WEDNESDAY,MARCH11,2020 | THEGLOBEANDMAILO REPORTONBUSINESS | B17
After watching Tottenham go
meekly out of the Champions
League with a 3-0 loss to Leipzig
on Tuesday, Jose Mourinho said
his injury-ravaged squad was
“not even a team” any more.
Tottenham certainly looked
nothing like the side that reac-
hed last season’s final under
Mauricio Pochettino, as Marcel
Sabitzer scored twice in the first
half to send the Champions
League’s youngest coach and
club into the quarter-finals.
Sabitzer’s goals helped give
Leipzig a 4-0 win on aggregate
and deepened the gloom over
Mourinho’s Tottenham, which
hasn’t won a game in nearly a
month.
“We are really in trouble. We
are not even a team, we are a
group of players that are avail-
able to play, and we try to build a
team,” Mourinho said in tele-
vised comments, bemoaning
Tottenham’s run of injuries to
key players.
“We have no attacking players,
we don’t hurt opponents. That’s
as simple as that. So opponents,
they feel very comfortable to
have a go at us, because they
know that we cannot hurt
them.”
Tottenham came back from a
3-0 aggregate deficit against Ajax
to reach last year’s final, but a
comeback never looked likely in
Leipzig.
Instead of the Lucas Moura
hat trick that turned the Ajax
game, Tottenham produced a
limp second-half showing
against Leipzig and eventually
conceded again.
Tottenham is without a win inits past six games in all competi-
tions. All that’s left for Mourin-
ho’s team this season is the Pre-
mier League, where it’s eighth,
seven points off the Champions
League places.
Just 11 years after it was found-
ed by drinks giant Red Bull, Leip-
zig is in the last eight of the
Champions League.
With Harry Kane, Son Heung-
min and most recently Steven
Bergwijn all injured, Tottenham
seemed drained of energy and
devoid of ideas.
Leipzig took just 10 minutes to
double its advantage from the
first leg. Timo Werner had one
shot blocked on a quick team
move, but picked up the loose
ball and cut it back to Sabitzer,
who scored with a powerful low
drive from just outside the pen-
alty area.
For the second goal, Totten-
ham right-back Serge Aurier mis-
judged his attempt to head away
a long pass and allowed Angeli-
no plenty of time to cross for Sa-
bitzer to head in at the near post.
Leipzig’s U.S. international
Tyler Adams made his Cham-
pions League debut as a 56th-
minute substitute when defend-
er Nordi Mukiele was taken off
for treatment after being struck
in the face by the ball.
Dele Alli had the best of Tot-
tenham’s few chances in the sec-
ond half, but could only knock
the ball into goalkeeper Peter
Gulacsi’s arms as he was tackled
by Leipzig’s Marcel Halstenberg.
Leipzig finished the job when
Emil Forsberg scored a third goal
in a scramble for a loose ball in
the 87th, less than half a minute
after coming on as a substitute.THE ASSOCIATED PRESSMourinholamentsinjuries
asTottenhamlosestoLeipzig
LEIPZIG,GERMANYNewcomer Atalanta extended its
remarkable Champions League
run thanks to a record-breaking
night by Josip Ilicic.
Ilicic became the first player to
score four goals in an away
knockout match in the tourna-
ment, helping Atalanta reach the
quarter-finals in its debut season
with a 4-3 win over Valencia on
Tuesday. The match was played
in an empty stadium because of
the coronavirus outbreak.
With Atalanta holding a com-
fortable 4-1 lead from the first leg
in Italy, Ilicic scored twice in each
half at the deserted Mestalla Sta-
dium as the visitors advanced 8-4
on aggregate.
“Atalanta aren’t a surprise any
longer,” Ilicic said. “We’re doing
great things and want to carry
on. We want to show we deserve
to be here and improve day by
day.”
The 32-year-old Slovenian,
who also scored in the first
match, has 17 goals in his past 14
games.
“I am getting better with age,”
Ilicic said. “I am having fun and
want to carry on improving.”
It didn’t take long before Ata-
lanta increased its lead from the
first leg, with Ilicic converting a
third-minute penalty after being
fouled inside the area by Valen-
cia defender Mouctar Diakhaby.
Forward Kevin Gameiro equal-
ized for Valencia from inside the
area in the 21st, but Ilicic virtually
ended Valencia’s hopes of a
comeback by converting another
penalty in the 43rd after a hand-
ball by Diakhaby that was award-
ed by video review.
The two away goals meant thehosts needed to score at least five
more times to have a chance of
advancing.
Gameiro added Valencia’s sec-
ond goal with a header in the 51st
and Ferran Torres scored on a
breakaway in the 67th, but Ilicic
secured the win with goals from
inside the area in the 71st and
82nd.
