Sports

LONDON — From being the most reviled club in British football, MK Dons woke up on Wednesday to find they had gained new friends all over the world with a single result.

Derided since their formation a decade ago as an artificial “franchise” club, the League One (third tier) side caused widespread delight by inflicting a humiliating 4-0 defeat on Louis van Gaal’s supposedly mighty Manchester United.

It came on the day that United, English champions 13 times in the last 22 years, paid a British record transfer fee of almost £60 million ($99.40 million) for Real Madrid’s Angel di Maria.

Van Gaal, who has yet to win in three competitive matches for his new club, may have made 10 changes for the game, but nobody in Milton Keynes, northwest of London, was allowing that to detract from the greatest day in the history of the football club — and arguably the town itself.

Developed from a small village in the 1960s, with the aim of becoming a major regional centre, Milton Keynes had been best known until a decade ago for its roundabouts and iconic sculpture of concrete cows.

Then in 2003 Wimbledon football club, FA Cup winners 15 years earlier, were moved there from south London by their owners against the wishes of most supporters.

The following year the name was changed to MK Dons, while dissenting fans formed their own club, AFC Wimbledon, who subsequently reached the Football League.

Bad feeling

Bad feeling remains between the two, who have subsequently met twice in cup matches. The most recent occasion was a fortnight ago in the first round of the Capital One Cup, when a 3-1 victory earned MK Dons their glamour tie against United.

By winning it in such convincing fashion on Tuesday night, in front of a record attendance of 26,969, they hope to have thrown off the mantle of unpopularity in which they have always been shrouded.

“It’s the day we came of age,” the club’s owner and chairman Pete Winkelman, a former music executive, told BBC Radio on Wednesday.

“We’re a young club with lots of controversy in the beginning and we’re proud to be making history at last.”

Asked if it would lead to greater acceptance within football, he said: “I hope that it will allow the club to look forward.

“Since the club’s been in Milton Keynes it’s made a real difference locally.”

Although the club have never played above the third tier, Winkelman has greater ambitions. “I’ve no doubt that one day Milton Keynes Dons will be a Premier League football team,” he said.

“But whatever happens, that result will never be forgotten in Milton Keynes.”

ROME — Massimiliano Allegri’s move to Juventus has given the phlegmatic coach the chance to prove that the disastrous run which led to his downfall at AC Milan was caused by reasons beyond his control.

Allegri was named as Juventus coach in July after the shock resignation of Antonio Conte, who had led the team to three successive Serie A titles in as many seasons in charge and made them the dominant force in Serie A.

Out of a job at the time, he was a convenient option for Juventus although their fans were certainly not impressed and greeted the appointment with protests.

AC Milan had dismissed Allegri halfway through last season after a 4-3 defeat to Serie A newcomers Sassuolo on a wet January evening left them languishing in eleventh place with only five wins in 19 outings.

But Allegri hardly seemed to be to blame for the fiasco, having seen his top players, including Thiago Silva and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, sold off over the previous 18 months.

The 47-year-old was swimming against the tide against Milan, a club struggling to come to terms with the harsh, austerity-strapped new reality of Italian football.

He had agreed to help the club rebuild the team with talented young players and had led them to a respectable third in 2012/13, winning the backing of the Ultras.

Instead of youth, however, Milan’s leadership seemed all at sea and provided Allegri with a motley assortment of journeyman professionals and players clearly past their best such as Michael Essien and Kaka. 

Pirlo relationship

It had all been very different in his first two seasons when Allegri led Milan to the Serie A title in his debut season, followed by a second place the following year.

Deadpan and unflappable, he proved adept at handling a powder keg of a dressing room which had included unpredictable talents such as, at various points, Ibrahimovic, Robinho, Mario Balotelli and Kevin-Prince Boateng.

The one player Allegri felt he could not deal with was Brazilian Ronaldinho, well-known for his partying lifestyle, who returned to his homeland.

