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Working mom Icher qualifies for U.S. Women's Open without help of USGA, LPGA
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Golf
Thursday, 09 May 2019 10:25
Nobody was more motivated to make it through U.S. Women’s Open sectional qualifying this week than Karine Icher.
She took all the frustration she is feeling as a working mom and turned it into fuel.
Icher blazed her way through the qualifier at Rush Creek in Maple Grove, Minn. She routed the field, taking the lone spot available among the 35 entrants. The five-time LET winner and four-time Solheim Cup veteran from France won medalist honors by five shots.
Icher, 40, did this while still freshly smarting from the rejection she felt after the USGA turned down her request for a special maternity exemption, something like the ones Stacy Lewis and Brittany Lincicome were offered this year. Lewis accepted, Lincicome declined and Icher fumed over why an exception couldn’t be made for her, too.
So Icher flew to Maple Grove on a mission.
“It was the best answer I could give … by [being] deserving [of] my spot and not stealing it,” Icher said of winning medalist honors.
There’s sarcasm in that comment.
Icher believes she was deserving of the same consideration Lewis and Lincicome received, even though they ranked considerably higher on the new interim maternity standard the USGA created this year to allow the organization more time to fully formulate a new maternity policy.
“The USGA is changing their rules for next year, but they’re already applying them to this year, after the deadline for entering the U.S. Women’s Open has passed,” Icher said. “I don’t understand how that’s fair to do, after entries were closed.
“Stacy and I had our babies a week apart. If they’re going to do this, why didn’t they do it for all the players who had babies?”
Icher gave birth to her second child, a daughter, Maya, on Nov. 3. Lewis gave birth on Oct. 25.
Originally, Lewis applied for a special exemption to this year’s U.S. Women’s Open, but it was denied. She appealed to the USGA, asking officials to review their maternity policy, which wasn’t nearly as flexible to a working mom’s needs as is the revamped new policy adopted by the LPGA earlier this year.
To the USGA’s credit, the organization listened to Lewis and acted quickly, announcing the new temporary maternity provision two weeks ago. It was designed to accommodate this year’s playing moms while giving the organization time to comprehensively update its policy.
“Similar to our own maternity policies for staff members at the USGA, we believe that a player should come back from maternity leave with the same status they went out with,” said Craig Annis, the USGA’s managing director for marketing and communications.
When Lewis left the tour to prepare for the birth of her daughter last year, she was No. 33 in the Rolex Women’s World Rankings. The top 50 are exempt to this year’s U.S. Women’s Open. She was granted a special maternity exemption based on that. Lincicome also received the offer based on her ranking inside the top 50.
Icher, however, was No. 95 in the world rankings when she left the tour last year to prepare to give birth. She also was outside the top-75 LPGA money list standard for the U.S. Women’s Open. She was denied the special maternity exemption based on that.
The USGA seemed to draw a reasonable performance line, but it still frustrated Icher.
In 2011, Icher said she was qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open but did not play because she was about to give birth to her first child, Lola.
“I didn’t get my spot back the next year,” Icher said.
Because Icher missed most of 2011, she didn’t meet any exemptions to play the 2012 U.S. Women’s Open.
To fully understand Icher’s frustration, you have to understand what a driving force she was in the LPGA’s overhaul of its maternity policy this year. Icher pushed for many of the changes that today’s and tomorrow’s LPGA mothers will enjoy, while Icher hasn’t received those same benefits. She wasn’t eligible for the new provisions she was so instrumental in creating.
Under the new LPGA policy, a player can compete in as many events as she chooses in the year she takes maternity leave. She can do so and still preserve the status she took into the start of her maternity year. In the past, a player was limited to 10 starts in the year she took maternity leave.
Also, under the new policy, a player can preserve the LPGA status she took into her maternity year for up to two years after the birth of her child, instead of that single year. This allows a player the flexibility to spend more time at home with her baby before choosing to return. Also, in yet another change, a returning mother has more than a calendar year to retain her status. She can choose to return at any time during a year and have a designated number of starts – spilling over into the following year – to retain her status.