“The initial penalty obviously
helped us,” Atalanta coach Gian
Piero Gasperini said. “We strug-
gled in the first half, but did
much better in the second. It’s
never easy against Valencia. We
did many good things. We want-
ed to win at all costs, underlining
what happened in the first leg.”
Several hundred Valencia fans
were outside the Mestalla to wel-
come Valencia’s squad before the
match and could be heard chant-
ing during the game.
Spain announced Tuesday all
sports events with a significant
number of fans have to be played
in empty stadiums for the next 15
days to try to contain the spread
of the coronavirus after a sharp
increase in the number of cases
in the country. The decision to
play the Valencia game without
fans had already been made in
advance because of the high
number of cases in Italy.
It remained unclear if Atalanta
will be able to play its quarter-
final match at home amid Italy’s
nation-wide quarantine mea-
sures because of the virus. The
team is based in Bergamo and
plays its home European games
at the San Siro Stadium in Milan.
Atalanta players celebrated af-
ter the match by showing a shirt
with words honouring fans back
home in Bergamo.THE ASSOCIATED PRESSIlicicscoresfour,Atalantainto
ChampionsLeaguequarters
VALENCIA,SPAINT
he games are too long, scaring away
younger fans with ever-diminishing at-
tention spans. There is too much
standing around between spurts of ac-
tivity.
And the unpredictable duration makes it dif-
ficult for TV networks to plan for a predictable
broadcast window.
Not baseball. Not football.
Curling.
A 500-year-old sport that pairs chess-like
strategy with furious sweeping and shouts of
“hurry hard,” curling is considering radical rule
changes as it tries to balance centuries of tradi-
tion with the modern need to move things
along. Among the proposals: putting players
on a more demanding clock, or shortening
games from 10 ends to eight.
“We’re not the only sport that’s going
through it, for sure,” said Nolan Thiessen, a
2010 world champion who is a member of the
World Curling Federation Athlete Commission.
“It’s like baseball in that it’s not the length of
game, it’s the pace of play,” he said. “You want
to find a happy medium where the game isn’t
affected to a large extent, but it creates a little
more excitement and a little more action. You
want to create some more certainty that
doesn’t also cheapen the outcome.”
Born on frozen Scottish lochs in the 16th cen-
tury, curling remained a niche sport sprinkled
among cold climates from Scandinavia to Sas-
katchewan until it was officially added to the
Olympic program in 1998. Since then, it has
grown into one of the most viewed offerings at
the Winter Games, with a quadrennial bump in
popularity.
But the growth has brought with it a more
serious approach: Weight-room workouts have
replaced the pregame beer – though not the
postgame beer – and the rise of analytics has
curlers spending more time on strategy than
shot-making.
“For the longest time – and there’s still rem-
nants of it today – curling was seen as home of
the beer-drinking, cigarette-smoking, out-of-
shape athletes. This idea that anybody could
pick up a broom, could pick up a piece of gran-
ite, and be good at it,” CBC curling reporter De-
vin Heroux said. “The face of curling has
changed.”
And its caretakers are wondering if the sport
should, as well.
At its annual meeting last year, the World
Curling Federation discussed how to make
games shorter. The internationalgoverning
body has been gathering data and feedback
from the athletes, and the goal is to come up
with a plan that would be used after the Beijing
Olympics in 2022.
The most noticeable reform would be short-
ening all competitions to eight ends.
A traditional match consists of 10 ends – like
innings in baseball. Many lesser competitions
already last only eight rounds, the way Grand
Slam men’s tennis tournaments involve five
sets while others have gone to three.
In a 10-end match, there are a total of 160
stones thrown. But the early frames are often a
feeling out process where the teams get used to
the ice, the rocks and each other.
“For eight ends, it is ‘Go!’ from the begin-
ning,” Heroux said. “You put it to eight ends,
the pressure ramps up, and people go, ‘Whoa,
this is actually the fast-paced sport that I fell in
love with.’ ”
Another proposal is end-timing, in which
teams have a set amount to strategize for each
round rather than a total for the entire match.
Curling Canada spokesman Al Cameron said a
test of the system at one of its events last year
shortened games by five to 10 minutes – even
though the total time allowed was the same.
Cutting two ends from major tournaments is
a more dramatic step that would have to over-
come the objection of Canadian purists, who
see themselves as protectors of “the great, gran-
ite game” like American baseball fans look at
their sport, Heroux said.
“When you start talking about tinkering
with the rules of the game, people lose their
minds,” he said. “It becomes a personal thing.
