Santa Cruz wins Bragantino and enters the G-4

Before this 29th round, the Santa Cruz flirted with the G-4 Series B sixth. On Tuesday, the team reached the goal by beating Bragantino by 3-1, in Arruda even working with a reduced field from the 28 minutes of the second half. 

With the win, the choir team is the new third place Series B of the Brazilian Championship with 48 points combined. The Bragantino on the other hand, comes in ninth place with 42 

out Vale, however, that the match tonight only marked the opening of the 29th round.All other direct competitors of Santa Cruz for a spot in the G-4 still enter the game at the weekend.

The game

After a few minutes cautious, Santa Cruz already shook the net after just four. The goal Lelê, however, was canceled because of a touch on Vitor lateral arm. Still, a good move articulated by Allan Vieira and Louie lifted the crowd in Arruda.

Then it was the turn of the Bragantino hit by the trio of arbitration in the eighth minute when Rodrigo Maranhão tried to take advantage of a rebound in Alan Mineiro's shot and was caught offside. In response, Santa Cruz came to attack with veteran Grafite, who turned on the marking and demanded the first good defense Douglas Friedrich.

The striker returned to take dangerous after 21 minutes. After corner kick from Daniel Costa on the right of the attack, Graffiti rang head hard and pulled out ink indent of alvinegro goalkeeper.

After some pushing, Santa Cruz managed to open the scoring on 34 of the first half.The bidding started with Louie, who lifted the ball into the area. While their central defense marked Graphite, Lelê was free in front of Friedrich goal, and put Bragantino in the network background.

In return for the second time, Louie managed to extend their lead in the ninth minute, taking advantage of a shadow in corner kick to score the second of the host team. Bragantino, however, it decreased the difference five minutes later, Alan Miner.

After 28 minutes, defender German left the lawn expelled because of his second yellow card by the referee applied Francisco de Paula dos Santos Silva Neto. Still, with a player less on the field, the Santa Cruz also reached the third goal after 43 when Bruno received from Louie and closed the account in 3-1 for the Pernambuco team.

SANTA CRUZ 3 X 1 BRAGANTINO

Location:  Arruda stadium in Recife (PE) Date:  September 29, 2015, TuesdayTime:  21h (GMT) Referee:  Francisco de Paula dos Santos Silva Neto (RS)Assistants: Carlos Henrique Selbach (RS) and Marcos Santos Vieira (AM)Yellow cards: Lelê (Santa Cruz); Renan, Gilberto and Eder Lima (Bragantino) Red Card:  German (Santa Cruz) GOALS:  SANTA CRUZ: Lelê after 34 minutes of the first half, Louie, the ninth the second, and Bruno, the 43 BRAGANTINO: Alan Mineiro at 14 minutes from time

SANTA CRUZ: Tiago Cardoso; Vitor, German, Danny Morais and Allan; Wellington, Daniel Costa (Bruno), John Paul, Louie and Lelê; Graphite (Bruno Moraes) (Marlon)
Coach: Marcelo Martelotte

BRAGANTINO: Douglas Friedrich; German, Gilberto, and Bonfim Eder Lima;Wigor, Renan (Conrad), Alan Mineiro and Chico (Rodolfo); Rodrigo Maranhão (Bruno Correa) and Jobinho
Technical: Wagner Lopes

FIFA confirms 2022 World Cup in Qatar will kick off Nov. 21

FIFA says the 2022 World Cup in Qatar will start on Nov. 21, kicking off a 28-day tournament that will finish on Dec. 18.

FIFA's executive committee confirmed the 2022 dates on Friday, six months after picking the Sunday, Dec. 18 date — Qatar's national holiday — for the final.

In March, FIFA finally decided to switch the 2022 tournament from June-July to avoid Qatar's summer heat.

A 28-day World Cup is four fewer than usual and is designed to cause less disruption to clubs and leagues which must shut down for several peak midseason weeks.

FIFA had delayed choosing a kickoff date in Qatar while it held talks on the 2019-2024 schedule of national team fixtures.

The international calendar mandates when clubs must release players for national-team duty.

Impact confident even if artificial turf may keep Drogba out of key game in Orlando

Didier Drogba is a question mark for a key game at Orlando City on Saturday, but the Montreal Impact have been getting positive results lately no matter who is in the lineup.

It has yet to be determined if Drogba will play because Orlando's Citrus Bowl has artificial turf, which would be hard on the 37-year-old's knees.

"He's not comfortable playing on artificial turf," coach Mauro Biello said Wednesday. "He hasn't played on it throughout his career.

"We'll probably have a training session on artificial turf (on Thursday) just to get ourselves accustomed to the ball and the bounce and then train again Friday on (Orlando's) turf and then make a decision based on that."

Former Chelsea star Drogba, who joined the Impact in mid-season, has seven goals and an assist in six Major League Soccer games and has helped the team get on a six-game unbeaten run.

Orlando players like Canadian Cyle Larin, who set the MLS rookie scoring record of 14 this week with a hat-trick against the New York Red Bulls, said they were looking forward to facing a boyhood idol, but they may not get that chance.

Either way, the Impact is a confident team of late, coming off a sweep of three home games after a pair of draws on the west coast. One of them, a 1-1 tie at San Jose, was without Drogba and several other veterans in the lineup.

"Every game we play now we play with the mentality to win," said midfielder Nigel Reo-Coker. "That's the mentality you have to have in a championship-winning dressing room.