Andrea Pirlo, meanwhile, left at the end of Allegri’s first season in charge and has since enjoyed three seasons of unmitigated brilliance at Juventus and a quirk of fate has now reunited the pair.

“I have always enjoyed a good relationship with him,” said Allegri on his official presentation.

“Andrea is still, a champion. When he was at Milan with me, he went through that season which wasn’t particularly lucky for him considering that it was dogged by injuries. But, he always played when he was fit.

“In football sometimes you think that things might go one way but eventually they take an unexpected turn or head in another direction. As I have explained a thousand times, in the end it just happened. The club, Andrea and I met and he decided to join Juventus.”

Conte shouting

Allegri now finds himself at a club that is going in the opposite direction to Milan.

Whereas Milan play in the fading, municipally-owned San Siro, Juventus are the only Serie A club to own their stadium and the only team to routinely play in front of a full house at home.

With only a few days to go until the end of the transfer window, Juventus have managed to retain all their key players including Pirlo, midfielders Arturo Vidal and Paul Pogba and front pair of Carlos Tevez and Fernando Llorente.

Allegri knows that he will have no excuses this time, although it is not going to be easy to maintain Juve’s remarkable recent form.

The passionate Conte is a tough act to replace and he made it clear last season that he felt that Juventus had reached their peak in winning Serie A with a record 102 points.

AS Roma, Napoli and Fiorentina all look like serious contenders and may well feel that Juventus are vulnerable without Conte.

But midfielder Claudio Marchisio said that Conte’s departure could reinvigorate the squad who may have suffered enough of his infamous dressing-room tirades.

“It’s up to us to show now that, after three years of Conte, we can still do it without his shouting,” he told Gazzetta dello Sport.

“We’ve got better in these three years and Allegri has inherited a squad which has come a long way. Allegri is calm and has his own character but that doesn’t mean to say we work less.

“It gets harder to win every year but the arrival of a new coach has given us more motivation. It’s wrong to talk about the end of a cycle.

“Our aim is to improve where we failed before and Allegri is the right coach to relaunch us.”

Anyone questioning Liverpool’s purchase of controversial Italian striker Mario Balotelli need only glance at Manchester City’s scoresheet on Monday to understand why firepower up front could be crucial to determining this season’s Premier League.

The Merseysiders, runners-up to City last season in one of the tightest top-flight campaigns in recent memory, looked to be comfortably keeping the champions at bay when three goals in 25 minutes at Etihad Stadium shattered any illusions.

The first two came from striker Stevan Jovetic, who had a forgettable first season in England after arriving from Fiorentina due to injury, but was given his chance after impressing in pre-season.

He rewarded manager Manuel Pellegrini with strikes either side of halftime before Sergio Aguero, still working his way back to full fitness, hit the back of the net 23 seconds after replacing Edin Dzeko up front.

With Alvaro Negredo still fighting to be fit after breaking his foot, City have an embarrassment of attacking riches that should threaten the best defences in Europe and make them one of the favourites for this season’s league title.

Despite that, Pellegrini was keen to emphasise the whole team effort against a side that beat them 3-2 in April.

“We worked the whole game and played a very good team,” the Chilean told the BBC.

“We worked without the ball for 95 minutes and with the ball we made enough danger to score three goals.

“When you play against a strong team you have to concentrate and our concentration and intensity was good. It’s so important to get six points from our first two games as it was a very difficult start for us.”

Liverpool close

As Liverpool went close to ending a 24-year title drought last season, their attacking duo of Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge caused their own brand of chaos, netting 52 league goals between them.

After Suarez’s World Cup disgrace, kicked out of the tournament for biting Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini, he was sold to Barcelona.

His sale has funded the arrival of nine new players, the latest being 24-year-old Balotelli from AC Milan, who can excite and anger in equal measure.

Liverpool will be desperate for him to hit the ground running, as despite plenty of ball they failed to seriously trouble City keeper Joe Hart until Pablo Zabaleta’s late own goal.

Another top-class striker is clearly needed at Anfield to take some of the burden off Sturridge, despite the likes of Raheem Sterling increasing his attacking threat by the week.

