LONDON (AP) ― Chelsea welcomed back club great Didier Drogba to Stamford Bridge on Saturday but it was another striker who maintained the team’s winning start to the Premier League season.Scoring for the second straight game, Diego Costa set Chelsea on its way to a 2-0 home victory over Leicester to join Swansea with back-to-back wins after two rounds.The Spanish league got underway with Malaga’s eventful win over Athletic Bilbao and the German league was treated to its quickest goal ever.Costa

Aug. 24, 2014

INCHEON (Yonhap) ― South Korea will take on Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Laos in the group stage of the men’s soccer tournament at the upcoming Asian Games at home.At the draw held in the Asiad host city of Incheon, just west of Seoul, Thursday, South Korea ended up in Group A with the three countries.The men’s competition features 29 nations. There will be five groups of four nations and three groups of three teams.South Korea is seeking its first Asiad gold in men’s football since 1986. It finis

Aug. 21, 2014

BARCELONA (AP) ― Neymar and Luis Suarez played for the first time since their dramatic World Cup exits, with the Brazilian star scoring twice Monday and showing no signs of his devastating back injury in Barcelona’s 6-0 rout of Mexican champion Leon in a preseason tuneup.The last time Suarez played he infamously bit an Italian opponent at the World Cup, drawing a four-month ban from competitive matches.The Uruguayan striker, who has since transferred to Barcelona from Liverpool, was cheered by h

Aug. 19, 2014

When Shim Chan-koo started his company in 2000, he never knew his company would grow this big. Now sports have become the life’s work of the 43-year-old CEO of Sportizen, and his company is the oldest and one of the largest sports marketing firms in Korea.He is even dubbed the Jerry Maguire of Korea for thriving in an area where people thought it was impossible to succeed. Shim recently acquired Belgian soccer club, AFC Tubize, blazing a trail in the Korean sports marketing industry. The purchas

Aug. 18, 2014

MANCHESTER, England (AP) ― Louis van Gaal lost his first Premier League game with Manchester United on Saturday, with Swansea winning 2-1 to become the first away team since 1972 to open the season with a victory at Old Trafford.Gylfi Sigurdsson took advantage of poor defending to score the Welsh club’s winning goal in the 72nd minute. United captain Wayne Rooney had tied the match after Ki Sung-yueng opened the scoring.“We never played as a team, that is our error,” van Gaal told BT Sport telev

Aug. 17, 2014

CARDIFF (AP) ― Moving on from a frustrating World Cup, Cristiano Ronaldo began the new season as the last one ended for Real Madrid ― with goals and a trophy.The Portugal forward netted both goals as the European champions convincingly overcame Europa League winner Sevilla with a 2-0 victory to collect the UEFA Super Cup on Tuesday.Ronaldo swept the ball in at the far post in the 30th minute after racing onto Gareth Bale’s cross, and the world player of the year powered in another four minutes i

Aug. 13, 2014

German football club Bayer Leverkusen has refused to release its South Korean star, Son Heung-min, for the upcoming Asian Games, officials here said Wednesday, throwing the host country’s chance of ending its gold medal drought into doubt.In a statement, the Korea Football Association said the Bundesliga team informed the South Koreans that it would not make Son available for the Sept. 19-Oct. 4 continental competition to be held in Incheon, west of Seoul.The KFA said it first received a rejecti

Aug. 13, 2014

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) ― Miroslav Klose, the top scorer in World Cup history, has retired from Germany’s national squad a month after the team won the title for the fourth time.The 36-year-old Klose scored twice in Brazil, making him the highest-scoring player in the tournament’s history with 16 goals, one ahead of Ronaldo. It was Klose’s fourth World Cup tournament.With a career total of 71 goals, Klose is also the highest-scoring player for Germany. He is also the second most capped Germany p

Aug. 12, 2014

CARSON, California (AP) ― Landon Donovan, widely considered as America’s best ever footballer, will retire at the end of the MLS season. The 32-year-old LA Galaxy forward is the top goalscorer in MLS history and a five-time league champion. “I feel incredibly blessed and lucky to have played a role in the remarkable growth of MLS and U.S. Soccer during my playing career,” Donovan said in a statement on his Facebook page. “And while my career as a player will soon be over, rest assured I will sta

Aug. 8, 2014

Bert van Marwijk, a former Dutch national head coach, has shown an interest in managing the South Korean men’s senior football team, the sport’s local technical director said Thursday.“Though we have no results to report at the moment, we did confirm van Marwijk’s interest in becoming the next head coach of our men’s senior football team,” Lee Yong-soo, the head of the technical committee at the Korea Football Association, said at a press conference in Seoul.Earlier this week, Lee, who was named

Aug. 7, 2014

TOKYO (AP) ― Brazil and Barcelona striker Neymar says he is almost back to full fitness after the serious back injury he sustained at the World Cup.The 22-year-old Neymar is on promotional trip to Tokyo, where he will film a commercial for a Japanese mattress company. About 700 fans greeted him at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Thursday.“It’s all good. My back is improving. It’s almost 100 percent,” Neymar said. “I’m looking forward to joining my (Barcelona) teammates and helping them win the title.”

Aug. 1, 2014

South Korea will seek to hire a foreign head coach to fill the vacancy on the men’s senior national football team, the sport’s technical director said Thursday.Lee Yong-soo, who was named the new head of the technical committee at the Korea Football Association last week, said at a press conference that he has narrowed down candidates for the top coaching job in South Korean football to three foreign nationals.“We’ve short-listed three coaches based on specific criteria, and all three are from o

July 31, 2014