Sports

NYON, Switzerland — Napoli, bidding to reach the Champions League group stage for the third time and the second in a row, were handed a daunting tie against Athletic Bilbao in the draw for the play-off round on Friday.

Arsenal, hoping to qualify for the 17th consecutive season, must face Turkey’s Besiktas and twice former champions Porto were also handed a difficult draw as they were paired against Lille, with the French club at home in the first leg.

Rafael Benitez’s Napoli finished third in Serie A last season, only enough for a place in the play-off round after Italy slipped down the national coefficients which determine how many places each league gets in the tournament.

“Among the five possible opponents, with Athletic we have been landed with the most difficult,” Benitez said.

“They’re a team who play good football and, at home, the 50,000 at San Mames give them a big push. It will be a very good, and very intense game.”

Napoli also won the Coppa Italia and were eliminated in the group stage of the Champions League in Benitez’s first season in charge.

The performance was regarded as no more than satisfactory and he will be expected to improve on that showing this term with one of the most expensive squads in Serie A.

Bilbao, fourth in La Liga, were beaten Europa League finalists in 2012.

If Napoli fail to beat Bilbao, Italy will be left with only two representatives, Juventus and AS Roma, in the group stage.

Turkish opposition

Arsenal also met Turkish opposition at the same stage last season when they beat Fenerbahce 5-0 on aggregate over two legs.

“It’s nice we have got the second leg at home,” Arsenal club secretary David Miles told reporters.

“They [the play-off ties] come relatively early in the season, and our three German World Cup winners won’t even be back, or will be just starting training then, so probably we won’t have the full squad to choose from.

“Nevertheless, we’ve got a good squad, quality in depth and I’m sure will be okay.”

The first legs will be played on August 19/20 with the returns on August 26/27.

Scottish champions Celtic, reprieved after third qualifying round opponents Legia Warsaw fielded an ineligible player in their 6-1 aggregate win, will meet Slovenian champions Maribor.

Former European champions Steaua Bucharest were paired with Bulgaria’s Ludogorets Razgrad while Cypriot champions APOEL Nicosia, who reached the quarter-finals two seasons ago, were drawn against Danish counterparts AaB Aalborg.

Malmo, runners-up in 1979, play Austrian champions Salzburg, who are attempting to reach the group stage for the first time since Red Bull’s takeover in 2005.

FC Copenhagen will meet Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen, Belgium’s Standard Liege face Zenit St. Petersburg and Slovan Bratislava play Belarusian champions BATE Borisov in the other of the 10 ties.

UEFA said that the vanishing spray, used at the World Cup to display the correct distance between a free kick and the defensive wall, would be used in the tournament, starting with the play-off round.

PARIS — Brazil defender David Luiz believes the only way to get over his World Cup disappointment is to be back on the pitch as quickly as possible. French champion Paris Saint-Germain signed Luiz on a five-year deal that was announced before his lacklustre performances in Brazil’s last two games at the World Cup last month. The host nation was thrashed 7-1 by Germany in the semifinals and lost 3-0 to the Netherlands in the match for third place. Luiz said “the first days after the World Cup were very difficult” but “that’s why football is so nice. It gives us the opportunity to react quickly and learn a lot from a situation, what were our mistakes and where things went wrong”.

GENEVA — Arsenal and Porto are among the big clubs entering the Champions League qualifying campaign when the draw for the last-round play-offs is held Friday.

Arsenal, chasing a 17th straight group-stage campaign, and two-time European champion Porto are the highest-ranked teams in the 20-team draw.

They are seeded with Zenit St. Petersburg, 2002 runner-up Bayer Leverkusen and Napoli in the section for teams which are not national champions.

Their unseeded opponents are Athletic Bilbao, Lille, Copenhagen, Standard Liege and Besiktas. The Turkish club advanced from the third qualifying round Wednesday with a hat trick from former Chelsea forward Demba Ba to beat Feyenoord 3-1 and complete a 5-2 aggregate win.