"We don't go in looking for a draw. There are different scenarios that might pop up, but we go in looking for wins."

The Impact (12-11-6) hold the sixth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, four points up on seventh-place Orlando with two games in hand. Orlando will be eliminated if they lose to Montreal, while a draw would also put them in deep trouble.

Drogba's two goals in a 2-0 victory over D.C. United On Saturday earned him MLS player of the week honours for the second time this month. He and Reo-Coker were picked for the MLS team of the week.

Reo-Coker, 31, has come alive since returning to the starting 11 when Biello replaced the fired Frank Klopas after an Aug. 29 loss in Toronto.

The former West Brom and Aston Villa midfielder was a regular until he fell out of Klopas' favour in late June. He was on the bench for 10 matches until the coaching switch, but has played in all of the last six games, five as a starter.

"I haven't paid too much attention to my individual performances," said Reo-Coker. "For us, it's a team effort.

"That's something Mauro implemented as soon as he took charge, that we're nothing without one another. It's the same throughout the team."

Reo-Coker began his MLS career in 2013 with the Vancouver Whitecaps but was traded in August, 2014 to Chivas USA, who folded after last season. Montreal got the former England under-21 captain with the first pick in the waiver draft.

In the Impact's last outing, Biello used a 4-3-3 formation with Marco Donadel just behind Reo-Coker and Patrice Bernier to shore up the defence and start the attack.

"A lot of people were surprised at that formation, seeing the three old men with crutches in the middle of the park," said Reo-Coker. "For three old men I thought we did OK.

"It makes the team very solid defensively and at the same time we managed to get up and create some chances."

Champions League - What hype are the Spanish teams in the draw of Champions?

Barcelona, ​​European champions will be the only Spanish team that will be among the top seeds in the draw for the Champions League on Thursday. Real Madrid contained in Pot 2 with Atletico Madrid and Valencia. Sevilla goes to hype ranking number 3 after Manchester United and Bayer Leverkusen.

The Forum Grimaldi of Monaco will host on Thursday at 17:45 the historic draw for the group stage of the Champions League in which for the first time there will be five Spanish teams.

We explain what the draw to give you an idea of ​​the rivals who could face the Spanish teams.

Pot 1, the seedings

The system for designating the seedings has changed already this season and will not be the eight teams with the best UEFA coefficient seedings, but eight major champions league.

The seedings will be Barcelona , Chelsea , Bayern Munich, Juventus , Benfica , Paris Saint Germain, Zenit St Petersburg and PSV Eindhoven.

Pot 2, the Spanish

The Real Madrid will be in Pot 2 next to Atletico Madrid and Valencia and teams like Porto , Arsenal and Manchester City .

Teams in the hype, by order of the coefficient: Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Porto, Arsenal, Manchester United , Valencia, Bayer Leverkusen and Manchester City.

Drums 3 and 4

For the composition of the remaining drums shall address itself to the UEFA coefficient.

Pot 3: Shakhtar Donetsk and Sevilla as top teams. Also: Olympique Lyon, Dynamo Kiev, Olympiakos, CSKA Moscow, Galatasaray and AS Roma.

Pot 4: BATE Borisov, Borussia Moenchengladbach, Wolfsburg, Dinamo Zagreb , Maccabi Tel-Aviv, Gent, Malmoe and Astana .

Ronaldinho failed at Fluminense, but pocketed US $ 222,000 per game

Ronaldinho did not convince the Fluminense fan for even a second. In bad physical and technical form, the player wore the team shirt for only nine games, was booed in at least half of duels and preferred to leave. The failure in the field, however, does not match the money that came into the checking account of the now former number 10 Tricolor.

With salary of $ 800,000, Ronaldinho received the Fluminense R $ 2 million by the time he attended the Orange - made the first practice on July 27 after a few days of vacation. In the nine games that defended the club, the number 10 gave no assistance and did not score goal.

554 minutes in which the player played for Fluminense in official games were not good. Far from it. But earned the player R $ 3,610 every 60 seconds or R $ 222 thousand per duel.

In a statement, explaining the output of Ronaldinho, Fluminense was keen to stress that the player up to expectations off the field. According to the club, there was marketing return, although there has been no specific action with the athlete unless their presentation at the Maracana before the derby against Vasco.

"It should be noted that hiring to expectations regarding the marketing return, increasing storage with box office sales of shirts and number of partners. The Ronaldinho option also showed Brazil to Fluminense arouses the interest of the greatest players in world football" said Fluminense in a statement.

The hiring of Ronaldinho for Fluminense was designed and implemented by the football vice Mario Bittencourt, who was pressed with the failure of the player.The Tricolor was fighting for the top positions but production fell after the arrival of the shirt 10. The drop in the rating reflected very badly internally. The want was to be the 'extra step' to also advocate Flu, he has become a big nightmare.

Belmonte wins 1,500 free on their return

Mireia Belmonte (UCAM Fuensanta) returned after more than 200 days and did not compete with the test victory in the 1,500 meters of the Championships of Spain winter, which began Friday in Gijon .

Belmonte, who did not compete in pool since I did on May 2 in the Cup of Spain of clubs, had to give up World of Kazan by painful problems in their shoulders.

 Fred Vergnoux pupil tries to check their status on these national short course. In its first test, the longest of the program, won with 15: 46.64, ahead of Maria Vilas (15: 53.36) and Bea Gómez (15: 56.42).