The fan who reportedly confronted Roy Keane following Manchester United’s 1-1 draw with Ipswich Town on Sunday has shared his version of events on social media.
Mail Sport exclusively revealed how Keane had snapped back at a fan who had been hurling abuse at him after the Premier League clash at Portman Road.
Keane was overheard inviting the fan to continue their argument out in the ‘car park’ moments after the game ended on Sunday afternoon.
The fan in question, Neil Finbow, later took to Facebook to describe the altercation – calling it his ‘new claim to fame.
Finbow wrote: ‘New claim to fame. Just been offered out into the car park by Roy Keane after a few choice words.’
He went on to add: ‘Even Jamie Redknapp had to come over to get him away. Just your average Sunday evening out.’
The fan who reportedly confronted Roy Keane following Manchester United’s 1-1 draw with Ipswich Town on Sunday has shared his version of events on social media
Finbow went on to detail the exchange, writing: ‘I was reminding him that he set us back five years and ruined our football club. I also mentioned how he wasn’t fit to step foot anywhere near our ground [Portman Road].
‘Oh, and I mentioned about him walking out on a World Cup and breaking Haaland’s leg and putting it in his autobiography. I hate the bloke, and that’s been boiling up since he got sacked all those years ago.’
When another Facebook user commented on Finbow’s post, saying, ‘I can see why he offered you out in the car park now. But fair dos mate for having the b*lls,’ Finbow replied: ‘The truth hurts, mate. I feel sick when I look at him.’
He added in another response: ‘Few home truths thrown at him, he decided to bite. Very unprofessional. I’m sure he had worse when he was playing.’
The incident unfolded when Keane, alongside fellow Sky Sports pundits Jamie Redknapp and Izzy Christiansen, was receiving instructions from producers to return to the broadcast following an ad break.
A video shared exclusively by Mail Sport captured the moment Keane, 53, set his microphone down, put his hands in his pockets, and approached the fan who was located in the stands.
A heated back-and-forth ensued, with Keane repeatedly inviting the fan to ‘wait and discuss it in the car park’ as more insults were directed his way.
The situation escalated as other Ipswich supporters joined in, with one individual from the upper tier shouting: ‘F*** you, Keane!’.
Keane holds a tense relationship with many Ipswich fans after his managerial spell at the club
The Manchester United legend joined Ipswich in 2009 and was later sacked in January 2011
A member of the Sky Sports production team eventually guided Keane back to the broadcast area as the fan appeared to relish provoking a reaction.
Redknapp also stepped in, exchanging a few words with the fan while a nearby steward attempted to diffuse the tension.
Keane’s tumultuous relationship with Ipswich Town fans stems from his stint as the club’s manager between 2009 and 2011.
During his tenure, Keane managed 81 games, winning 28, losing 28, and drawing 25. His side dropped as low as 21st in the Championship standings before he was sacked in January 2011.
Reflecting on his time at Ipswich, Keane has previously admitted that his ongoing feud with sections of the fanbase served as motivation during his time in charge.
Sunday’s confrontation with Finbow comes just months after another high-profile incident involving the Manchester United legend.
In September 2023, Arsenal fan Scott Law was convicted of headbutting Keane during a match at the Emirates Stadium.
Law was banned from attending football matches for three years after being found guilty of common assault at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court.
Ruben Amorim kicked off his Man United reign with a disappointing 1-1 draw at Portman Road
The Sky Sports pundit jokingly called for Amorim to change his tactics at half-time on Sunday
During that trial, Keane described the shock of being attacked while walking with fellow pundit Micah Richards to deliver post-match analysis:
‘There was lots of noise and shouting, as you would expect at a football match. I was just walking and, before I knew it, I was hit.
‘I felt the contact and fell back through some doors. I was absolutely not expecting it. The only way I can describe it is that I was in shock. I didn’t expect it to happen, not when I was in my workplace.’
Keane – who captained Manchester United during his playing days – revealed he suffered bruising to his chest and arms as a result of the assault.
The confrontation with the Ipswich fan came shortly after Manchester United’s new manager, Ruben Amorim, began his tenure with a disappointing 1-1 draw.
Amorim’s side got off to a flying start, with Marcus Rashford converting an Amad Diallo cross just two minutes in.
However, United’s momentum quickly fizzled out, and Ipswich equalised through Omari Hutchinson’s stunning strike from outside the penalty area before halftime.