“He is not 100 per cent but fit to play,” Besiktas coach Slaven Bilic said of his new signing.

Clubs from the top five leagues in UEFA’s rankings — Spain, England, Germany, Italy and Portugal — join in the fourth and final qualifying round, with two-leg matches scheduled for August 19-20 and August 26-27.

In the champions section, 1986 European Cup winner Steaua Bucharest is seeded with Salzburg, APOEL, BATE Borisov and Ludogorets Razgrad.

Potential opponents are Maribor, Legia Warsaw, Slovan Bratislava, 1979 runner-up Malmo and Aalborg.

Play-off winners join the 22 clubs directly qualified for the group stage. The eight four-team groups are drawn August 28 in Monaco.

The 10 play-off losers enter the second-tier Europa League group stage, drawn August 29.

Though each playoff team gets 2.1 million euros ($2.8 million) from UEFA, the real prize — in status and cash — comes in the six-match Champions League group stage which kicks off in September.

UEFA pays a basic 8.6 million euros ($11.5 million) fee for reaching the group stage, plus 1 million euros ($1.34 million) per win and 500,000 euros ($670,000) per draw.

Teams also get a share of television rights money in a near 1 billion euros ($1.34 billion) payout shared by the 32 group teams.

Arsenal’s streak of claiming a share of that bonanza started in the 1998/99 season.

Zenit was fined 6 million euros ($8 million) of its prize money last season by UEFA for breaching Financial Fair Play rules, and is restricted to registering only 22 senior players in this year’s competition instead of the usual 25-man squad.

Led by former Porto and Chelsea coach Andre Villas-Boas, Zenit got two late goals Wednesday to beat AEL Limassol 3-0 and advance 3-1 on aggregate.

In the champions section Wednesday, Legia routed group-stage regular Celtic 6-1 on aggregate, and perennial qualifier Dinamo Zaghreb was stunned at home by Aalborg.

Danish champion Aalborg is the lowest ranked of the 20 play-off teams, earning its place with a 2-0 win in Zaghreb, to advance 2-1 on aggregate.

Copenhagen, the Danish league runner-up, also advanced with a 2-0 second-leg win over Dnipro of Ukraine to remove one security problem from the Champions League.

UEFA has deemed some Ukraine cities, including Dnipropetrovsk, unsafe to host matches during ongoing conflict with pro-Russian separatist rebels, and currently prohibits Ukraine vs. Russia matches in its club competitions.

Malmo’s return to Europe’s elite links the competition to its 1970s heyday dominated by Ajax, Bayern Munich and Liverpool, which all feature in the groups draw.

The Swedish champion was not a fully professional club when it lost the 1979 European Cup final to England’s Nottingham Forest, and has never played in a Champions League group.

Malmo advanced Wednesday when Markus Rosenberg scored twice in a 2-0 home win against Sparta Prague, enough to advance on away goals after losing the first leg 4-2.

“Winning a match like this for this club, of course it’s special,” Rosenberg said.

MANAMA — Former Iraq and Jordan coach Adnan Hamad will lead Bahrain to next year’s Asian Cup in Australia after he was appointed as the replacement for Englishman Anthony Hudson. Hudson’s abrupt resignation last week to take up the vacant post in charge of the New Zealand national team threw Bahrain’s preparations for January’s continental championship into disarray. The Bahrain Football Association (BFA) initially said they would pursue Hudson in the courts for leaving a few months into a two-year contract but ultimately decided to focus their efforts on securing a replacement. Hamad, Asia’s coach of the year in 2004 in one of several spells in charge of his native Iraq, led Jordan to the quarter-finals of the 2011 Asian Cup in Qatar. He also oversaw an impressive qualifying campaign for the 2014 World Cup, in which Jordan beat Australia and Asian champions Japan.

MIAMI — Manchester United’s Spanish midfielder Juan Mata says the team have shown during their pre-season tour of the United States that they believe in the new system introduced by Dutch coach Louis van Gaal.

