United-Barcelona meet in Champions League final

What better way to finish off Europe’s biggest club competition than a showdown between two of the most famous names in soccer, Manchester United and Barcelona?

A little like a long-awaited heavyweight title fight between the defending champion and the popular No. 1 contender, Man United and Barca face each other at Rome’s Olympic stadium on Wednesday.

Between them they have five Champions League titles, including Man U’s championship last year. Even if that only equals the five won by Liverpool and is two behind AC Milan and four behind Real Madrid, these clubs are among the most powerful and popular in the sport.

Now that they meet in the Champions League final for the first time, they hope to put on a classic at a heavily secured Olympic Stadium.

“When we get a game that paints the real story of football, then we are all lifted. Barcelona and Manchester United can do that,” said United manager Alex Ferguson, who is chasing his 26th trophy in 23 seasons with the Red Devils.

“The players we both have suggests it will be a great final. I hope it lives up to it.”

A glance at the potential lineups suggests each has a formidable offense, while United has the better defense because Barca has been hit by suspensions.

Ferguson can choose from Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Dimitar Berbatov and Carlos Tevez in attack. If Thierry Henry overcomes a knee injury, he will team up with Lionel Messi and Samuel Eto’o in a Barcelona lineup that scored more than 100 league goals this season.

Winner of its third Premier League title in a row and 11th in 17 seasons, United goes to Rome chasing its fourth triumph in European soccer’s most prestigious club competition.

Ferguson repeatedly has said United should have won the title more times, including during his 23-year spell at the club. A fourth title would put the team owned by American Malcolm Glazer and his sons, they also own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, alongside Bayern Munich and Ajax.

“There’s the opportunity for us to put ourselves among the pantheon of teams who have won the competition four times and that would be fantastic for us,” Ferguson said.

Barcelona, which is after its third European cup title, was one of Madrid’s biggest rivals decades ago, winning back-to-back Spanish titles in 1959 and ’60. A losing finalist to Benfica in 1961, it stayed in Madrid’s shadow in the European Cup.

Throughout the years, both clubs have been synonymous with positive play, performing before huge crowds and attracting big stars. United plays to sellout crowds at its 76,000-seat Old Trafford, and Barcelona gets up to 98,700 at Camp Nou.

While United’s defenders will have to deal with the dribbling skills of Barca’s Messi, the Argentine star fears what Ronaldo could do to his team.

“They’re a great team, Manchester. If you go through the whole squad, you’d be hard pushed to know which player to choose if you had to pick just one. But clearly you have to start with Cristiano, a great forward who can ‘gambetea’ with speed and ease,” Messi said, using a colloquial South American term for dribbling with feints and swerves.

“And he has a great medium-range shot. We’re conscious that in Rome we can’t give him time to think or get a shot in from distance. He’s a great footballer.”

Ferguson, who arrived at Old Trafford in October 1986 after being hugely successful in his native Scotland with Aberdeen, has led Man United to 25 titles since 1990.

At about the time that run started, a young midfielder was starting out at Barcelona.

Pep Guardiola began his career at Camp Nou that year and went on to become one of the most respected midfielders in European soccer, helping Barca win its first European Cup in 1992, before it became known as the Champions League.

After a spell as reserve team coach, Guardiola took over after the club from fired Frank Rijkaard and, in his first season in charge, has already taken the team to the Spanish league title.

While Ronaldo vs. Messi and Rooney vs. Henry might be two of the biggest matchups on the field, Ferguson vs. Guardiola—their first head-to-head as coaches—will be just as significant.

One of them will take a step up the ladder of European champions, while the other will have to wait another year..

Read More >>>

NASCAR hands down suspension

NASCAR has suspended driver Carl Long for the next 12 Sprint Cup races and fined crew chief Charles Swing $200,000, the largest penalty in the sport’s history.

Swing also was suspended until Aug. 18 for using an engine that was too big for NASCAR’s specifications last weekend at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

Long was docked a NASCAR-record 200 points. Additionally, Swing and Long were placed on probation until Dec. 31.

Car owner Danielle Long, Carl’s wife, also was suspended 12 races, docked 200 owner points and placed on probation until Dec. 31.

The record fine exceeds the $150,000 Robby Gordon’s crew chief, Frank Kerr, received in March 2008. Several drivers and owners have been docked 100 points in recent years.

Long has made just 23 career Cup starts, and has not appeared in a points-paying Cup race since 2006.

He finished last in the 35-car field in a qualifying event for Saturday night’s All-Star race, dropping out after three laps because of an engine problem.

