A lot is happening in world sport this weekend, including Australian Open Tennis, an interesting Spanish soccer season, and more Cristiano Ronaldo. The tide of opinion is turning against Real Madrid manager Santiago Solari in the wake of haphazard results, timid performances and baffling team selections less than three months after he succeeded fired coach Julen Lopetegui. The former Real Madrid and Argentina midfielder, who was promoted from within, faces the stiffest test of his tenure on Saturday at third-placed Sevilla, who thrashed the European champions 3-0 in September, spelling the beginning of the end for Lopetegui. The recent Club World Cup championship shows just how far world accolades actually go in the rough and tumble world of La Liga. Real Madrid, who have reached the quarterfinals of the Copa del Rey, are accused of having sunk into mediocrity this season, and the blame laid at the feet of the coaching staff. Sevilla are locked on 33 points with Real, who are fourth in the Primera Liga standings and 10 points off leaders Barcelona, who host Leganes on Sunday. Second-placed Atletico Madrid, reeling from a Copa del Rey exit to Girona on Wednesday, visit basement club Huesca after Real's match on Saturday. In Italy, or actually in Saudi Arabia, Juventus beat AC Milan 1-0 on Wednesday to win the Italian Super Cup for a record eighth time. Cristiano Ronaldo scored the only goal of the match to win his first trophy with Juventus. It was his fourth goal in his past four matches. The match was held at the sold-out King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Jeddah in front of more than 61,000 fans. The Italian league officials have signed a deal which ensures that three of the next five Super Cup finals will be played outside of Italy, and in Saudi Arabia. Nothing like going where the money is... Milan had to play the final 16 minutes of the game with 10 men after midfielder Franck Kessie was sent off following a foul on Emre Can, which saw him stamp on the Juventus midfielder. This weekend the Round of 16 is being contested in the Australian Open, which wraps up play on January 27th. The play will be fierce this weekend, as always, and still includes many players well known to readers of this space, Zverev, Djokovic, Federer, Nadal, Cilic, etc. We will try to update you before play comes to a stunning conclusion next weekend. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "omnisport" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/omnisport. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
