eighth-place Athletic Bil- and Chievo Verona vs. Empoli.
bao on Sunday. Here are a few things to know about Serie A enter-
ing this weekend’s matches:
Pique against Espanyol, but GONZALO’S GOALS
the duo is expected to be Nobody in Europe’s top leagues is scoring at a faster
back in the squad against rate than Napoli’s Gonzalo Higuain.
Athletic. Luis Suarez, who The Argentine player has 18 goals in 19 Serie A
didn’t play Wednesday matches — 20 in 23 appearances in all competitions
because of a suspension — for a rate of one goal every 89 minutes.
for insulting opponents in In Europe, only Alex Texeira at Shakhtar Donetsk (22
the first leg against the city goals) and Nemanja Nikolic at Legia Warsaw (21
rival, also is set to return. goals) have scored more than Higuain this season,
Neymar and Suarez are the while Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang at Borussia Dort-
league’s leading scorers mund also has 18 goals.
with 15 goals each.q Lionel Messi only has nine goals in the Spanish league
while Cristiano Ronaldo has 14.
ROMA REVIVAL?
With Luciano Spalletti widely expected to be named
as the replacement for the fired Rudi Garcia, Roma
is hoping the squad can rediscover the form that
made it an early season title contender.
With only one win in its last seven Serie A matches,
Roma has dropped to fifth place, seven points be-
hind leader Napoli.
Roma never really recovered psychologically from
a 6-1 rout by Barcelona in the Champions League in
November. Spalletti coached Roma from 2005-09,
winning two Italian Cups and an Italian Super Cup -
the Giallorossi’s last titles of any kind. He then spent
five years with Zenit St. Petersburg before being fired
in March 2014. q