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Home , Holger Badstuber, Konstantin Rausch, Sebastian Jung, Serdar Tasci, Zinedine Zidane

SPORTS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2016

Spanish League Preview German League Preview On-fire Barca eye commanding lead Bayern eye club record MADRID: Barcelona can open up a nine-point gap at the top of La Liga ahead of their return to Champions League action Spanish La Liga Table at home to Darmstadt against Arsenal next week when they travel to Las Palmas BERLIN: Bayern Munich could make club history today as a today. The European champions extended their unbeaten run MADRID: Spanish Primera Liga table before this weekend’s clean sheet against Darmstadt in the would see in all competitions to 31 games with a seventh consecutive La matches (played, won, drawn, lost, goals for, goals against, Liga win thanks to a brilliant double and Luis points): ’s side go a record six home games without con- Suarez’s 40th goal of the season in a 3-1 victory at Sporting ceding a goal. Arsenal were the last club to score against Gijon on Wednesday. Barcelona 24 19 3 2 65 19 60 Bayern at Munich’s back in November when That match had been postponed from December due to Atletico Madrid 24 17 3 4 35 11 54 scored the Gunners’ consolation in a 5-1 loss. Barca’s commitments in the Club World Cup and, having final- Real Madrid 24 16 5 3 70 23 53 Since that Champions League group game, Bayern have won ly got their games in hand out of the way, ’s men Villarreal 24 14 6 4 30 18 48 all five of their home games in all competitions without con- can pile the pressure on pursuers Atletico Madrid and Real Sevilla 24 11 7 6 34 24 40 ceding a single goal and hold an eight-point lead at the top of Madrid, who face on paper tougher tests tomorrow. “There is Eibar 24 10 6 8 38 31 36 the Bundesliga. still a long way to go and, therefore, nothing is done yet,” said 24 10 5 9 35 34 35 Guardiola’s team are in no mood to give Darmstadt any hope of a first win in Munich in their final match before their Barca Ivan Rakitic. Celta Vigo 24 10 5 9 35 42 35 Champions League last 16, first-leg clash at Juventus next “Now we have to focus on the game we have this weekend. La Coruna 24 6 14 4 33 30 32 Tuesday. Especially as Darmstadt have picked up 17 of their 24 “The unbeaten record motivates us, but what counts is what 24 8 6 10 34 34 30 points this season away from home. “They will play very deep you win at the end of the season. We need to remain humble Malaga 24 8 6 10 21 21 30 Valencia 24 6 10 8 28 25 28 and very compact,” said Bayern midfielder Xabi Alonso. “We and keep working hard.” Luis Enrique is expected to rotate will have to be patient and it’ll be important to get the first once more with the trip to the Emirates in Tuesday in mind. Getafe 24 7 5 12 26 36 26 24 6 8 10 18 33 26 goal. “It’s all about Darmstadt for now, we want to keep our Sergio Busquets is suspended, while Javier Mascherano, Jordi eight-point lead. Only afterwards will we think about Alba and Dani Alves are expected to return after being rested 24 6 6 12 32 49 24 Sporting Gijon 24 6 5 13 27 41 23 Juventus.” With 21 goals to his credit, Bayern striker Robert in midweek. However, the star front three of Messi, Suarez and Lewandowski has scored almost as many goals as the 22 the are expected to start. ’s dream start to Espanyol 24 6 4 14 21 48 22 Las Palmas 24 5 6 13 23 38 21 entire Darmstadt team has managed. The visitors’ cause is not life as Real Madrid coach continued in midweek on his debut helped by a raft of suspensions. Peter Niemeyer, Jerome in the Champions League with a 2-0 win at Roma. Granada 24 5 5 14 25 49 20 Levante 24 4 5 15 21 45 17 Gondorf, Aytac Sulu, Marcel Heller and are The Frenchman has now won six of his seven games in all banned after each picked up yellow cards in last Saturday’s charge and has refused to give up in the title race despite now 2-1 defeat to Bayer Leverkusen. “We have registered that. trailing Barca by seven points back in third place. “It will be dif- However, I believe that no one wants to miss this chance to ficult, but we will go for it,” said Zidane. Madrid also face a the last eight of the Champions League for the third consecu- play in front of an audience of millions,” said Darmstadt coach tougher schedule in the league in coming weeks as they travel tive year. ’s men host fourth-placed Villarreal Dirk Schuster confidently. Guardiola hopes to have centre- to Malaga-who held Real to a 0-0 draw earlier this season at tomorrow before travelling to PSV Eindhoven on Wednesday backs Medhi Benatia and fit as he was unable to the Santiago Bernabeu-before hosting Atletico in a Madrid and finally facing Madrid next weekend. “They are three great play a single central defender in last weekend’s win at derby next weekend. “We need to rest well and think about games and we have to try and win all of them,” Atletico’s top Augsburg after fractured an ankle. the game in Malaga. Tomorrow, we will do everything we can scorer told the club’s website. Villarreal Dortmund will be looking to make it nine games undefeat- to get the points,” added Zidane. look well set for a return to the Champions League as they ed at Leverkusen tomorrow. ’s Dortmund are in Atletico, meanwhile, face the biggest week of their season hold an eight-point lead over Sevilla in the race for fourth impressive form as last Saturday’s 1-0 win over bottom side so far as they aim to remain in the title race and progress to place thanks to an 11-game unbeaten run in the league.