Sports
Arsenal beats Manchester United in Premier League opener
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Arsenal kept Manchester United’s expensively assembled forward line at bay and scored again from a set piece to win 1-0 at Old Trafford in the marquee match in the opening round of English football’s Premier League.
Arsenal defender Riccardo Calafiori nodded in from close range in the 13th minute on Sunday after United back-up goalkeeper Altay Bayındır flapped at the ball from a corner whipped in by Declan Rice.
After finishing second for the past three seasons, the pressure is on Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta to deliver the club’s first league title since 2003-04.
The Spaniard was left to depend on his reliable defence and goalkeeper David Raya to secure a huge three points as the visitors never fully got going as an attacking force.
United, meanwhile, fell to a loss that is all too familiar under Ruben Amorim following a woeful 15th-place finish last season by the struggling giants of English football.
United spent around 200 million pounds ($270m) on revamping their attack in the preseason, with Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha starting the match and Benjamin Sesko coming off the bench in the second half.
Cunha and Mbeumo unsettled Arsenal’s normally unflappable centre-back pairing of Gabriel Magalhaes and William Saliba early on.
However, United’s good work was undone by a glaring error from Bayindir, who was deputising for Andre Onana.
Patrick Dorgu came closest to a United reply before half-time with a powerful effort from distance that came back off the post.
Mbeumo and Cunha saw tame efforts easily saved by Raya, while the Spaniard did brilliantly to divert another Cunha shot across the face of goal.
Arsenal had held interest in Sesko for well over a year before instead pursuing a move for Viktor Gyokeres as the solution to their need for a number nine. The Swede had a quiet Premier League debut and was replaced before the hour mark by Kai Havertz.
Sesko made his entrance moments later to a hero’s welcome after rejecting the advances of Newcastle for the lure of the 20-time English champions.
United continued to enjoy the better of the play without finding the finish as Mbeumo saw a powerful header expertly clawed out by Raya.
But Arsenal held firm to keep pace with title rivals Liverpool and Manchester City, who also won on the opening weekend of the campaign.
Calafiori told Sky Sports after the match that his side have room to improve, despite the win.
“Like always, we were working a lot on our set pieces, and that is what we showed today. We have to improve if possible and keep going,” he said.
“If we want to compete at the high level, we have to be good in every position. My teammates are ready to play, and it is not easy to play every game. The confidence we have inside is going to bring up the level. Hopefully, I play a lot but if not there is another teammate that can play.”
Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes said that while his team played well, they need to be more clinical in front of goal.
“We created lots of chances and didn’t score, so we have to do better next time. We controlled the game well, we were good on the ball,” he told Sky Sports.
“[Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo] created a lot [of opportunities and] they were in the right positions. We know they are dangerous, and they are a threat. We are very aware of what they can give to the team. It was a good first impression for them, but I’m pretty sure they will do much better.”
Elsewhere in the Premier League on Sunday, Chelsea failed to score in their opening league game, as they were held 0-0 by Crystal Palace in the Blues’ first competitive match as the Club World Cup champions.
A month after stunning Paris Saint-Germain in the Club World Cup final, Chelsea toiled at Stamford Bridge after a short preseason because of the team’s exertions in the United States.
Meanwhile, Nottingham Forest hit the ground running with a 3-1 win over Brentford, with striker Chris Wood – the team’s top scorer last season, with 20 goals – netting twice in the first half, on either side of a goal by Dan Ndoye on his debut.
All matches on Sunday featured a period of silence before kickoff as a tribute to Diogo Jota and Andre Silva, the brothers who were killed in a car crash in Spain last month. Jota was a player for Liverpool at the time.
Ex-Arsenal striker, Ian Wright, has named the only team that can stop France from winning the 2026 World Cup.
Les Bleus qualified for the last 16, thanks to a 3-0 hammering of Sweden, with captain Kylian Mbappe scoring twice.
Mbappe is leading the race for the Golden Boot with six goals and two assists.
France will take on Paraguay in the next round, as they seek to play in their third consecutive World Cup final.
Didier Deschamps lost the 2022 tournament to Argentina on penalties and Wright has claimed only Lionel Messi and co can stop them again.
“It’s going to take something [to beat France],” Wright said.
“It’s going to take an Argentina because of the warrior nature of Argentina.”
The wife and two children of Argentine soccer star Lucas Trejo have died after powerful twin earthquakes struck Venezuela, his team last weekend.
Trejo, who plays for Club Sport Maritimo La Guaira, a second-division team in Venezuela, had searched for his wife Yanina and children Aaron and Ainhoa in the rubble for three days before rescue workers recovered their bodies, CNN reported.
“Club Sport Maritimo La Guaira deeply mourns the irreparable loss of our player’s wife and children,” the team said in a post on Instagram, accompanied by a photo of the family.
“Peace to their souls and comfort for Lucas and all his loved ones,” the team wrote in a post on X.
Trejo, 38, was at a team training camp in Caracas when the quakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 struck on Wednesday evening, and immediately returned to his home in La Guaira — the state worst hit by the disaster — to “a horrific scene,” Trejo’s brother-in-law Ricardo Ardiles told CNN Espanol.
“He found absolutely nothing of what the building itself had been,” Ardiles said.
More than 1,700 people have died and tens of thousands are still unaccounted for, Venezuelan authorities said Monday.
Race to find survivors
Over the weekend, a mother and her 9-month-old baby were pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building in Venezuela by a U.S. search and rescue team.
Virginia Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 1 shared a video of its members pulling a woman from the rubble of a collapsed building. Neighbors cheered as she was pulled from the wreckage.
Another video, shared by the U.S. State Department, showed the baby being removed from the rubble wrapped in blue fabric. The baby’s face was blurred, but it could be heard crying.
Venezuelans have reported seeing few state rescue teams in the hardest-hit areas, though acting President Delcy Rodríguez said the Venezuelan government was mounting a full response. The government of Caracas said Saturday that about 200 people had been rescued. But online databases say about 51,000 remain missing.
In La Guaira, a woman named Diana Sandrano told CBS News that she will search for her missing brother “as long as it takes.”
“He deserves to live and have a future,” Sandrano said, after a day of searching.
The United States booked their place in the Round of 16 at the 2026 FIFA World Cup with a determined 2–0 victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina at Levi’s Stadium, overcoming a second-half red card to secure progression.
Backed by a lively home crowd of 68,827 fans in Santa Clara, the Americans delivered a disciplined performance and showed resilience after being reduced to 10 men.
Forward Folarin Balogun gave the hosts the breakthrough just before half-time, finishing confidently in the 45th minute to put the USA ahead and lift the atmosphere inside the stadium.
However, the match took a dramatic turn midway through the second half.
Balogun was sent off in the 64th minute after a challenge on Bosnia defender Tarik Muharemović.
Although play initially continued without punishment, the referee reviewed the incident following a VAR recommendation and issued a straight red card.
Down to 10 men, the United States tightened defensively and limited Bosnia’s attacking opportunities, refusing to allow the numerical disadvantage affect their control of the game.
The result was sealed late on when Malik Tillman produced a superb free-kick in the 82nd minute, curling his effort over the wall and beyond Bosnia goalkeeper Nikola Vasilj to double the hosts’ advantage.
Bosnia and Herzegovina struggled to create meaningful chances throughout the contest and were unable to take advantage of their extra man.
The victory sends the United States into the last 16, where they will face Belgium in what promises to be one of the standout knockout clashes of the tournament.
The only setback for the Americans is the absence of Balogun, who is expected to miss the next match following his dismissal.
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