Speaking at the break, Keane criticised United’s cautious approach after their early lead: ‘Great start from United, bet the manager couldn’t believe it. United get a great start and then sit back, and I’m thinking, what are you waiting for? Go after Ipswich.
‘But they sit back and give them a lot of encouragement, and they certainly deserved their equaliser. I’d go back to a 4-4-2, big striker up front,’ he joked.
NEW YORK — Film productions often wrestle with shifts in the weather, the threat of the crew going into overtime or the fading of a day’s light. Less common are concerns over the cast slipping off the top of a blimp.
But that was one of the quirks of making “Grand Theft Hamlet,” a documentary about a pair of British actors, Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, who, while idled by the pandemic, decided to stage “Hamlet” within the violent virtual world of “Grand Theft Auto.” When Shakespeare wrote of the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” he may not have imagined the threat of a python loose in a bar or Hamlet wrestling with whether “to be” on a helipad. Yet “Grand Theft Auto” might be an oddly appropriate venue for a play where nearly everyone dies.
“The first time Sam did a bit of Shakespeare in that space, he said, ‘I imagine this is what it was like in Shakespeare’s time at the Globe when people would throw apples at you if you were rubbish,’” says Pinny Grylls, who wrote and directed the film with Crane, her husband. “No one’s really watching you but they’re occasionally looking around and listening to the poetry.”
“Grand Theft Hamlet,” which Mubi will release in theaters in January, opens with Crane and Oosterveen’s avatars, fleeing police and careening into an outdoor amphitheater. One says loud, “I wonder if you could stage something here?”
They aren’t the only ones who have drifted into virtual spaces and wondered if it might be a rich landscape for a movie. In the “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” which debuted Friday on Netflix, director Benjamin Ree plunges into “World of Warcraft” to tell both the life and virtual life story of Mats Steen, a Norwegian gamer who died from Duchenne muscular dystrophy at age 25.
“Knit’s Island,” streaming on Metrograph at Home, takes place almost entirely within the survivalist role playing game DayZ. The filmmakers went in with “PRESS” badges across the chests of their avatars and seeking interviews with high-kill-count players. “Don’t shoot!” one yells during one approach. “I’m a documentarist!”
All three documentaries enter video game realms with curiosity at what might be discovered within. For them, the surreal life inside these virtual spaces, and the possibilities there for real human connection, are just as worthy as anywhere else.
“Filmmakers want to make films about the world we live in. And more and more people are living in these virtual gaming spaces online,” says Grylls. “As filmmakers we’re just putting a mirror to the world and saying, ‘Look what’s happening here.’”
As the gaming industry has emerged as the dominant entertainment medium (by some estimates it dwarfs film, television and music combined), the lines between movies and video games have increasingly blurred. That’s not just in big box-office films like “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” but in the smaller films known as machinima (a combination of “machine” and “cinema”) that use gaming engines to make narratives of their own.
But “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” “Grand Theft Hamlet” and “Knit’s Island” are first-of-their-kind feature forays in bridging the gap between virtual and cinema.
“This is only the beginning,” says Grylls. “We’re right at the foothills of it. It’s nice to think we’re part of that evolution of cinema.”
When Ree first read about Steen’s story, he was tremendously moved. When Steen died in 2014, his parents, Robert and Trude, had the impression that their son had missed out on most of life. As Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare disease without a cure, progressed, Steen’s life was increasingly relegated to playing video games from a wheelchair in their basement.
But after Steen’s parents posted news of their son’s death on his blog, they were stunned by the response. Messages poured in, eulogizing Steen, known to most as the strapping Ibelin Redmoore of “World of Warcraft.” Ree rewinds his film to start over, retelling Steen’s story using thousands of pages of archived texts to animate Ibelin/Steen’s vibrant life within the game. In the game, Steen, as Ibelin, experienced his first kiss.
“I thought: Is it possible to translate that enormous archive and reconstruct actual events with real dialogue and real characters, but also invite everyone in?” says Ree. “He actually came of age inside of a game. And I was so curious: What was that like? He experienced friendships, love — all the things I can recognize in my own life growing up.”
Ree knew that to make a film about Steen’s life, he needed to illustrate it through “World of Warcraft.” Though he, himself, wasn’t a player, Ree sought out gamers on who posted fan videos on YouTube. Rasmus Tukia, a 28-year-old, self-taught 3-D animator, led two other animators in rendering the game environment with the same models used for gameplay videos.