Traditionalists will fight from the bitter end
that it always needs to be 10 ends, and that’s the
way curling should be.”THEASSOCIATEDPRESSAsofficialslooktospeedupcurling,someproposalshaveincludedputtingplayersonademanding
clockorshorteninggamesfrom10endstoeight.JONATHANHAYWARD/THECANADIANPRESS
Worldcurlingbodies
consideringwaysto
speedupthegame
JIMMYGOLEN
R
yan Jacques will wear the Maple Leaf for
the first time under unusual circum-
stances.
He’s been named to Canada’s men’s
team for the 2021 world junior curling cham-
pionship in Beijing. The tournament at the Wa-
ter Cube is the test event for the 2022 Winter
Olympics.
“It’s honestly a crazy feeling to know they’re
using us to test for the upcoming Olympics,
which is obviously a huge event,” the 19-year-
old from Edmonton said.
Jacques didn’t have to win a national junior
title to get to Beijing. Instead, Curling Canada
assembled its teams to address a coming
change in the competitive calendar.
The national junior championship will shift
from January to March starting next year. Cana-
da’s championship will subsequently fall after
the world juniors on the curling calendar, so
the 2021 Canadian champions in Fort McMur-
ray, Alta., will compete at the 2022 world ju-
niors.
Curling Canada’s rationale for the change is
extending the competitive season for junior
curlers, but the organization had to come up
with a transitional solution for Beijing next
year.
This year’s Canadian and world junior cham-
pionships are already done and dusted. Manito-
ba’s Jacques Gauthier and Mackenzie Zacharias
claimed national titles in January and world ti-
tles in February.
A complicating factor for choosing teams is
21-and-under junior squads have curlers who
“age out” and are no longer eligible to compete
the following year. Both Gauthier and Zacha-
rias and their vice-skips fell into that category
for 2021.
Selecting a team of curlers experienced at
their position and having chemistry with each
other, particularly on the men’s side, became a
puzzle.
“We looked at so many different scenarios,”
said Helen Radford, Curling Canada’s manager
of program development and youth feeder sys-
tem.
“We had scouts at the Canadian juniors. We
talked to provincial coaches. Through it all, you
always know someone is going to be disap-
pointed. They wish they could have been
picked.”
Jacques skipped Alberta to fourth place in Ja-
nuary’s Canadian juniors in Langley, B.C.
He and two teammates have been blended
with two age-eligible members of the New-
foundland and Labrador squad that finished
second to Gauthier.
Ryan Kleiter’s bronze-medal team from Sas-
katchewan wasn’t an option because the entire
team aged out.
So Edmonton’s Jacques and Gabriel Dyck,
Desmond Young of Banff, Alta., Newfoun-
dland’s Ryan McNeil Lamswood of Stephenville
and Joel Krats of Mount Pearl will form the Can-
adian men’s team for Beijing.
Canadian men have won three straight gold
at the world juniors and 21 all-time in the histo-
ry of the tournament.
On the women’s side, Canada claimed two of
the last three gold for a total of 13.
Edmonton’s Abby Marks, vice Catherine Clif-
ford, second Paige Papley and lead Jamie Scott
were runners-up to Zacharias in Langley.
Papley is ineligible to curl in Beijing next
year, so Brianna Cullen of Beausejour, Man.,
will replace her. Cullen will curl for the Univer-
sity of Alberta next season and thus be able to
train with her teammates.THECANADIANPRESSTweakedCanadianjuniorsschedule
opensdoorsforsomecurlers
DONNASPENCER
TORONTOCanadian Quinn
Ngawati is back with the To-
ronto Wolfpack.
The Wolfpack said the 20-
year-old from Victoria, who left
the team in October, 2018, will
begin playing for League 1 side
Rochdale Hornets while work-
ing out and training with the
Wolfpack full-time. Toronto has
a player development deal with
Rochdale.
While Ngawati has just three
games with the Wolfpack under
his belt, the 6-foot-4 240-poun-
der is seen as a talented ath-
lete.
And he will not count
against Toronto’s salary cap
thanks to a dispensation agreed
to for the Wolfpack, which is
not eligible to get other salary
cap breaks because it does nothave an academy.
Ngawati is the first Cana-
dian-born player to appear in a
professional rugby league game.
Then 18, he made his debut off
the bench in July, 2017, against
Gloucester All Golds in a 62-10
Wolfpack win in the third-tier
League 1. In March, 2018, he
was lent to London Skolars,
scoring one try in nine games
before being recalled to Toron-
to to play the final game of the
Betfred Championship season
against Featherstone Rovers.
Ngawati left Toronto at the
end of the 2018 season, return-
ing to rugby union.
Most recently, he has split
time training with the Cana-
dian senior sevens team and
the Pacific Pride Development
Academy.THE CANADIAN PRESSNGAWATIRETURNSFORSECONDSTINTWITHWOLFPACK