SOCCER

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The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has unveiled the top five nominees for the 2024 African Player of the Year award, with Nigeria's Ademola Lookman (27) and Morocco's Achraf Hakimi (26) among those making the shortlist. Rounding out the list are Simon Adingra (Ivory Coast/Brighton & Hove Albion), Serhou Guirassy (Guinea/Borussia Dortmund), and Ronwen Williams (South Africa/Mamelodi Sundowns). CAF initially released a ten-man shortlist in October but has now trimmed it to five nominees.

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Liverpool extended their lead at the Premier League summit to five points by beating Aston Villa 2-0 at Anfield - their sixth victory in seven home league meetings. One of the toughest away assignments in world football came at a poor time for Unai Emery’s men, who arrived on Merseyside after suffering three successive defeats across as many competitions.

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Tottenham's Rodrigo Bentancur (27) has been banned for seven matches after the Uruguayan made a racist remark about South Korean people when talking about teammate Son Heung-min during a television appearance, the Football Association said on Monday.

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Manchester United ended their year-long wait for a European win, beating PAOK 2-0 at Old Trafford to extend their unbeaten home run against Greek sides to seven matches. United came into the game still searching for their first win in Europe this season, and Ruud van Nistelrooy had the incentive to deliver that before his interim reign ends this weekend.

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Paraguay put four points between themselves and seventh-placed Venezuela after coming from behind to beat Argentina for the first time on home soil since 2009.   With the aim of creating a hostile atmosphere where only the colors of the Albirroja are present, Paraguayan president Fernando Villasboa banned fans from wearing any jersey with Lionel Messi’s name.

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A second-string Chelsea team waltzed their way to an 8-0 landslide victory against Noah at Stamford Bridge, notching up the club’s biggest-ever win in modern-day European competition to retain their spot at the UEFA Conference League summit.

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A new bid to break the impasse between Belgium coach Domenico Tedesco (39) and Thibaut Courtois (32) has been made but there is no time frame for when the Real Madrid goalkeeper may return to the team, Tedesco said on Wednesday. Courtois has not played for Belgium since June last year when he had a falling out with the coach after not being appointed captain for a European Championship qualifier in Estonia.

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Real Madrid’s recent struggles showed no sign of fading as they were thoroughly beaten 3-1 by AC Milan at the Santiago Bernabeu in the UEFA Champions League - just Los Blancos’ second defeat from their last 19 matches against Italian opposition. Due to the floods in Valencia, Real hadn’t taken to the field since being thrashed 4-0 by Barcelona in El Clasico.