Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho isn’t anticipating frequent goal celebrations when his team squares off with Sevilla in the Champions League on Wednesday, saying he expects the match to remain tightly contested from the first minute to the last.
“With Sevilla, I don’t think it’s possible to score many goals,” Mourinho told MUTV, as quoted by Sky Sports. “I think the game is going to be really competitive.
“They can say what they want; they can be nice to us and say we are favourites – that means absolutely nothing.”
The Red Devils will head to the Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan for the first leg of this round of 16 matchup after comfortably defeating Huddersfield Town 2-0 in the FA Cup four days prior.
The Premier League’s second-placed side hasn’t had much trouble finding the back of the net this season – scoring 51 league goals in 27 matches – but Mourinho expects a tough test in a match with high stakes.
“I think I prefer to say they have good players and a good team and a good mentality for the knockout matches,” he said. “Sevilla is a club of cups and now they have the chance to play in the biggest competition of all, so the motivation is obviously even bigger.”
Mourinho’s assessment of Sevilla is accurate, as the club has featured in a number of finals in recent years. The Andalusian side emerged as the victor of the 2013-14, 2014-15, and 2015-16 Europa League competitions, while also earning a spot in this season’s Copa del Rey.
Additionally, the gaffer sees tactical differences between the Spanish outfit and his usual English opponents, which he took time to outline before once again taking a dig at pundits.
“I can see easily now the distances between the wingers and the full-backs are much shorter,” Mourinho said. “The wingers drop back to compact with the full-backs; not like in England.
“In England, some experts that never sit on the bench say wingers shouldn’t defend and the midfield players should only attack. But that’s only in England in this moment, with this generation of experts.”
Team owner Shad Khan likely is waiting to see if the Jaguars can build upon their surprising 2017 season before he gives extensions to the trio.
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The team announced Tuesday afternoon that it picked up tight end Marcedes Lewis’ one-year, $3.5 million option. The 2018 season will be his 13th with the team that selected him 28th overall in the 2006 draft.
The 33-year-old Lewis, who caught 24 passes for 318 yards and five touchdowns in 2017, ranks second in franchise history in receiving touchdowns (33) and third in receptions (375) and receiving yards (4,502). The next game he plays will tie him with receiver Jimmy Smith for second place on the franchise’s list of most games played (171), behind center Brad Meester (209 games in 14 seasons).
Lewis played in all 16 games in 2017 for just the second time since 2012.
The team also announced it was picking up options on reserve offensive linemen Josh Wells and Tyler Shatley. Wells has played in 32 games with three starts, all in 2017. Shatley has played in 46 games with eight starts.
The Champions League has become all too predictable.
Dating back to the 2007-08 iteration, only 32 of the 160 entrants – or 20 percent – in the knockout stage have come from outside Europe’s top five leagues. Winner of the 2003-04 title, Porto, made the last 16 on six occasions with countrymen Benfica, Ukrainian giant Shakhtar Donetsk, and 44-time Greek league champ Olympiacos next with a trio of appearances.
Besides that, the Champions League last 16 has offered little hope for continental afterthoughts. Just 10 percent of the sides to progress to the quarter-final stage have come from outside the top five divisions, and two of those advancements were by a Benfica lot that twice knocked off fellow interloper Zenit St. Petersburg. Not since PSV Eindhoven was bounced at the semi-final stage of the 2004-05 competition has a team not from one of Europe’s marquee leagues gotten a sniff of the final as the tournament continues to favour football’s biggest sides.
Besiktas is set to make its knockout-stage debut Tuesday at the gargantuan Allianz Arena, and while Bayern Munich is the heavy favourite to advance to the last eight for the 10th consecutive year, the Turkish league holder is the tournament’s most entertaining side.
Whether or not Senol Gunes’ Black Eagles can disrupt the continental convention, Besiktas should be the favourite side of neutrals who fancy football with a side of flair and a squad with no shortage of appealing storylines.
Here’s three reasons why you should be backing Besiktas:
Eagles on the rise
Five years separated from a financial crisis paired with an astounding 142 lawsuits and suspension from UEFA competition because of match-fixing, Besiktas became the first Turkish club to win a Champions League group. Slotted in alongside Porto, Ligue 1 holder Monaco, and meteoric riser RB Leipzig, Besiktas topped Group G sans defeat courtesy of away victories against each of its three foes.