United wrapped up their US tour with a 3-1 win over rivals Liverpool in the International Champions Cup final in Miami on Monday and after defeating Real Madrid on Saturday the mood among Van Gaal’s squad is buoyant ahead of their August 16 Premier League opener against Swansea.

“It was a good tour for us, a good two or three weeks trying to get ready physically and mentally while trying to adapt to the new system,” Mata told ManUtd.com. “Obviously, we didn’t lose a game which is good for the confidence but the most important thing is that we believe in what we are doing.

United played in front of huge crowds in the United States with 86,000 watching them beat LA Galaxy in California and a massive 109,000 in Michigan for a 3-1 win over Real Madrid as the club proved once again their global popularity.

“We take home a lot of love from the supporters. It was amazing from the first day until the last — in every stadium, in every training camp and in every hotel. I think [the highlights were] the support and obviously the new ideas that the manager has brought,” said Mata.

Van Gaal’s 3-5-2 formation has seen Mata, who scored a well-taken goal against Liverpool, employed in an advanced playmaker role and that appears to suit him well.

“I feel good and I feel comfortable in this position. I have to do what the manager wants me to do, both offensively and defensively, and I am trying to do that. It can be a good position for me to try to perform to my best,” he said.

After a disappointing seventh place finish in the Premier League last year under David Moyes, United will be expected to be back in the title hunt and, at the very least, ensure a return to the Champions League with a top four finish.

“We are all excited to start the new season,” said Mata, “Everybody wants to do better, we want to fight for the trophies and this club deserves that. We will try our best.”

Forward Wayne Rooney, who also scored against Liverpool, gave his backing to Van Gaal’s approach.

“He is a tough but fair manager. He has been great since he has come in and he has given us all a different way of looking at football that we didn’t have before. So it’s been great for us and hopefully that will continue,” he said.

ZURICH — FIFA banned former Greece coach Fernando Santos for eight international games on Monday for verbally abusing match officials at the World Cup.

Santos was banished from the dugout after extra time of Greece’s second-round match against Costa Rica, which finished 1-1. His team then lost the penalty shoot-out.

Santos displayed “several acts of unsporting conduct towards the match officials,” FIFA said Monday in a statement.

FIFA said Santos must serve the ban in official competitive matches played by the next national team he coaches.

The sanction likely ends the Portuguese coach’s top-level international career, though he can appeal. His Greece contract expired after the World Cup in Brazil.

FIFA said its disciplinary committee also suspended Italy medical official Aldo Esposito for six matches.

Esposito was sent from the dugout for unsporting conduct during Italy’s 1-0 loss against Uruguay. That group-stage match was made infamous by Luis Suarez biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini.

In a roundup of World Cup disciplinary cases Monday, FIFA noted that Suarez has eight competitive Uruguay matches left on his nine-match ban. FIFA also banned him from all football for four months.

However, the new Barcelona recruit has appealed all sanctions to the Court of Arbitration of Sport which expects to give a verdict later this month.

FIFA’s disciplinary panel also ruled on suspensions for red-card offences from the World Cup, which must be served in teams’ next official competition matches.

Italy midfielder Claudio Marchisio, who was sent off against Uruguay, will miss Italy’s opening 2016 European Championship qualifier in Norway on September 9.

Croatia, which plays in the same qualifying group as Italy, will be without Ante Rebic at home to Malta on the same date. Rebic was sent off in a 3-1 loss against Mexico.

Antonio Valencia will miss Ecuador’s first match at the Copa America in Chile next June. The Manchester United winger was dismissed in a 0-0 draw against France.

Cameroon’s Alex Song will serve the rest of his three-match ban during African Cup of Nations qualifiers in September against Congo and Ivory Coast. Song was sent off in Cameroon’s 4-0 loss against Croatia and was suspended for his team’s 4-1 loss against Brazil.