Long, who also failed to qualify for the season-opening Daytona 500, first had engine trouble during practice last Friday. The team switched engines, and under NASCAR rules, the sanctioning body examined the bad engine.

NASCAR discovered an issue and sent the engine to the Research & Development Center for more tests, which determined the engine exceeded maximum cubic inch displacement specifications.

Read More >>>

Nuggets rise to occasion to square series

Finally, for once in their cursed playoff history with the Lakers, the Nuggets shoved back. On this night, even Kobe Bryant(notes) fell at their feet. Derek Fisher’s(notes) last-gasp 3-pointer dropped woefully short of the rim, and

the Nuggets walked off the court with a 106-103 victory, having squared the Western Conference finals at a game apiece.

Some 30 minutes later, Kenyon Martin(notes) stood in front of his locker and delivered another pointed message to Laker Nation. Anyone who’s looking forward to watching Kobe duel LeBron in the NBA Finals might want to make a contingency plan.

“Y’all can go home and play NBA Live or something,” K-Mart grunted, “if y’all want to see that matchup.”

Nike can keep putting on its Kobe & LeBron puppet shows. Let David Stern and his comrades at Disney drool over this season’s dream Finals matchup. If the league has already anointed the Lakers and Cleveland Cavaliers as its conference champions, the Nuggets didn’t pay attention.

“They got a fight on their hand over here,” Martin said. “And Cleveland got a fight on their hand, as well. It ain’t just going to be us and Orlando lay down, so they can play in two weeks.

“That ain’t going to happen. I’m going to make sure it don’t.”

K-Mart made sure, for one night, at least. His layup with 29.6 seconds left put the Nuggets ahead to stay, ending an 11-game playoff losing streak to the Lakers that dated to the 1985 conference finals. The Lakers swept the Nuggets out of the first round a year ago, and the popular feeling was that they had already absorbed the Nuggets’ best shot in this series after rallying past Denver in the opener.

So when the Nuggets quickly gave back a seven-point lead in the fourth quarter? Everyone knew what was coming next. Just another mile-high collapse. Hadn’t the Nuggets advanced through the first two rounds of the playoffs too easily? Even Houston Rockets forward Shane Battier(notes) questioned the Nuggets’ ability to stare down adversity, and he wasn’t alone.

“So-called experts thought we were going to fold?” Martin said. “Nobody in this locker room did, man.”

That’s the difference between these Nuggets and those of years past. As Martin also said: “We believe.”

Billups, more than anyone else, has given Denver its faith. He’s steadied the Nuggets throughout the season and he did so again on Thursday after the Lakers ran out to a 13-point lead with less than 2½ minutes left in the second quarter.

“They had us in a bad place,” said Billups, who followed a 3-pointer by Linas Kleiza(notes) with one of his own, then added a pair of free throws.

As the Nuggets tried to inbound under their basket on the final play of the quarter, Bryant inexplicably turned his back on Billups. Billups threw the ball off Bryant’s jersey, caught the carom, then darted baseline for a layup to send the Nuggets into halftime down only a point.

“Last year, the lead probably would have went from 10 to 20,” Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony(notes) said. “I’d be sitting here talking to you about a loss last year, where this year our team is so much mentally tougher.”

That includes Anthony himself. He has raised his game in these playoffs to a level where only the elite reside. After scoring 39 points in the series’ opener, he went for 34 in Game 2 and defended Bryant credibly in the final quarter – all while playing on a tender ankle.

“It seems like his confidence then kind of spread to the other guys on the team,” Fisher said.

In truth, George Karl might have been the only Nugget in need of a self-esteem check after the team’s disheartening loss on Tuesday. As Karl sat in the coach’s office, door open, after that game, he looked like a beaten man. His morose attitude carried over to the post-game news conference, prompting, he said, a couple friends to call and question whether his children had died.

“I was kind of in shock, I think,” Karl said. “…We were one rebound, one free throw, one jump ball away from probably having the biggest win in Nuggets history.”

The Nuggets, fortunately, have learned to ignore their coach’s occasional pity parade. To show just how much they’ve grown from last season, Karl kept the Nuggets here after Thursday’s game. A year ago, he didn’t trust his players to police themselves and forced the team to jet home between its two games in L.A.

The Nuggets simmered over that edict. Now, to disrespect these Nuggets is to embolden them. Even after the Lakers struggled against the Rockets, Billups scoffed at the suggestion that anyone actually thought Denver could win the West finals.

“People have picked us because it’s just boring to just say the Lakers are going to win,” Billups said. “Before the playoffs even started, we were supposed to lose to New Orleans. We haven’t forgotten that.”