If there’s any indication that Besiktas can pull off a first-leg shock at the Bavarian behemoth Tuesday, you could do worse than reference the group stages, but for the 15-time Super Lig winner, Champions League progression this season is just a fragment of the club’s lofty ambitions.
“Over the last few years we have built something for the future, rather than short-term goals like the title race,” club president Fikret Orman told ESPN FC. “It was a big step for us involving recruiting the right players, right coaches, brand management, sponsorship agreements, financial arrangements, communication tools, and more. What we are witnessing now is our vision starting to come to fruition.”
Besiktas overhauled its wage spending, employing a more resourceful approach, highlighted by a scant £7.1 million spent on summer transfers, a pittance when compared to the expenditures of its Group G brethren Monaco (£91 million), Leipzig (£45 million), and Porto (£19 million).
Orman should know a thing or two about shifting expectations and unconventional approaches after he took a position nobody wanted in 2012. For some, the president serves as a symbol of a ragtag squad of individuals who have somehow found continuity during Gunes’ taming tenure.
Reclamation projects highlight cast of characters
The Gunes influence cannot be sold short, and nowhere is that more evident than with the relatively old motley crew of players who have miraculously regained form on the western banks of the Bosphorus.
Ryan Babel has become the gutsy attacker that Liverpool fans had hoped for when Rafa Benitez lured the Dutchman to Anfield from Ajax. With nine goals in all competitions for the Reds, Babel isn’t the only Besiktas regular to underwhelm in the Premier League before finding form in Istanbul. Dusko Tosic, whose Portsmouth tenure resulted in a string of unused substitute outings before a loan to QPR, has been transformed from a stodgy left-back into a ball-stopping centre-half under Gunes.
Tosic has paired with former Champions League winner Pepe, who joined the club on a free transfer in the summer, and the aged pair anchored a backline that conceded the third-fewest goals in the group stage. Like Pepe, diminutive Chilean Gary Medel has brought a no-nonsense ethos to the Vodafone Park, as has a cast of characters who have endured mercurial top-flight careers like Domagoj Vida, Alvaro Negredo, Jeremain Lens, Vagner Love, and former Barcelona fringe player Adriano.
Even ticking time bomb Ricardo Quaresma has found a consistent role with Besiktas, as has Anderson Talisca, who has gone from unpredictable to reliable this season as part of a hodgepodge attack.
An unconventional squad made up of players beyond their 30th birthdays and former flops turned success stories, Gunes’ first-team charges are buoyed by the calming presence of 35-year-old Canadian international midfielder Atiba Hutchinson. A slick-passing, defensive-minded central midfielder, Hutchinson was joined on the roster in January by countryman Cyle Larin, an unprecedented number of Canadian players for a team in the Champions League knockout stage. That on its own should be reason enough for the fandom of neutrals north of the border.
Whimsical ways and an atmosphere deserving of European nights
More than just a ragtag collection of players who have thrived under Gunes and the club’s shift toward financial stability, simply put, Besiktas is fun.
The Black Eagles’ marketing campaign-cum-transfer announcement unveiling series “Come to Besiktas” was one of the summer’s most consistent sources of entertainment. Incoming players were revealed using stripped-down, purposely low-budget videos that piggybacked a trend of footballing videos gone viral, and took it to the next level.
Notorious hardmen Pepe and teardrop-tattooed Quaresma appeared approachable, the jaunty Euro-beat metamorphosed from soberly annoying to intoxicating, and Hutchinson’s young son Noah stole the show.
Besiktas’ dynamism isn’t limited to its players. When Leipzig’s Timo Werner was taken off 32 minutes in to a 2-0 defeat at the Vodafone with earplugs in tow, the German international complained of circulatory problems and dizziness. Leipzig manager Ralph Hasenhuttl later confirmed the stadium played a part. “He asked to come off so I took him off,” Hassenhuttl told the Guardian. “It is impossible to prepare your team for an atmosphere like this. There was a deafening noise (and) at the start of the game we were a bit affected.”
Built in the ruins of the Inonu Stadium and opened in April 2016, the Vodafone has proven to be both a source of healthy revenue and a daunting presence for opponents. Erected in the football-mad Besiktas neighbourhood where the club was founded – and where the only McDonald’s without the gold arches and red trim synonymous with rival Galatasaray is located – the Black Eagles benefit from a veritable “12th man.”