“They were all YouTubers and this was their first job,” Ree says. “We’re doing something totally new here. If this works, it’s a lot of credit to these YouTubers.”
Ree’s goal wasn’t to exactly mimic the game — that can come off as clunky or too herky-jerky. So for three years, without permission from the game’s maker, Blizzard Entertainment, they animated Steen’s/Ibelin’s experiences in “World of Warcraft,” but with a slightly more cinematic touch. Along the way, they showed drafts to Steen’s online friends for feedback.
“When I showed them the film after working on it for three and a half years, the response after the screening was: ‘This is exactly how we remember Ibelin,’” Ree says. “Then they said, ‘But you’ve made one mistake. Ibelin liked women with more leathery clothes.’”
Only after the film — a small, independent Norwegian production before Netflix acquired it — was nearing completion did Ree reach out to Blizzard. He traveled to their offices in California to screen it for executives.
“I was so nervous. I hadn’t slept for days. We didn’t have a plan B. I had to take some extra doses of asthma medication in order to breathe before the meeting,” Ree says. “We showed them the film and right after we saw they were crying. The boss turned around and said, ‘This film is fantastic. You will get the rights.’”
Crane, an experienced stage and screen actor, had initially started what became “Grand Theft Hamlet” as more of a lark, a way to keep busy while theaters were shuttered during the pandemic. As he posted videos, though, people responded enthusiastically, as did the game’s maker, Rockstar Games.
“They spoke to us about how they designed the game to be used like this, as a sandbox, as a creative space,” Crane says.
But little about how to make “Grand Theft Hamlet,” which won best documentary at SXSW in March, was established. For starters, nearly every audition or rehearsal in the game ended in bloodshed. Someone with a gun typically turned up and chaos ensued.
The filmmakers had a few touchstones, like Joe Hunting’s 2022 documentary “We Met in Virtual Reality” and the work of the artist Jacky Connolly, who used “Grand Theft Auto” to make the nightmarish, existential short film “Descent into Hell.” But little about how to make a movie set entirely within a game world was prescribed.
“We were kind of working out every aspect of it – putting on a play inside this world, learning how to capture the images in this world, then how do we edit all this footage,” Crane says. “We were learning as we went.”
That also meant freedom. At one point, they realized they could essentially perform Shakespeare “on a billion dollar budget.” Theirs is the first “Hamlet” to feature the car from “Back to the Future” or a cargo plane. Meanwhile, Grylls, an experienced filmmaker, experimented with how to position the camera.
“I realized: OK, let’s try to make things a bit stiller and more cinematic,” she says. “When I discovered there was a phone inside the game with a camera on it, I was able to make close-ups and wide shots and a cinematic language of sorts.”
As “Grand Theft Hamlet” has screened at various film festivals, Crane and Grylls find themselves in the surprising position of being celebrated for a movie they made mostly in their bedroom on a PlayStation. Like their virtual-world forays, something done in physical isolation has found an ever-growing community.
Ree, who spoke from a festival stop in San Francisco, has been traveling with “Ibelin” with Streen’s parents. A life that had once seemed quiet and lonely has reached around the world.
“They’ve watched the film every screening,” he says. “In a way for them, the film is a part of their healing but also their grieving process. They’ve seen it now over 150 times.”
So here’s the upshot of the “bold new era” Silver Lake and an NZR board living in la-la land promised us almost three years ago. Since then …
NZR has lost almost $60 million in the past two years. Annual revenue has not increased since 2021 (which was before Silver Lake were brought in as the so-called geniuses of professional sport).
The $260m investment from the American private equity company has largely been squandered on bribes to provincial unions to persuade them to support the deal, and ill-considered digital media ventures like NZR+ are on life support.
Provincial unions now face major funding cuts with a reduction of $1.8m this year and more than $3m next year.
Professional players will be next as their 36.5% of NZR’s annual revenue takes a hit, raising the prospect of losing more stars to overseas clubs.
In the meantime, Silver Lake will start taking an annual $20m plus dividend from next year. In perpetuity.
There is no doubt Craig Fenton’s appointment as head of NZR Commercial (NZRC) was influenced by Silver Lake, who love to talk up their ability to provide governance advice (really?!!) as well as money.
Sports Insider heard varying reports on Fenton during his brief tenure. He was in equal parts described to this columnist by people who had encountered him as “super smart” but also that he had some “daft ideas”.
