IFFHS NEWS AND STATISTICS OF THE WEEK 39
Picture : After the League, Cup and UEFA Champions League, FC Bayern won the UEFA Super Cup last week !
THE FIRST WOMAN HEAD REFEREE IN MLS SINCE 20 YEARS !
Tori Penso became the first woman Wednesday in 20 years to referee an MLS match, officiating the match between Nashville SC and D.C. United at Nissan Stadium.
After officiating five matches this year in the National Women's Soccer League Challenge Cup and four more in the USL Championship, Penso is the first woman since Sandy Hunt on May 13, 2000 to do so.
Penso, from Stuart, Flor has been a fourth official in three MLS matches this season and is one of nine women to have officiated in any capacity this season.
Penso has risen through the Professional Referee Organization's development program, PRO 2, which helps identify and train match officials outside of MLS. The Florida native is one of the 13 women in PRO2, out of 43 total referees. With Penso ending the hiatus for women officiating in MLS, she has the opportunity join PRO, the platoon of referees officiating in MLS.
Penso was the fourth official in the NWSL Challenge Cup final between the Houston Dash and the Chicago Red Stars on July 26.
UEFA SUPER CUP RECORDS !
Javi Martinez is Bayern München's Mr Super Cup.
Seven years after scoring an extra-time goal to help Bayern win its last UEFA Super Cup, Martinez netted the winner in the 104th minute as the German club beat Sevilla 2-1 in the European curtain raiser in a stadium partially filled with fans. Martinez rose above a crowd of players to head in the rebound when Sevilla goalkeeper Yassine Bounou parried David Alaba's speculative shot.
Bayern midfielder Thomas Muller , who joined his old teammate Bastian Schweinsteiger at the first place in Germany with 26 Trophies won (!), hailed Martinez as “Mr Super Cup,” recalling the 2013 goal which sent a game against Chelsea to a penalty shootout which Bayern won.
Playing extra time was far from ideal for either team in a season which has started later than normal and will have a more congested calendar amid the coronavirus pandemic. For both Bayern and Sevilla it was the start of a run of four games in 11 days and came barely a month after Bayern beat PSG in the UEFA Champions League Final.
Europa League champions Sevilla took an early lead when David Alaba fouled Ivan Rakitic and Lucas Ocampos converted the 13th-minute penalty. Champions League winners Bayern levelled when Leon Goretzka hammered in a ball expertly cued up for him by Robert Lewandowski in the 34th minute. Bayern were largely in control of the second half but saw two goals ruled out – one for offside, one for a shove by Lewandowski – and needed Neuer to save Youssef En-Nesyri's shot on the counterattack in the 87th minute.
The game played with around 15,000 supporters in the Puskas Arena, around a quarter of capacity, as UEFA trialled a partial return of fans in time for the Champions League and Europa League group stages, was the first after COVID in european competitions with fans !
However, the recent rise in coronavirus cases across Europe – and Budapest in particular – made it a controversial move. Around 800 out of the 2100 tickets sold to Bayern fans were returned ahead of the game after politicians in the state of Bavaria warned fans against going to Budapest. Sevilla distributed around 500 tickets, meaning the vast majority of people in the stadium were Hungarian locals.
Social distancing rules were largely followed at the Puskas Arena, with fans mostly sitting in ones and twos with empty seats in between. However, travelling Bayern fans pushed to the front of their sector to watch the trophy presentation and stood shoulder to shoulder when the team came to celebrate in front of their stand. Only a few wore masks, which UEFA had said were obligatory “when social distancing cannot be respected.”
The international travel for Bayern and Sevilla fans also made the Super Cup an outlier. The main European leagues that have resumed with supporters, such as Germany and France, have restricted games to home fans so as not to encourage long-distance travel during the pandemic.
Bayern lifted a fourth trophy in three months after the Bundesliga, German Cup and Champions League, even if it was a largely symbolic prize. Sevilla have played four Super Cup games in the last seven years as a serial winner of the Europa League and lost them all. FC Bayern is also the first team EVER in the 5 Top Leagues of the World to win 23 games in a row in all competitions ! Yesterday, FC Bayern lost his first match since December 7, 2019 in the Bundesliga against Hoffenheim.
YUKI NAGASATO WITH MEN TEAM !
Women's World Cup winner Yuki Nagasato is joining Japanese men's club Hayabusa Eleven on loan from the Chicago Red Stars in the NWSL. The men's team plays in an amateur regional league that is several levels below the country's top pro soccer league, the J-League.
Nagasato, who won the Women's World Cup with Japan in 2011, joined Chicago in 2017 after playing in several other leagues. The Red Stars said in a statement that Nagasato's loan will end prior to the 2021 NWSL preseason.
"I want to get the message out to the girls who are playing soccer with the boys that women can join the men's team and challenge themselves," Nagasato said . She said she is looking forward to playing for a team in her hometown of Atsugi, which is located near Yokohama just southwest of Tokyo.
"It was very inspiring to hear the social message about gender inequality and other messages that Rapinoe was trying to deliver during the 2019 World Cup," Nagasato said. "So I have been thinking about how I can do the same." It was her older brother Genki, a former J-League player who plays for Hayabusa, who helped his sister join the team.
"For over a decade she's been telling me that her ultimate dream is to play in a men's team," Genki Nagasato said. "So, as an older brother, I wanted to help my sister achieve her dream."
TRANSFERS
Edouard Mendy (France) from Stade Rennais to Chelsea FC (England). The same way that made Petr Cech before 16 years with the fantastic career behind !
Luis Enrique from Botafogo (Brazil) to Olympique Marseille (France)
Alvaro Morata (Spain) from Atlético Madrid to Juve (Italy)
Karina Saevik (Norway) from Paris SG (France) to VFL Wolfsburg (Germany)
CLASH FEDERATION – LEAGUE IN CAMEROON
Authorities managing the Cameroon Football Federation and Cameroon Professional Football League have failed to arrive at a consensus in the application of the ruling of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, CAS, even after the country’s Minister for Sports and Physical Education urged both parties to bow to the rulings within the shortest possible time. The saga could further delay resumption of the domestic championships, and even compromise the country’s chances of hosting the African Championships, and Cup of Nations scheduled, respectively, over the next two years.
The point of discord is the reinstatement of the President of the League. By the CAS ruling on it, the President of the federation brought 68 out of 70 members of the General Assembly to voting to extend the mandate of the President of the League by one year, in a move that would allow him in office even though he is above 75 years of age, contrary to the age limit specified in the statutes. In turn, the Federation boss insists on appointing the Secretary General of the League as authorized by the same statutes. But the reinstated League President is against the second move, brandishing the ruling by CAS which reinstates, by induction, the entire Board of Governors as they were voted into office on the list system. Faced with this clash on the application of the this part of the ruling, the latter has vowed to once more knock at the door of CAS.
It would be recalled that the Court of Arbitration for Sport recently ruled in the case in which the Cameroon Football Federation suspended the Executive Bureau of the Cameroon Professional League in October, 2019, and appointed then a Transitional Technical Committee to manage the affairs of the league. By the ruling, the Cameroon Federation wasrequired to pay a 5,000-Swiss-franc fee to the league in damages and to reinstate the suspended officials headed by retired army general, Pierre Semengue whose legibility at the helm thus goes effective as of October 18, 2019.