I think Gio was fantastic in November with us. I think everyone praised him in his game against Paraguay, and then in the way that he was involved and committed with the team. And with the national team, I think I was really happy with the aspect and the factor that he was involved.
Willi Castro connected for a leadoff homer off Sam Aldegheri on the fourth pitch of the game. That lead didn't last long, however, as Seth Lugo struggled on the mound from the get-go. He walked two of the first three Italian batters, and then a couple of soft singles through the infield turned things around into a 2-1 game.
After securing the biggest victory in their program's history, beating the superpower United States and going undefeated in Pool play, Italy continued its dominance, punching its first-ever ticket to the World Baseball Classic semi-final. In a do-or-die game, the Italian bats were simply too much to handle for a potent Puerto Rican pitching staff that had been the best in the tournament heading into play on Saturday.
The 63-year-old will leave his current managerial role with Cypriot club APEA Akrotiri to take up the position on 16 March. Constantine had a spell in charge of Rwanda from May 2014 to January 2015 before he left to manage India.
Martin Johnson, England's World-Cup winning skipper, believes there is no huge mystery to being a great captain. If you haven't got a good team it doesn't matter how good a captain you are. To suggest that calm, sure-footed leadership is irrelevant in top-level sport, however, is another matter. Even the greatest sides need decisive, intelligent direction, regardless of who supplies it.
Of course we didn't want the match to end like that, given the spectacle it was, but I couldn't leave my teammates in trouble and just stand there. I went to defend my teammates. - Cruzeiro striker Kaio Jorge, explaining his involvement in the brawl after scoring the winning goal.
The drought ended after a really long time and after that we never looked back. Everything changed in 2024. From there we understood how this team needs to work going forward, and it's been a wonderful journey since then. We wanted to do something special in front of our home crowd and we want to continue doing that and never stop.
Ireland are comforted to the return of full fitness of Courtney Brosnan, even if her side had successfully negotiated the Belgium promotion play-offs without her, albeit not without some fraught moments for Grace Moloney. The other two changes from that last-gasp aggregate success in Leuven saw Megan Connolly displace Ruesha Littlejohn, who has played effectively no football since, while Anna Patten came in for Jess Stapleton.
Cutting a paid promo for a state-backed organization would be disconcerting in any context, but it is especially so here given Romano's position. Taking a check from Saudi Arabia is a poor and embarrassing decision for anyone to make, but Romano isn't some doofy comedian trying to justify telling jokes in Riyadh. He's an ostensible journalist, one who consistently covers the Saudi Pro League, and who has now given his followers no choice but to question that coverage.