Clearly, Fenton and hyper-sensitive executives at NZR HQ didn’t get along, as evidenced by the press release announcing his departure.
“Craig and NZRC have agreed that Craig’s vision of change and approach to driving it are not fully aligned with the organisation,” it stated.
So does that mean the former leading Google executive hadn’t left that company’s monopolist attitude back in the UK when he shifted back to his native New Zealand?
Or does it mean over-protective NZR executives (and possibly a bunch of board directors) don’t want to face the prospect of executing the major surgery so obviously needed on the game here to prevent a terminal decline?
While all this nonsense is going down, those out battling in rugby’s heartlands watch with growing despair.
Was there ever a more poignant and passionate plea for sanity delivered than the one made by long-serving Taranaki NPC coach Neil Barnes in expressing his dismay to the Herald’s Liam Napier earlier this week?
The straight-shooting Barnes stated the obvious in his broadside at NZR, including that rugby fans have fallen in love again with the provincial championship – but the national union’s bosses don’t give a toss about that.
“In my mind, the NPC is an inconvenience to the people at the top level,” Barnes told Napier.
“When Silver Lake came along, there was funding put out there for people in the communities to grow our game and help facilitate it. Now all that funding has been taken away.”
“Our funding was cut by over $100,000 this year and they’re cutting another $250,000 off it next year. That’s on the back of [NZR boss] Mark Robinson sitting in my office, and I was challenging him over funding for our game at this level. He said there’s not a shortage of funds in New Zealand, it’s where you spend it.
“If that’s the case, it shows they don’t respect the importance of grassroots rugby.”
Barnes then pointed to the All Blacks, with 23 support staff, and All Blacks XV teams collectively sending more than 100 people to Japan and Europe this month.
Not that Silver Lake seem to care. It has been absent since day one, seemingly happy to have the All Blacks on its investment resume to impress others while largely doing nothing.
Fenton’s strategy seems to have been to simply create more teams using the All Blacks moniker and sending them on as many overseas promo trips as possible.
All of this, of course, has happened under the watch of an NZR board hopelessly out of its depth, excoriated by the Pilkington Report but with a clutch of directors grimly attempting to hold on to their blazers.
The current chair Dame Patsy Reddy has been a let-down and is not standing again. Provincial unions believe she has done them over but is still trying to influence who makes up the newly constituted board.
Several directors she has worked closely with and who helped enforce the Silver Lake deal on a suspicious rugby public are angling to keep their jobs and securing the vacant chair role.
That alone will be enough to scare worthy candidates away from nominating themselves for consideration.
The rot seems set to continue.
Does Sir Ben Ainslie need to watch his back?
Should Sir Ben Ainslie be worried about his job after failing to topple Peter Burling and Team New Zealand to win the America’s Cup?
Maybe Sir Ben should have a chat to another sporting knight in Sir Alex Ferguson, who seems to have been ostracised from Manchester United now that Ineos founder Sir Jim Ratcliffe is an influential owner of the storied English Premier League (EPL) club.
Ratcliffe, whose company is one of the world’s worst polluters (and also sponsors the All Blacks), is a renowned tight arse who has embarked on a ruthless cost-cutting exercise since buying into United last year.
The club’s popular and long-time historian has been sacked, free lunches for staff and players were cut and now Ratcliffe has come after “Fergie”, a Man United icon.
After previously banning the legendary manager from visiting the United changing rooms after matches, Ratcliffe has now cut Ferguson’s £2m ($4.4m) a year ambassador role for the club.
That prompted a savage tweet from another former United golden boy, Rio Ferdinand.
“If Sir Alex can be taken out, then NO ONE IS SAFE at @ManUtd – anyone in can get it now. Ineos sending a message to ANYONE at the club?!?”
Watch your back, Ben.
Former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand makes his feelings known regarding his former manager’s removal from his role at the club. Photo / Twitter @rioferdy5
Man City is a soulless club of shaggers
While on Manchester and the EPL, regular readers of Sports Insider will know this writer is no fan of United’s bitter cross-town rivals.
Now it seems the massively overpaid players themselves are adding a bunch more reasons to loathe City.
Former leading player Ben Mendy is laying bare the complete lack of morals at City during an employment tribunal process, in which he is suing the club for £11m of unpaid wages.