The underdog role suits them well, and the Nuggets now return to Denver with the one victory they sought. They’ll play the next two games in high altitude, and already there are questions whether the Lakers remain fatigued from their long series with the Rockets. The Lakers’ big men have disappeared once again, unable to exploit their size advantage against the smaller Nuggets. Lakers coach Phil Jackson also said he needed to give Bryant a “mental break” in Game 2, which could explain why neither Bryant nor Pau Gasol(notes) bothered to watch Billups on that costly inbounds play.

The Lakers still have time to find their legs and heads, though the sooner they do, the better. LeBron can wait. Win or lose, Kobe and his Lakers have discovered this much: They’ve got another fight on their hands.
Source: Yahoo news

Read More >>>

Once again, No. 23 reigns in Cleveland

CLEVELAND – It was happening again. God, it was happening again here. Another championship season had come crashing down on Cleveland,

cruel and criminal. TheCavaliers had unraveled and now there were some fans – speechless and ashen – marching up the stairs and disappearing to the exits. They weren’t thinking about the possibility of LeBron James(notes) getting one final shot for redemption, but Michael Jordan and John Elway and every damn dagger ever delivered to this city’s swollen sporting heart.

One second left, and a Cleveland sports season had come to die in Quicken Loans Arena. Shakespeare should’ve been a columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. No city does sports tragedy like this one.

Yes, somehow it was happening again to Cleveland.

“A second,” LeBron James countered, “is a long time for me.”

The Cavaliers’ Mo Williams(notes) had the job of passing the ball inbounds with the Magic still bursting over a 23-point comeback on Friday night, over a tough, twisting Hedo Turkoglu(notes) basket with one second left in Game 2. The loudest arena in the league had lost its voice, its breath, its bearings. It felt like it had lost this season. The Cleveland fan has been conditioned to believe something precious is destined to perish.

Yes, it was happening again, and suddenly the ball reached the hands of LeBron James and the course of NBA playoff history was transformed. He turned, shot over Turkoglu and a rapidly closing Rashard Lewis(notes). The shot lofted long and high and true across 24 feet, across the years of Cavs angst and anguish.

When everyone expected the sky to fall in Cleveland, something else dropped down: Sweet salvation.

“It was like watching a movie,” Orlando’s Dwight Howard(notes) said. “The ball was just spinning. … It was like watching a real movie. … ”

“He hit the shot.”

He hit the shot?

LeBron James hit the shot.

Cleveland beat the Orlando Magic, 96-95, on James’ 3-pointer at the buzzer, and salvaged itself a 1-1 series tie in the Eastern Conference finals. Truth be told, they salvaged the season, too. The Cavs should’ve lost on Friday night, and they know it. They’re struggling with everything about these Magic, and LeBron will have to do more and more to keep the Cavs alive with the mismatches destroying them everywhere on the floor. They should’ve been on the way to Orlando with the once-unthinkable possibility of a Magic sweep looming like an anvil over this series.

So, yes, they stormed the court and tackled James, and you’ve never, ever heard such a spontaneous, primal scream of 20,000 people in an arena. Never, ever seen such a reaction, such joy and relief and sheer ecstacy. The arena shook, strangers hugged strangers, and yes, the Cavaliers rushed James like high school kids who won a sectional title.

Williams, the passer, collapsed to his knees and pounded the floor over and over and over. He hit it 10 times, maybe 11. He looked like he wanted to cry.

This was one of the greatest shots in NBA history, because of the circumstances and stakes and degree of difficulty. Twenty years ago, it was Jordan over Craig Ehlo to beat the Cavs in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

This time, it was James over Turkoglu. This time, it was James over long odds and the longer reach of NBA history.

“He was born to do that,” Cleveland’s Sasha Pavlovic(notes) marveled.

He was born to do that here.

Across the fourth quarter, on the way to his 35 points, James had deferred to his teammates to take important shots. No more now. As the Cavs went into the timeout after Turkoglu’s shot, James made it clear: This was his shot, his story to finish. No decoys. This wasn’t time to be Magic, but Michael. Witness this

“Whatever happens,” James yelled to Williams in the huddle, “I’m going to come get the ball.” Whatever options fall apart, James insisted to his point guard that he would find a way to get open and promised him, “I’m going to knock down the shot.”

Turkoglu had made an immense shot over Pavlovic to take a 95-93 lead, but he made one grave mistake:

He left a second on the clock.

He left LeBron life.