Manager Brendan Rodgers said taking a chance on Balotelli for a reported £16 million ($26.52 million) was one worth taking — his pace, power and touch compensating for an infuriating habit of going missing in matches and playing up off the pitch.

“There is excitement with him coming in,” he told Sky Sports. “I am certainly looking forward to working with him. He has that self belief and football arrogance on the field. Luis has gone, he was a wonderful talent but now we have to look to the future and hopefully Mario can contribute to what we are doing.

Liverpool signed Italy striker Mario Balotelli from AC Milan for £16 million ($26.5 million) on Monday, taking a calculated gamble on a headline-grabbing player known as much for his controversies as his goals.

Nineteen months after ending a two-and-a-half-year spell with Manchester City to play for his boyhood club, Balotelli will return to the English Premier League as a replacement for Luis Suarez — another of world football’s talented but disruptive stars.

“I’m happy to be back because I left England and it was a mistake,” Balotelli said. “I wanted to go to Italy but I realised it was a mistake.”

Balotelli, who has signed what Liverpool said is a “long-term deal”, spent his first day with his new team watching the Reds lose 3-1 to City in a Premier League game at Etihad Stadium later Monday. He wasn’t registered in time to play.

Liverpool have been looking to strengthen their strikeforce after selling Suarez to Barcelona for $130 million but left it to the last week of the transfer window to secure one of the summer’s most high-profile and intriguing signings.

During his time at City, in which he won the league title, Balotelli was sent off four times, threw a dart at a youth team player and was involved in an incident that saw fireworks explode in his bathroom. Days before news of the fireworks incident emerged, Balotelli had revealed a T-shirt under his City jersey with the question, “Why Always Me?” after scoring in the team’s 6-1 win over Manchester United.

Balotelli, with his physique, technical ability and qualities as a finisher, is one of the world’s best strikers and, at 24, the best times of his career could still lie ahead of him. At Milan, he scored 26 goals in 43 league matches and he is the Italian national team’s top striker, scoring 13 goals in 33 games.

But with trouble always seeming to follow him, some are questioning whether Balotelli is worth the risk for Liverpool, which has fostered a strong team spirit under manager Brendan Rodgers that helped it finish second in the Premier League last season. Jose Mourinho described Balotelli as “unmanageable” during their time together at Inter Milan, which the striker left in 2010 to join City.

“He knows himself this is probably is last chance,” Rodgers said. “Mario is someone we can improve both as a footballer and as a person.”

“He has a reputation but we hope he can curb that behaviour,” Rodgers added after the City game. “He knows his flaws and faults and he is looking for someone to help him. There is no better club for him. Of course it is a risk.”

Rodgers, however, got the best out of Suarez and current first-choice striker Daniel Sturridge, who both had turbulent pasts before arriving at Anfield. Sections of the British media have reported that Balotelli has had to agree to behaviour clauses being included in his contract with Liverpool.

“I believe we have the infrastructure, culture and environment to get the best out of him and help him achieve his true potential,” Rodgers said. “We are a strong group here, committed to hard work and he will benefit from being around it.

“I am looking forward to working with him and helping him learn more, improve and progress as a player.”

Rodgers’ attempts to bring in a striker has seen him look at France forward Loic Remy of Queens Park Rangers, whose switch to Anfield broke down at the last minute, and former Barcelona, Inter Milan and Chelsea star Samuel Eto’o. Last month, during Liverpool’s tour of the United States, Rodgers was linked with a bid for Balotelli but said “I can categorically tell you that he will not be at Liverpool.”

The U-turn was completed on Monday.

“This transfer represents outstanding value for the club and I think we have done a really smart piece of business here,” Rodgers said. “There is no doubting Mario’s ability; he is a world-class talent and someone who, for such a young age, has vast experience of playing at the very highest level.”

Asked what his targets at Liverpool were, Balotelli said: “I want to take this team to the Champions League.”