Mendy was sacked for alleged sexual offences but was later acquitted and is now going after the club. His argument? He says he was unfairly singled out in a squad of serial shaggers.
“Several Manchester City first-team players, including the club captain, were all present at parties that I attended and hosted. We all drank alcohol. We all had casual relations with women,” he told the tribunal.
That went down like a cup of cold sick with his former teammates and Kyle Walker, the captain. Raheem Sterling, named during the trial, has loaned Mendy the money to help clear pay his legal fees.
As for Walker, his wife filed for divorce last week, although that may have as much to do with her finding out about his mistress and their two secret love children. The mistress is now suing him.
The judgment on that sideshow is damning right down to the mistress threatening to move into a house next door to Walker and his wife if he didn’t buy her a £2m house and some £48,000 wardrobes.
His neighbour compared the affair to the film Fatal Attraction, claiming she was asked by the mistress to lean over the garden fence and record Walker’s conversations with his wife.
Like I said, it’s a classy club!
Can celebrities save us from cynicism?
Ed Sheeran’s sponsorship of newly-promoted EPL club Ipswich Town is being compared to the Ryan Reynolds–Rob McElhenney custodianship of Welsh club Wrexham, who also harbour EPL ambitions.
It raises the question of whether celebrities can save sport from shifty private equity types and ruthless owners like Ratcliffe.
We have our own little experiment about that going on Downunder with an Auckland FC ownership group that includes Ali Williams, Anna Mowbray, Steven Adams, Tim Brown, Winston Reid and Noah Hickey.
They’re off to a flyer after last Saturday and there’s no doubt the feel-good factor around the newly birthed A-League club is being helped by the big names attached to it. We will watch the rest of the season with increasing interest.
While on Auckland FC, there were shades of Joe Biden and his “Tan Blacks” gaffe when referring to the All Blacks and Ireland from our Prime Minister in the lead-up.
Christopher Luxon was a guest at the club’s pre-match function and talked up the impending all-Kiwi clash with the Wellington Phoenix, telling guests there were many great local derbies in world football including “the Rangers against the Celtics”.
We think he meant the Scottish Old Firm derby between Glasgow Rangers and Celtic.
NRL needs to show it’s serious about Christchurch
Another big league match in the Garden City, and another sellout.
It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s the Warriors or the Kiwis, South Islanders seemingly can’t get enough of the 13-player code.
Among the 17,000 fans packing into Apollo Stadium on Sunday to watch the Kiwis play Australia for the first time in Christchurch in 35 years will be thousands making the trek from West Coast strongholds like Greymouth – and equally as many from Dunedin.
It comes at a time when Christchurch school St Thomas picked up the national title two years running over favoured Auckland schools and when five players with South Island heritage have been included in the squad to face the Kangaroos.
Add in the Crusaders being in the doldrums and, for the first time since 1995, the South Island not holding a single rugby championship of note, and the message is starkly clear.
There has never been more momentum for a South Island franchise in the Australian club competition.
But is the National Rugby League (NRL) listening?
This column has regularly suggested the NRL is merely paying lip service to Christchurch’s two bids and doesn’t really get the opportunity here due to their Aussie blinders being permanently wedged on.
One way to demonstrate that’s not the case will be to see if Australian Rugby League chairman Peter V’landys and his NRL CEO Andrew Abdo turn up at Apollo Stadium this weekend.
Pete and Andy talk a good game about international league but their failure to actually show up for anything outside Australia is a growing talking point among some league pundits.
Both say they will be there, hopefully to witness first-hand the snowballing enthusiasm for league in the south.
Let’s see, shall we?
Team of the Week
New Zealand: Has there ever been a weekend in Kiwi sport like the last one? Will there ever be another one like it again? Celebrate New Zealand, for that was special.
Liam Lawson: Added the cherry to the top on Monday morning with a top-10 finish in his reintroduction to F1. Is that Sergio Perez’s knees we can hear knocking?
Gayle Broughton: The Olympic rugby sevens gold medallist makes her league test debut for the Kiwi Ferns against the Australian Jillaroos in Christchurch on Sunday in the crucial five-eighth role, after a stellar maiden NRLW debut season with the Brisbane Broncos.
EDWARDSVILLE, IL. (WFIE) – University of Southern Indiana Women’s Soccer fought through adversity late in Sunday’s match at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville before scoring an equalizer with a couple of minutes remaining to earn a 1-1 draw and an Ohio Valley Conference point on the road.