Lewis, 6-foot-10, covered Williams on the inbounds pass. He’s long and angular and able to make it difficult for the Cavaliers point guard to get a clear-sighted passing lane. As Williams walked past midcourt, where an official waited to hand him the ball, he kept saying to himself, “Please God … please God … something … something.”

After that, Williams told the official: Please give me the five-second count out loud. Cleveland was out of timeouts. Williams had one chance to get the ball to James, where he could catch, turn and shoot. One second, one chance.

Cleveland coach Mike Brown had diagrammed a lob pass for James. He would fake back to the ball and turn hard toward the rim. “When I went to go for the lob, Hedo didn’t bite on it,” James said.

The ref’s count was climbing, “Two … Three … ”

Lewis had his back to the floor, his eyes burned into those of Williams. Everything told him the Magic had this inbounds play defended perfectly, that they had James bottled in the cluster of bodies behind him. “I could see [Williams] face scrunching up,” Lewis said. “He didn’t know who to throw the ball to. He double-pumped two, three times … ”

Finally, James stayed true to his word. He sprinted back beyond the 3-point line, and the referee’s count had reached four – one more second, and it would’ve been a violation – and Williams fired a perfect pass some 15 feet to James.

“Rashard played it perfect,” James said. “He stood tall and got in Mo’s way.”

Lewis turned over his shoulder, saw James catching the ball 25 feet out and used those long, loping strides to make a final, desperate run to contest the shot. Turkoglu was there, rising with LeBron.

“LeBron just jumps so high on his shot, you can’t get to the ball,” Lewis said. “The ball felt like it took forever to come down.”

Once Mo Williams let go of the pass, once he watched James catch and shoot, all he could think was: When will that ball ever come down? Once it dropped through the net, and a blurring, bum rush of Cavs toppled James, Williams’ knees buckled and he collapsed to the floor.

“I was punch drunk,” he said. “I just fell down. I just … fell … down.”

It was a shot, James says, he had made thousands and thousands of times 30 miles down the road in Akron. He was always Jordan, always No. 23. “That’s a shot that you will see for a long time,” James said. “You watch classic games and you see Jordan hit game-winners, and you go back and see Jerry West hitting game-winners and Magic Johnson going across the lane and hitting the hook against Boston.”

Mostly, LeBron James was thinking about Michael Jordan on Friday night. He’s the ghost who always haunted these Cavs, and the inspiration that drove James to basketball genius. He isn’t chasing Kobe Bryant(notes) as much as he’s chasing Michael. What Elway always did to the Browns, Jordan always did to the Cavs.

Past midnight, past one of the great finishes in NBA history, James told everyone: “That guy is not in the league anymore. The other ‘23’ is gone, so we don’t have to worry about that no more.”

“ … Twenty-three is on the good side now.”

James hadn’t had one of these shots in the playoffs, and he understood that history demands you deliver these bigger-than-life moments. Yes, he made this shot thousands of times growing up in Akron, in the shadow of a city going on 45 years without a professional championship. “The Shot” still belongs to No. 23 in Cleveland – just no longer Michael Jordan.

Yes, it was happening again here. But as it turned out, this wasn’t one more Cleveland sporting collapse. Twenty years later, it was “The Shot” reborn on the Cavs’ side, on Jordan’s anniversary.

“We are playing with history in the making,” Wally Szczerbiak(notes) said. “He’s going to be the best basketball player to ever touch a ball.”

Nearby, Mo Williams still wore his uniform, still a face flushed in delirium.

“What just happened out there?” he asked.

Outside his locker, his knees on ice, LeBron James looked up and offered a knowing nod and smile.

“Just say thank you to the basketball gods,” he said.

The basketball god, LeBron James means.

Once more, he wears No. 23.

Source:Yahoo!Sports

Read More >>>

Hendrick is a man of his people

CONCORD, N.C. – A few days after Kyle Busch’s firing from Hendrick Motorsports, speculation ran rampant about who would stay to work with new hire Dale Earnhardt Jr.

and who would follow Busch to wherever he landed.

Alan Gustafson quickly removed his name from the mix.

“I’d rather sweep floors for Rick Hendrick than be a crew chief for someone else,” Gustafson said.

In 25 years of racing in NASCAR’s top series, Hendrick has built a powerhouse organization of 500-plus employees who have a fierce loyalty to their boss. They love working for “Mr. H.” and put 100-percent effort into job performance. If the grass is possibly greener elsewhere, few ever bother finding out.