LONDON — Chelsea have paid tribute to life president Richard Attenborough, who has died at the age of 90, saying that the Oscar-winning film director’s “personality was woven into the tapestry of the club over seven decades”.”He was a consistent force for good at the club, even in dark times,” the 2012 European champions said in a statement. “He led a long and successful life and always found time for the things in life he loved most, one of which was Chelsea FC.” Attenborough joined the Chelsea board in 1969 and stayed until 1982, his initial years being marked by the London club winning their first FA Cup in 1970 and their first European trophy, the now defunct Cup Winners’ Cup, a year later.

BERLIN — Fiorentina striker Mario Gomez said on Monday he was determined to earn an international recall with Germany after missing the World Cup following a long injury absence. The 29-year-old, who has won 59 caps and scored 25 goals, last played for Germany in August 2013 against Paraguay. “I obviously want and I will come back to the national team,” Gomez told Sport Bild magazine. “The pre-season preparation went well and we are well prepared for the start of the [Italian] season.” After a promising start in his first season at Fiorentina, the former Bayern Munich forward suffered a knee ligament injury in September last year that kept him out for months, calling last season “the ugliest of his career”. He was then hurt again shortly after coming back, missing selection for the German squad that went on to win the World Cup in Brazil last month. But striker Miroslav Klose, the only forward in Germany’s World Cup-winning team, has since retired from international football, improving Gomez’ chances of a comeback. Germany coach Joachim Loew will name his squad for the September 3 friendly against World Cup finalists Argentina and their first Euro 2016 qualifier against Scotland on September 7.

BARCELONA, Spain — Bad World Cup memories be gone. Lionel Messi is back to his match-winning self.

Not even a black cat — regarded as unlucky in Spain and other cultures — zigzagging across his path on Sunday could stop Messi from sending the message that the four-time world player of the year is ready to do battle once again with 2013 Ballon d’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo for the title of football’s best player.

The trick now for new coach Luis Enrique will be ensuring that Messi stays as fit and hungry as he looked in scoring two sensational goals in Barcelona’s Spanish league opener against Elche. Luis Enrique may need to temper Messi’s desire to play every minute of every game, so his team doesn’t lose him to injury again at the tail end of the season when trophies are on the line.

After the first season in six years without trophies, and a loss to Germany in the World Cup final for Argentina, everyone at the second highest-earning club in Europe after Real Madrid is eager to start afresh. No wonder the Camp Nou crowd looked nervous when a black cat streaked out to join the players.

But Messi’s role in Barcelona’s 3-0 victory quickly put superstitious thoughts to rest. The goals were vintage Messi, a mix of balance, quick judgement and reflexes, and changes of pace to open angles through Elche’s defence before slotting unstoppable shots just inside the uprights with the silky touch of his left boot.

Even more encouraging was his hustle, last seen on a regular basis when former coach Pep Guardiola helped Messi exploit his incredible potential.

In the 28th minute, Messi sprinted back to pressure an Elche player with the ball and cut him down with a nasty tackle. The home crowd wouldn’t have minded if he had gotten booked because Messi’s effort, as always, was contagious. The team didn’t skip a beat playing with 10 men in the second half after Javier Mascherano was sent off.

If World Cup disappointment is still gnawing at Messi, it doesn’t show. He looked buoyant, determined, even happy — nothing like the grim-faced losing finalist who appeared to have been hollowed out by the 1-0 extra time loss to Germany at the Maracana Stadium in July, a bitterness which his award as the competition’s best player did nothing to sweeten.

In Brazil, after wowing in the group stage, Messi seemed at times to be missing zip and incisiveness in later games. But the indications from Luis Enrique’s debut league game as coach seem to be that the former Barcelona player, known for his firm hand and forthright manner, has rekindled Messi’s fire.

Over the past two seasons, Messi slowly settled into a rut of waiting for the ball to come to him at the point of attack. The same was also true in some of Argentina’s games in Brazil. This despite the fact that Guardiola once said the key to winning with Messi was making sure that he runs as much as possible.