Southern Indiana (4-8-5, 3-2-3 OVC) once again found itself in a competitive, defensive battle against SIUE (2-7-6, 1-3-4) on Sunday. The two sides had played to scoreless draws in the previous two meetings in the last two seasons.
USI had an early look at goal with a free kick in the sixth minute, but SIUE’s goalkeeper saved the ensuing kick by junior defender Brynn Quick. USI redshirt sophomore goalkeeper Anna Markland also collected a pair of saves in the first 20 minutes. However, SIUE scored in the 24th minute off a corner kick to take a 1-0 advantage. It was the first goal scored in the head-to-head series since 2007.
USI and SIUE exchanged possession down the stretch of the opening 45 minutes, but the score remained 1-0 SIUE into halftime.
In the second half, the Screaming Eagles continued to make trips into the attacking third, but optimal shot attempts toward goal came at a premium against a tough defensive unit from SIUE. USI’s defense was also strong, clearing multiple corner kicks and keeping the Cougars out of the net.
Southern Indiana ran into some adversity near the 73rd minute when a double-yellow red card dropped USI down to 10 players on the field. Despite trailing 1-0 and down a player in the contest, the Eagles continued to fight into the final minutes.
After thwarting a couple of SIUE attacks late, USI mustered a late push of its own. Seconds after a saved shot on goal by junior midfielder Peyton Murphy, Southern Indiana scored a short-handed equalizer to tie the match, 1-1, in the 88th minute. A long cross from near the sideline by junior midfielder Emerson Grafton was missed by SIUE’s defense and goalkeeper, allowing sophomore defender Kamryn Bea to step up and put away the loose ball for the game-tying goal and her first career goal. The assist by Grafton tied a team-best five helpers on the season.
The Eagles’ defense halted two more attacks from the Cougars in the final two minutes to close out the draw.
For the game, Southern Indiana totaled six shots with three on goal. Markland finished with six saves in net. SIUE took 16 shots and seven on target Sunday.
Following a pair of wins earlier this past week and Sunday’s tie, USI had already locked up its third consecutive berth in the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament. With one regular-season match to go and through Sunday’s results, USI sits fifth in the conference standings with 12 points. Southern Indiana could potentially finish as high as third.
The Screaming Eagles conclude the regular season at Strassweg Field next Sunday at 1 p.m. for Senior Day against Western Illinois University. Match coverage links can be found at usiscreamingeagles.com
At first, the Colorado women’s soccer team was finding a way without Shyra James.
But with the Buffaloes’ leading scorer still sidelined, CU suddenly is finding goals difficult to come by.
CU began a pivotal weekend on the road with a scoreless draw at Cincinnati on Thursday night, missing an opportunity to cement a top-four spot in the Big 12 Conference standings with two regular-season games remaining. The top four seeds receive byes at the Big 12 tournament in two weeks.
James, CU’s all-time leading goal scorer who leads the club with six goals this season, missed her fifth consecutive game and has missed eight of the past 10 games. The Buffs won all three games while James endured a stretch of three missed games out of four, and she returned to the lineup to score the only goal in a 1-1 draw against Baylor on Sept. 26.
James hasn’t played since, though. CU defeated Kansas 1-0 in the first game of James’ latest five-game stint on the sideline but has gone 0-1-3 since while scoring just two goals in those four games.
The Buffs have now suffered back-to-back scoreless draws after not getting shut out through the first 14 games. CU (10-2-4, 4-1-4 Big 12) couldn’t end that drought against Cincinnati despite outshooting the Bearcats 18-11 with a 7-4 edge in shots on goal.
CU head coach Danny Sanchez shook up the lineup in hopes of providing a spark, giving Jenny Beyer and Mallory Allen their first starts of the season. Cincinnati also played without its leading goal-scorer, freshman forward Rylee Felton.
“We mixed things up a little bit,” Sanchez said in a news release. “I thought there were some good individual performances, but like I told the team, at the end of the day we’re still not getting enough in the final third. Ava (Priest) tested the keeper well in the second half, but other than that, we had a lot of great possessions through the midfield. We did everything tactically we asked them to do. We were very good in the back, just missing that final piece.”