“For me, as coach, it is important to see who I can rely on in moments like these, who is prepared to defend himself against what is going on on the pitch,” Hassenhuttl added after the first of two defeats to Besiktas. “To encounter such an atmosphere was too much for some.”
Whether or not it proves to be too much for Bayern Munich – or if the return fixture in three-and-a-half week’s time has purpose courtesy of a narrow aggregate score – remains to be seen, though you’d be hard-pressed to find a more amusing and entertaining side left in the Champions League. After all, isn’t that what football’s supposed to be all about?
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Former Carolina Panthers wide receiver Rae Carruth, who has spent the last 17 years in a North Carolina prison for conspiracy to murder his pregnant girlfriend, opened up for the first time in a hand-written letter to the victim’s mother.
Carruth wrote a 15-page letter to Saundra Adams, the mother of Cherica Adams, that was sent to Charlotte television station WBTV. He also spoke at length by phone with the station about the letter, accepting responsibility for the 1999 conspiracy to murder Cherica and expressing interest in gaining custody of his son.
“I’m apologizing for the loss of her daughter. I’m apologizing for the impairment of my son,” Carruth told WBTV. “I feel responsible for everything that happened. And I just want her to know that truly I am sorry for everything.”
Carruth is scheduled to be released from Sampson Correctional Institution in Clinton, North Carolina, on Oct. 22. He was sentenced to 18 to 24 years in 2001 after being found guilty of hiring Van Brett Watkins and Michael Kennedy to murder Cherica. Watkins, who shot Adams multiple times, was sentenced to a minimum of 40 years. Kennedy, who drove the car, was released in 2011.
Adams died a month after the shooting. Her son, Chancellor Lee Adams, was born prematurely and has battled the challenges that come from Cerebral Palsy, which was the result of his traumatic birth after the shooting.
Saundra Adams has raised Chancellor, now 18. In past interviews with the Charlotte Observer, she has expressed that she would like to be present the day Carruth is released.
Carruth, who did not testify at his trial, said he wants custody of Chancellor when he is released.
“I should be raising my son. His mother should be raising her son,” Carruth said. “Ms. Adams should not be doing this and I want that responsibility back.
Rae Carruth is scheduled to be released from prison in October after serving a 17-year sentence for conspiracy to murder his pregnant girlfriend. AP Photo/Jeff Siner
“I feel like he might not ever have his mother in his life but he could still have me and I could still make a difference and I don’t think that’s anyone’s responsibility when I’m still here.”
“I’ve forgiven Rae already, but to have any type of relationship with him, there does have to be some repentance,” Adams told the newspaper. “And I think this opens the door. But I can say definitively he’s not ever going to have custody of Chancellor.
“Chancellor will be raised either by me or, after I’m gone, by someone else who loves him and who knows him. He will never be raised by a stranger — someone he doesn’t know and who tried to kill him.”
In the letter, Carruth opened that he has “long accepted my lot as a social pariah.” He said in an introduction to the letter, which he began with “To whom it may concern,” that the purpose of the letter was to challenge allegations made by Saundra on the “truthfulness of the statements she’s made about me.”
Carruth referred to several “lies” he claimed Saundra made, beginning with saying he never apologized for what happened. He noted that he apologized on several occasions in correspondence from prison.
Carruth also accused Saundra of creating a false impression of his relationship with Cherica. He said outside of a physical relationship with Cherica, “me and your daughter were practically strangers.”
Carruth also challenged that his motive for having Cherica killed was to avoid having to pay child support, noting child support never was mentioned as motive during the trial. He said the motive was more to do with Cherica being unwilling to get an abortion.
In the letter, Carruth said he wishes he could go back to 1999 and do things differently.
“If I could change anything, I’d change the whole situation,” he wrote. “His mother would still be here and I wouldn’t be where I’m at. So that’s what I’d want to change. I want the incident to never have happened at all.”
Carruth, 44, told WBTV that he has changed a lot since the Panthers drafted him in the first round of the 1998 draft out of Colorado. He noted back then he was very “self-centered” and immature.
He talked about finding a relationship with God.
“I feel like I owe Chancellor,” Carruth said. “I let him down as he came into this world and the only way that I can make that right, the only way I can work out my relationship with my son, is to be there for him and to be a father and a dad to him going forward.”