Messi also has to watch his back. In signing Luis Suarez and Neymar over the last two years, Barcelona have attacking players who could challenge Messi’s leading role if he becomes complacent.

With neither Neymar (injury) or Suarez (banned for biting an opponent at the World Cup) available on Sunday, Messi took full advantage to remind everyone that he is still the team’s star.

Messi also must compete against himself. After recording unprecedented tallies of 73 goals for Barcelona in 2011-12 and 60 more in 2012-13, it felt — ridiculously — like a let-down when Messi “only” found the net 41 times last season.

Messi’s double on Sunday left him on the cusp of another scoring record. At 27, he is only six goals from equalling Athletic Bilbao’s Telmo Zarra as the Spanish league’s all-time leading scorer with 251.

Still, it will be over the course of the entire season that Messi will again be judged. He can either further cement his place as one of football’s all-time greats or risk talk of decline.

AMMAN  —  The Jordan Cup’s preliminary round’s final phase kicks off Monday with teams striving to score wins to qualify and advance their standings ahead of the quarter-finals. The top four teams from each of the two groups will move to the quarters to which three teams have officially qualified. In Group A, Ahli, who made a comeback to the Jordan Professional League, tops the standings and was the first to qualify after impressive results. Four teams — Jazira, Sarih, Faisali and Hussein — are still in contention for the remaining three slots from the group. Baqaa are last and out of the competition. In Group B, titleholders Wihdat and That Ras top the group and have secured qualification with Manshieh, Ramtha and Shabab Urdun still trailing, and Ittihad Ramtha out of the competition. Most significant results were Ahli beating Faisali 3-0 and Baqaa 1-0, while Wihdat beat Ramtha 3-1, and were held 0-0 with Shabab Urdun who lost 1-0 to That Ras. The Jordan Cup had kicked off on August 2 with only the league teams competing this year. Wihdat beat Baqaa 2-0 in the 32nd Super Cup — the first major competition on the calendar kicking off the 2014/15 season. With one title in their grasp, head coach Abdullah Abu Zameh was quoted by the local media as saying: “Wihdat have a big task this season. We intend to retain the league and cup titles.” The league is set for September 12.

LONDON — While Jose Mourinho salutes the striking start to Diego Costa’s Chelsea career, the manager insists he has not forgotten what another expensive but more misfiring La Liga import can contribute to his side’s Premier League title drive.

Fernando Torres, Chelsea’s record £50 million ($82.84 million) signing, could not even command a place on the bench as Costa was scoring on his Stamford Bridge debut in the 2-0 win over Leicester City on Saturday, a victory which maintained the club’s perfect start to the season.

At the launch of his fifth season for Chelsea and having turned 30 in March, the dropping of Torres felt almost symbolic of his slide from the giddy heights of his Atletico Madrid and Liverpool heyday.

With the £32 million man Costa marking his territory with a second goal in as many games and as the returning 36-year-old hero Didier Drogba was being welcomed back ecstatically, was Mourinho preparing to consign Torres’ largely disappointing Chelsea career to history?

Not at all, according to the manager.

Chelsea still needed three top strikers in their squad and Torres, even if his record of five goals in 28 league appearances last season contrasts starkly with Costa’s immediate 100 per cent strike rate, would be that “third man”.

Happy to dispel persistent rumours that Torres might be on his way to a loan spell with a top Italian club, Mourinho instead offered an unforced tribute to both the player’s abilities and character, insisting Spain’s former World Cup winner still had plenty more Chelsea goals in him.

“I want three strikers in the team. I can’t do a season without three strikers so our squad was made carefully, with great balance, great work by the top structure of my club to try to give me with what I want,” Mourinho explained.

“Torres is one of those three strikers.

“I believe he’ll stay. I want him. He will play, he will score goals, he will be very useful for us. He’s a fantastic guy, a fantastic professional. So no problem.

“At this moment, we are playing one game a week but in September, October, November, December, there’ll be three matches a week and then everything is much easier for the players because all of them will be playing. So there is no stories with Nando or anyone.”