Buffs goalie Jordan Nytes, who on Wednesday won the Big 12 goalkeeper of the week award for the fourth time this season, made four saves to notch her 10th shutout of the season. Nytes took sole possession of No. 3 among CU’s single-season shutout leaders and moved one behind Kate Scheele’s 2014 total of 11 shutouts. It was the 18th shutout of Nytes’ CU career, moving one behind Kirstin Radlinski for fourth all-time.
Despite the draw, CU actually moved ahead of West Virginia (6-2-1) in the loss column into third in the league standings after the Mountaineers’ 1-0 defeat against No. 19 Texas Tech on Thursday. The Red Raiders and TCU, both 7-0-2 in the league, top the Big 12 standings, and the Buffs will have another opportunity to close in on a top-four spot when they visit West Virginia on Sunday (11 a.m. MT, ESPN+).
FC Goa (FCG) head coach Manolo Marquez acknowledged in the post-match press conference that his team was not at its best after they played a draw against Mohammedan Sporting Club (MSC) in the Indian Super League (ISL) in Kolkata. Alexis Gomez opened the scoring for Mohammedan SC with a penalty, putting the home side in a strong position to secure three points at the Kishore Bharati Krirangan on Saturday. However, Armando Sadiku’s late equaliser dashed those hopes, leaving the spoils shared. Both teams earned their first points of the league season, but FC Goa may feel fortunate to have escaped with a draw, as Mohammedan SC created numerous chances and troubled them for much of the game. Reflecting on the performance, Marquez expressed uncertainty about whether his team truly deserved the draw given their lacklustre display. “We are not in a good moment, especially mentally. It’s not a problem physically or technically because we know the kind of players that we have. But the team seems tired. Even in some moments, we don’t know what to do. Maybe even I don’t know, maybe I was wrong with the lineup and the substitutions. It’s not about finding who is guilty. The positive thing is playing in this way. We got one point in injury time which I’m not sure we deserved,” he said in the post-match press conference, as quoted by ISL official website. Mohammedan SC secured their first points in the ISL after suffering a loss in their opening match against NorthEast United FC. Just as in that first game, they proved difficult for FC Goa to penetrate. The Black and White Brigade have only two goals across their two matches so far. Sharing his thoughts about Mohammedan SC, Marquez said, “They played a good game, same like the other day. I think they are still (dealing) with this physical problem because the pre-season was short or maybe in a similar situation than Punjab FC in the beginning of last season. They are still adapting to the ISL, because two games and lost points in injury times in both games. It’s tough, but I think that the supporters can be proud of this team because they played very well. They have a clear style with a lot of continuity in the players. It was a very difficult game for us. It’s not only because we are in a bad moment, the credit goes to Mohammedan SC also.” Mohammedan SC brought off Alexis Gomez and Franca, both of whom were standout performers in their attack against FC Goa and were involved in the opening goal. Brazilian forward Franca, in particular, was a constant threat to the FC Goa defence, testing keeper Laxmikant Kattimani on multiple occasions and earning the penalty that led to Gomez’s goal. When asked if the substitutions of the duo made a difference in the final score, Marquez praised the entire Mohammedan SC squad. “They have very good players. Not only these two foreigners, but they have very good Indian players too. The winger, left footer, Bikash (Sangolsem Singh) I like a lot. I think he is a very good player. Kasimov played a fantastic game. In my opinion he was the best player on the pitch. It was difficult to control them. Both (full-)backs are strong, fast. I think Mohammedan SC has a good team. The other day Juan Pedro Benali, the NorthEast United FC coach, more or less said that not too many teams will beat Mohammedan SC at home and I agree with him,” the Spaniard said, as quoted by ISL official website.
TOKYO — One by one, the students, lawyers and others filed into a classroom in a central Tokyo university for a lecture by a Chinese journalist on Taiwan and democracy — taboo topics that can’t be discussed publicly back home in China.
“Taiwan’s modern-day democracy took struggle and bloodshed, there’s no question about that,” said Jia Jia, a columnist and guest lecturer at the University of Tokyo who was briefly detained in China eight years ago on suspicion of penning a call for China’s top leader to resign.
He is one of tens of thousands of intellectuals, investors and other Chinese who have relocated to Japan in recent years, part of a larger exodus of people from China.
Their backgrounds vary widely, and they’re leaving for all sorts of reasons. Some are very poor, others are very rich. Some leave for economic reasons, as opportunities dry up with the end of China’s boom. Some flee for personal reasons, as even limited freedoms are eroded.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is part of the China’s New Migrants package, a look by The Associated Press at the lives of the latest wave of Chinese emigrants to settle overseas.