AMMAN — Jordan is making the final preparations to its six-member team that will compete in the second Youth Olympic Games taking place in Nanjing, China, from August 16-28, according to a statement from the Jordan Olympic Committee (JOC). The six athletes will be competing across four sports — taekwondo, swimming, fencing and gymnastics — with the youngsters expected to gain invaluable experience at such an early time in their international sporting careers. “It’s a part of our strategy at the Jordan Olympic Committee to participate in all these major multi-sport events, Lana Al Jaghbeer, JOC secretary general, was quoted as saying in the statement. “The Youth Olympic Games in particular provide an opportunity for some of our most promising athletes to compete on the international stage. Hopefully one day we will see them compete at the main Olympic Games and I wish them well in their careers.” In taekwondo, Eman Al Adayleh and Taimaa Habwal will represent the Kingdom, while  Khader Baqleh and Lydia Musleh compete in the pool. Gymnast Yazan Abandeh and fencer Balqees Al Qudah make up Team Jordan which leaves Amman on August 11. The chief of mission of the delegation is three-time Olympian and JOC board member Nadine Dewani. Jordan did well in taekwondo at the first Youth Olympics in Singapore where Dana Haidar took silver and Yazan Al Sadeq took bronze. All of the athletes start their competition in Nanjing on August 17.

MIAMI — Andy Murray returns to action for the first time since surrendering his Wimbledon crown this week, insisting his coaching liaison with Amelie Mauresmo is long-term.

The Scot began working with Frenchwoman Mauresmo shortly before Wimbledon but a disappointing grass court season raised question marks about the longevity of their partnership.

Murray, however, says he has enjoyed working with the former Wimbledon champion at his training base in Miami as he prepares for the US hard court season, which concludes later this month with the US Open at Flushing Meadows.

“We’ve agreed to work together and I think from both sides we’re willing to do what it takes to make it work long term,” Murray, 27, was quoted on the BBC’s website ahead of the Rogers Cup in Toronto, where he is seeded eighth.

“I really enjoy working with her, she’s helped me a lot.

“She integrated well with the rest of the team. It’s been a good start. Now it’s about me producing the results.”

The next few months are critical for Murray who dropped down to 10th in the world rankings following his Wimbledon quarter-final defeat by Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov.

Murray is without a title for more than a year and is also struggling to qualify for the year-ending World Tour Finals in London with the likes of Dimitrov and Canada’s Milos Raonic beginning to make deep inroads into the top 10.

On the plus side, he has few points defend during the north American swing, having lost in the last 16 at Toronto in 2013 and the quarter-finals at Cincinnati and the US Open before his season was curtailed by back surgery.

Mauresmo’s task will be to help Murray return to the kind of form that saw him win the US Open in 2012, when he beat Novak Djokovic in an epic final.

“I sat down with her the day after Wimbledon, we made a plan for the next few months, in the build up to the US Open,” Murray said. “[Hitting partner] Dani [Vallverdu] and Amelie will both be there at the US Open.

“That’s the plan for now, but I plan on working with her for longer than post-US Open, for sure.”

Murray could face a tricky start in Toronto with Australian upstart Nick Kyrgios, Rafael Nadal’s Wimbledon conqueror, a likely second-round opponent. 

AKRON, Ohio — Tiger Woods was at Firestone, and the scene looked all too familiar.

Except he wasn’t hoisting a trophy. He could barely bend over to pick up his tee.

Right when Woods thought he was making small progress towards his return from back surgery, he suffered a scary setback Sunday when he was stricken with more back pain and withdrew after eight holes from the Bridgestone Invitational.

How bad was it? Woods headed home to Florida to find out if he could play the PGA Championship this week.

But as he stood next to his car, he struggled to even take off his golf shoes before his caddie drove him away into an uncertain future.