Asked what Torres had to do to establish himself as the club’s number one striker, Mourinho’s message, delivered with a smile, was stark.

“Score more goals than the first one,” he said.

For the moment, that “first one” is Costa and Mourinho was delighted with his initial impact.

“He’s a goalscorer,” the Portuguese added.

“The goals he scored against both Leicester and [in the 3-1 win at] Burnley are striker goals. He smashes and he scores. This is what we need. We need a striker to score goals and Diego is doing that for us.”

Costa’s old Atletico teammate Thibaut Courtois is also making a major impact for Chelsea with Mourinho having entrusted the goalkeeping duties to him ahead of the long established Petr Cech.

His excellent save from Leicester’s David Nugent ultimately proved as important as Costa’s breakthrough goal in the victory.

SPA, Belgium — Nico Rosberg will start the Belgian Grand Prix from pole position after holding off a strong challenge from his Mercedes rival Lewis Hamilton in qualifying on Saturday.

Hamilton was ahead of Rosberg on the first two time splits of his final lap but then drifted back, allowing Rosberg to clinch a fourth straight pole and sixth in the past seven races. The German driver leads Hamilton by 11 points in the overall standings.

Rosberg clocked 2 minutes, 5.591 seconds in difficult conditions, with the Spa track drenched following a heavy downpour shortly before qualifying started.

“It was just Lewis I had to focus on,” Rosberg said after his 11th career pole. “It makes it easier when there’s not a whole bunch, only one guy.”

Hamilton finished in 2:05.819 and Sebastian Vettel got a much-needed boost with the third quickest time — although the fact that he was 2 seconds behind the Mercedes pair offers the Red Bull driver little hope of securing a first win this season.

“It helped us that it was wet. The gap was a lot bigger and our car was really dominant,” Rosberg said. “It was amazing to see that, how quick our car is.”

Two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso was fourth in his Ferrari ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, the only non-Mercedes driver to win a race so far this season. Hamilton has won five, Rosberg four and Ricciardo has clinched two in an impressive first season with Red Bull.

Hamilton had not qualified on the front row since the Canadian GP in June.

“We have a great car here and we’re leading the way here. So cool to see that,” Hamilton said. “We definitely have good chances for tomorrow.”

However, the 2008 champion was again plagued by technical problems — just like in the previous four races, where he started from 22nd, 20th, sixth and ninth on the grid and still got on the podium every time.

“I was nervous going into qualifying, not knowing if the car was going to get through it,” the British driver said.

This time, he had a brake problem.

“You need to have confidence on the brakes. There were times in Q3 when I was just going straight on because the left brake wasn’t really working. When it glazes it’s hard to recover, especially in the rain,” he said. “But in the evening they’re able to scrub it and get rid of the glazing. In the dry tomorrow it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Vettel, the four-time defending champion, did not take part in Friday’s second practice run because of a power unit failure.

The German driver’s victory at Spa last year was the first of nine successive wins. The way things are going this season — he is languishing in sixth place overall — just a podium finish would be a success.

“We know we’re down in power. Mercedes have a strong car and they have a lot of downforce. We are similar in the corners but quite a long way off in the straights,” Vettel said. “Hopefully tomorrow will be closer in terms of race pace.”

Vettel has won 39 GPs — including a record-equalling 13 last season — and clinched 45 poles. But he has only two podium spots this term: third in Canada and Malaysia.

“I’m trying very hard. It’s not like I’m consciously deciding not to be on pole,” he said. “We’ve been on the other side for quite a while but that’s the name of the game. The season was not what I was hoping for but there are still several races to come.”

In Q1, Mexican driver Esteban Gutierrez had to retire due to a technical problem and Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado failed to make Q2 after spinning his Lotus. His teammate, Romain Grosjean, failed to make Q3. The Frenchman starts the race from 15th as his difficult season continues.

In the final practice earlier, Valtteri Bottas of Finland was fastest in his Williams ahead of Ricciardo and Rosberg.