Steve Letarte started as a high schooler stocking the parts room and grew up to be Jeff Gordon’s crew chief. Gustafson came aboard in the chassis shop when he was 24 and was Busch’s crew chief six years later. Chad Knaus started as a tire changer on Gordon’s original “Rainbow Warriors” pit crew, left briefly for a bigger job elsewhere, then returned to build Jimmie Johnson’s three-time championship-winning team from scratch.

Even Tony Eury Jr. has come full cycle. He spent childhood summers sweeping floors and polishing cars at Hendrick with his grandfather, Robert Gee. When Earnhardt chose HMS in 2007 over every other team in the industry, Earnhardt used this example to demonstrate his affection for Hendrick: When Gee, one of the first employees at All-Star Racing (now Hendrick Motorsports) had aged well past his ability to perform as a fabricator, Hendrick let him continue to work.

He treats his employees as family – firing Casey Mears, a close friend of Hendrick’s late son, Ricky, was a gut-wrenching business decision – and goes out of his way to offer a helping hand.

Sidelined several weeks with a fast-spreading sinus infection that kept him away from the track, Hendrick returned for last week’s All-Star race on a scaled-back schedule. Thursday, he was still making his rounds at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, site of Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600, reconnecting with people he had not seen in several weeks. When an industry veteran updated Hendrick on an ailing family member, Hendrick said to him, “Tell me if there’s anything I can do to help.”

That kind of attention is what separates Hendrick from the other car owners. Of course Joe Gibbs and Richard Childress and Jack Roush have good employee relationships, but none have established the kind of companywide adoration that Hendrick receives from his race team, his automotive organization and virtually everyone inside the Cup garage, including his competition.

When Gene Haas lured Tony Stewart away from Gibbs with the opportunity to own half the race team, it was the alliance with Hendrick that helped convince Stewart he could build a successful organization. And when Stewart looked for the right people to hire, he settled on Darian Grubb, a longtime HMS employee with a secure future with Hendrick.

Grubb surprised many by taking the job with Stewart.

“They’re really fortunate, I think, to have gotten somebody like Darian,” Gustafson said. “It’s not often that somebody will leave our organization because they want to be around Rick. I know Darian has a huge amount of respect and admiration for Rick, but I know Rick also will take care of Darian regardless of what happens.”

So why is it that Hendrick Motorsports, winner of four of the last six races, will go into Sunday night’s Coca-Cola 600 as the team to beat?

Hendick insists its just luck that has cycled his team to the top. But in reality, it’s his ability to manage people better than anyone else in the business.

He agonized when bad luck and mechanical failures derailed the start of Mark Martin’s season, and his engine shop employees worked tirelessly to make sure the boss would not have to explain another motor issue to Martin. Hendrick hasn’t, and Martin has rebounded by winning two races.

Hendrick is miserable about Earnhardt’s slump this year and is pouring over everything in an effort to fix the No. 88 team. He hears the calls for Eury to be replaced, but remains confident that he’s still the best man for the difficult job as Earnhardt’s crew chief.

“I’ve never believed that tearing something down is the solution,” Hendrick said. “We’ll keep working; we’ll keep trying to figure it out. But ripping the whole thing apart isn’t the answer.”

Maybe Hendrick is being stubborn, and the loyalty he’s extending to the grandson of an old friend is coming at the expense of one of his race teams. But it’s hard to argue with his track record, and his decision-making has made HMS unarguably the best organization in NASCAR.

Aside from Earnhardt’s group, the rest of the organization has hit its stride this season. Johnson’s win March 29 at Martinsville – the day Hendrick celebrated his 25th anniversary in NASCAR – was the first of three-straight HMS wins.

Gordon, Johnson and Martin have combined for four wins this season, and Gordon heads into Sunday night as the Sprint Cup Series points leader. Developmental driver Brad Keselowski drove a James Finch-owned car to a surprise win at Talladega, and Stewart took Hendrick equipment to victory lane last weekend with his first All-Star race win.

Hendrick will look for another win this Sunday night at Lowe’s, the track he considers home. Located mere minutes away from the HMS 600,000 square-foot compound, and just down the street from two of Hendrick’s car dealerships, he invites employees and their families out to the track to enjoy a weekend of racing.

There’s usually treated to a celebration – Hendrick drivers have won 15 races at LMS, including four of the past six Coca-Cola 600s.

“We love Lowe’s Motor Speedway, the two weeks of racing are a big deal for us and all the employees we bring out to the race track,” he said. “We like to do well there. We try really hard to make it a special weekend.”

There’s no doubt his teams will do their part Sunday.

Source:Yahoo! Sports

Read More >>>