—AFP Hanover 96 left them 13 points clear of third-placed Bayer. Having sat out the Hanover win, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang will be looking to add to his 20 goals in as many league games to rival Lewandowski. The last time Leverkusen beat Dortmund at the BayArena was in May 2007, but Roger Schmidt’s men have picked up 14 of a possible 18 points and are undefeated Threats mount as FIFA in their last six games. Leverkusen will again be without striker Javier Hernandez after the Mexican tore a buttock muscle in their German Cup defeat to Werder Bremen 10 days ago. Cologne fans plan a faces day of reckoning protest before kick-off of today’s match at Borussia Moenchengladbach over the restricted number of away fans allowed. Gladbach will be without centre-back Martin Stranzl, Criminal cases, powerful clubs, match-fixing all threaten FIFA who tore his right calf in training on Wednesday as they look to bounce back from Sunday’s shock defeat to Hamburg. Fresh ZURICH: The spotlight at next week’s FIFA Congress will fall on the league, and top players found themselves in a tug-of-war as clubs from their Champions League last 16, first-leg win at Gent, presidential election - but the real key to the future of soccer’s belea- refused to release them for internationals. Wolfsburg are at Hertha Berlin today without defender guered governing body is embedded in a document with the . —AFP unglamorous title “Draft statutes - Congress 2016”. Drawn up over the Old and new challenges last eight months, it suggests changes to stop the scandals that have FIFA’s response was to threaten national associations (FAs), clubs left the organization supposed to lead the world’s most popular sport and players with suspension if they linked up with the proposed German Bundesliga Table facing its greatest threat for decades. league, and UEFA quelled the threat by reorganizing its competitions. The most obvious challenge is criminal investigations in the But FIFA now faces similar challenges, added to the menace of match- BERLIN: German Bundesliga table ahead of this week- United States and Switzerland that have already resulted in the fixing organized by illegal betting syndicates, all while trying to shake end’s games (played, won, drawn, lost, goals for, goals indictment of several dozen soccer officials for corruption, many of off a series of scandals that have seen FIFA president Sepp Blatter against, points): them serving or former presidents of national or continental associ- banned for ethics violations and cast a shadow over the awarding of ations. US prosecutors have continued to call FIFA a victim of cor- at least three World Cup finals. Bayern Munich 21 18 2 1 53 10 56 rupt individuals. But if FIFA as an organization were criminally Clearly, it cannot afford to get its reforms wrong. “If there is not a 21 15 3 3 53 24 48 charged, sponsors and other partners might be reluctant to do strong FIFA, football will be grabbed by a lot of people who have no Bayer Leverkusen 21 10 5 6 31 22 35 business with it. interest in the game and want to use the game for other reasons - Hertha Berlin 21 10 5 6 29 23 35 But that is not the only concern. In the last month, talk has resur- political, business or even criminal,” said Jerome Champagne, one of Schalke 04 21 10 3 8 30 28 33 faced among Europe’s most powerful clubs of a breakaway European five candidates for president. The reform proposal on the table Mainz 05 21 10 3 8 27 25 33 Super League, as well as complaints about the amount of time players includes term limits for top officials, to avoid another 18-year presi- Moenchengladbach 21 10 2 9 42 38 32 spend with national teams. National team competitions depend on a dency such as Blatter’s, as well as disclosure of their salaries. VfL Wolfsburg 21 8 6 7 31 28 30 calendar agreed between FIFA and the clubs, which commit to More radically, it would take responsibility for everyday business Cologne 21 7 8 6 24 27 29 release players to their national teams on certain dates. If the clubs, decisions away from the “political” representatives of national associa- VfB Stuttgart 21 8 3 10 33 41 27 which are always eager for more opportunities to play lucrative tions. These would sit on a new-look 36-member FIFA Council, which Hamburg 21 7 5 9 25 30 26 friendlies abroad, were to pull out, it would throw international foot- would have at least six female members, and set a broad strategy for Ingolstadt 04 21 7 5 9 14 23 26 ball into chaos. world soccer. Day-to-day management would instead pass to a new, Darmstadt 98 21 6 6 9 22 31 24 There was similar discontent in the 1990s, when European soccer’s professional general secretariat, more akin to a corporate executive Augsburg 21 5 6 10 23 31 21 governing body UEFA became deeply critical of Joao Havelange, the board, which, like the Council, would be overseen by a fully independ- 21 5 6 10 27 37 21 Brazilian president of FIFA at the time. UEFA produced proposals that ent Audit and Compliance Committee. The proposals also place a Werder Bremen 21 5 5 11 25 42 20 included handing more power to the continental confederations, greater onus on continental confederations and national associations Hoffenheim 21 2 9 10 19 3115 rotating FIFA’s presidency and limiting it mainly to organising the to police themselves. The 209 national associations, who ultimately 21 4 2 15 19 36 14 four-yearly World Cup. Leading clubs including AC Milan and hold the power in FIFA through the Congress, and vote for the presi- Manchester United then sought to build support for a breakaway dent, are often seen as a significant part of the problem.—Reuters