The lasting images of Woods at Firestone were not of him winning, like he did last year for the eighth time. They were of Woods wincing, hobbling and twitching. Those were the scenes from earlier this year when he coped with recurring back pain that forced him to withdraw from the Honda Classic and eventually led to back surgery March 31.

In his third tournament since returning from surgery, this had the look of a serious setback.

Woods injured himself playing a shot from edge of a bunker on the par-5 second hole. With all weight on his right leg, he took an awkward slash at the ball, fell back towards the sand and landed with a thud, and kept jogging out of the bunker from sheer momentum of the steep drop.

“I just jarred it, and it’s been spasming ever since,” Woods told a PGA Tour official before leaving.

Woods kept playing, hitting a number of shockingly bad shots. He hit one into the water from the fairway on
No. 3, coming up some 30 yards short of the flag. And on the par-3 fifth hole, his tee shot was 65 yards short of the hole. From a bunker left of the seventh green, he blasted out and back into the fairway and made double bogey.

He grimaced at impact when he hit a 315-yard drive into the left rough on No. 9. Woods slowly stooped over with his right hand on his leg, reached towards his back and slowly bent down to remove the tee from the ground. Moments later, he stepped into a cart and headed for the parking lot.

“It’s just the whole lower back,” Woods said. “I don’t know what happened.”

Masters champion Bubba Watson said he didn’t see Woods hit the shot that hurt him on No. 2, though he could tell as the round went on that something wasn’t right.

“He hit some shots that we’re not used to seeing Tiger hit, even when he’s coming back from an injury like this,” Watson said. “So obviously, something was bothering him. ... Like I told him when I shook his hand, I said: ‘I’m praying for you. Hope everything turns out good. Hope to see you next week’.”

With the pain he showed leaving the course — and just four months removed from back surgery — it would seem unlikely that Woods plays next week at Valhalla, where he won the PGA Championship in 2000. Woods is scheduled to play the opening two rounds with Phil Mickelson and Padraig Harrington.

Mickelson was on the 11th hole — not far away from No. 9 — when he noticed Woods leaving.

“It didn’t look good. It looked like he was really in pain,” Mickelson said. “I hope he’s OK. I hope he’s able to play next week. I hope it’s a muscle and nothing serious because I’m really looking forward to playing with him. We rarely get paired together. If we do, it’s been early Saturday.

“As much as I love playing with him, playing against him, trying to beat him, we all want him in the field. We all want him back. I just hope he’s OK.”

If Woods does not play in the PGA Championship, that would be the end of his season. He would have to win the PGA to be eligible for the FedEx Cup play-offs. In six starts on the PGA Tour this year, Woods finished all four rounds only twice.

Woods had back surgery to alleviate an impinged nerve, forcing him to miss the Masters for the first time and the US Open. He returned after three months to Congressional — three weeks ahead of his own schedule — and reported no pain in missing the cut by four shots at the Quicken Loans National. He also reported no pain in four rounds at the British Open. He finished 69th, 23 shots out of the lead, his worst 72-hole result in a major.

And now with another injury, Ryder Cup captain Tom Watson might have an even more difficult time picking him for the American team. The captain has said he wants Woods on the team if he was healthy and playing well.

MILAN — Italy and Juventus defender Giorgio Chiellini has joined the criticism of Italian football federation (FIGC) presidential candidate Carlo Tavecchio after the 71-year-old referred to African players as “banana eaters”. As the row continued to fester one week after the comments were made, Chiellini said that the position needed somebody with “decorum and personality” and that Tavecchio’s rival Demetrio Albertini, a former Italy midfielder, was the only suitable candidate. The election to replace Giancarlo Abete, who quit following Italy’s group stage exit at the World Cup, is due to take place on August 11. “I read his [Tavecchio’s] words the day after and they left me disconcerted,” Chiellini told reporters at a Juventus news conference on Sunday. “I asked... how Italian football could be heading towards this election and if there was any solution. I have nothing personal against Tavecchio but at the moment, the only adequate person for the role is Albertini,” said the 29-year-old.