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Chinese migrants are flowing to all corners of the world, from workers seeking to start businesses of their own in Mexico to burned-out students heading to Thailand. Those choosing Japan tend to be well-off or highly educated, drawn to the country’s ease of living, rich culture and immigration policies that favor highly skilled professionals, with less of the sharp anti-immigrant backlash sometimes seen in Western countries.
Jia initially intended to move to the U.S., not Japan. But after experiencing the coronavirus outbreak in China, he was anxious to leave and his American visa application was stuck in processing. So he chose Japan instead.
“In the United States, illegal immigration is particularly controversial. When I went to Japan, I was a little surprised. I found that their immigration policy is actually more relaxed than I thought,” Jia told The Associated Press. “I found that Japan is better than the U.S.”
“The U.S. is shutting out those Chinese that are friendliest to them, that most share its values,” said Li Jinxing, a Christian human rights lawyer who moved to Japan in 2022.
Li sees parallels to about a century ago, when Chinese intellectuals such as Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of modern China, moved to Japan to study how the country modernized so quickly.
“On one hand, we hope to find inspiration and direction in history,” Li said of himself and like-minded Chinese in Japan. “On the other hand, we also want to observe what a democratic country with rule of law is like. We’re studying Japan. How does its economy work, its government work?”
Over the past decade, Tokyo has softened its once-rigid stance against immigration, driven by low birthrates and an aging population. Foreigners now make up about 2% of its population of 125 million. That’s expected to jump to 12% by 2070, according to the Tokyo-based National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.
Chinese are the most numerous newcomers, at 822,000 last year among more than 3 million foreigners living in Japan, according to government data. That’s up from 762,000 a year ago and 649,000 a decade ago.
In 2022, the lockdowns under China’s “zero COVID” policies led many of the country’s youth or most affluent citizens to hit the exits. There’s even a buzzword for that: “runxue,” using the English word “run” to evoke “running away” to places seen as safer and more prosperous.
For intellectuals like Li and Jia, Japan offers greater freedoms than under Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s increasingly repressive rule. But for others, such as wealthy investors and business people, Japan offers something else: property protections.
A report by investment migration firm Henley & Partners says nearly 14,000 millionaires left China last year, the most of any country in the world, with Japan a popular destination. A major driver is worries about the security of their wealth in China or Hong Kong, said Q. Edward Wang, a professor of Asian studies at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey.
“Protection of private property, which is the cornerstone of a capitalist society, that piece is missing in China,” Wang said.
The weakening yen makes buying property and other local assets in Japan a bargain.
“If you are just going to Japan to preserve your money,” Wang said, “then definitely you will enjoy your time in Japan.”
Dot.com entrepreneurs are among those leaving China after Communist Party crackdowns on the technology industry, including billionaire Jack Ma, a founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, who took a professorship at Tokyo College, part of the prestigious University of Tokyo.
So many wealthy Chinese have bought apartments in Tokyo’s luxury high-rises that some areas have been dubbed “Chinatowns,” or “Digital Chinatowns” — a nod to the many owners’ work in high-tech industries.
“Life in Japan is good,” said Guo Yu, an engineer who retired early after working at ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.
Guo doesn’t concern himself with politics. He’s keen on Japan’s powdery snow in the winter and is a “superfan” of its beautiful hot springs. He owns homes in Tokyo, as well as near a ski resort and a hot spring. He owns several cars, including a Porsche, a Mercedes, a Tesla and a Toyota.
Guo keeps busy with a new social media startup in Tokyo and a travel agency specializing in “onsen,” Japan’s hot springs. Most of his employees are Chinese, he said.
“It is crucial that Japan becomes an attractive country for foreign talent so they will choose to work here,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said earlier this year, announcing efforts to relax Japan’s stringent immigration restrictions.
That kind of opportunity is exactly what Chinese ballet dancer Du Hai said he has found. Leading a class of a dozen Japanese students in a suburban Tokyo studio one recent weekend, Du demonstrated positions and spins to the women dressed in leotards and toe shoes.
Du was drawn to Japan’s huge ballet scene, filled with professional troupes and talented dancers, he said, but worried about warnings he got about unfriendly Japanese.
That turned out to be false, he said with a laugh. Now, Du is considering getting Japanese citizenship.
“Of course, I enjoy living in Japan very much now,” he said.