Icher helped make all of that possible, but she played under the old policy while giving birth last year. She played 16 events in 2018 – six more than the former maternity leave allowed – and struggled once she got deeper into her pregnancy. She ended up finishing 110th on the money list, outside the top 80 and top 100 priority categories.
“My biggest mistake was trying to play as much as I did last year,” Icher said. “But how can you blame a player for that?”
Icher finished 40th on the money list in ’17.
If the new policy Icher helped create was in effect last year, Icher could have taken maternity leave in 2018, still played those 16 events last year, but, importantly, she would have retained her 2017 status as a top-40 money winner through last year and also through this year.
Icher did get a medical extension for leaving the tour to give birth last year. She was given seven starts this year to improve her 2018 status. In four starts so far this season, she has made one cut and $4,147.
“With this baby boom, a lot of players are learning how hard it is to come back after having a baby,” Icher said. “I asked if the LPGA board could grandfather me into the new policy, but I never heard anything back.”
LPGA tour operations officer Heather Daly-Donofrio said Icher’s situation is difficult, but it wasn’t something the board could act upon.
“It’s not a board issue,” Daly-Donofrio said. “It’s a regulation issue, so it falls under the purview of the management team to interpret the regulation. We looked at it, but as a matter of course, we don’t retroactively apply changes to our regulations that effect playing status.”
Daly-Donofrio said portions of the new maternity policy made sense to apply to moms who gave birth last year, but “to change playing status after the fact, to retroactively apply the maternity policy that way, could impact other members negatively. We don’t go back as a matter of course.”
Daly-Donofrio said she empathizes with Icher.
“I feel for her,” Daly-Donofrio said. “She was helpful through the whole process of making maternity leave changes. She was an agent of change. I can see how that frustrates her, where you’re an agent of change but you aren’t reaping the full benefits of the change. It’s very emotional and personal, and I understand that.”
A frustration for Icher is that she feels like there’s a “retroactive” change being made by the USGA this year, in creating new maternity exemptions after U.S. Women’s Open entries closed, and yet the LPGA won’t make “retroactive” changes that would help her benefit from changes she helped create.
“It just doesn’t seem fair,” Icher said.
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With the course soaked from rain the previous day, there were birdies aplenty during the opening round of the AT&T Byron Nelson. Here's how things look at Trinity Forest in Dallas, where Denny McCarthy holds an early lead as he looks to win for the first time on the PGA Tour:
Leaderboard: Denny McCarthy (-8), Tyler Duncan (-7), Tom Hoge (-7), Matt Every (-6), Brooks Koepka (-6), Matt Jones (-6), Jonas Blixt (-6)
What it means: McCarthy was a former standout at the University of Virginia and already has a pair of top-10 finishes to his credit this season. But he's now the man to chase after turning in a colorful scorecard, with the tournament favorite just two shots off the pace. Like McCarthy, the two players in closest pursuit are also off to strong starts in search of their first wins on Tour.
Round of the day: McCarthy got out of the gates slowly with a double bogey on No. 4, but he never looked back. Four straight birdies on Nos. 6-9 followed and set the stage for a tremendous back nine, as McCarthy shot a bogey-free 29 that included a run of eight birdies in nine holes from No. 6 to No. 14. He added two more coming home, playing his final 13 holes in 10 under.
Best of the rest: Hoge made it around Trinity Forest without dropping a shot, carding four birdies on the back nine and adding three more while coming home on the front. It's been a lean year for Hoge, who has missed 13 of 21 cuts this season and hasn't cracked the top 25 since the Safeway Open in October. But he turned things around Thursday in Dallas, recording just his second sub-70 round in his last 10 individual starts.
Biggest disappointment: Former world No. 1 Luke Donald contended at the Valspar Championship in March as he returned from a back injury, but that comeback suffered a setback with a 5-over 76 in the opening round in Dallas. On a day when more than half the field broke par, Donald bogeyed half his holes and finished ahead of only two players despite carding a quartet of birdies.
Main storyline heading into Friday: Keep an eye on Koepka, who barely broke a sweat in his opener despite having never seen the front nine before. As the only player in the field ranked inside the top 10, he was an understandable pre-tournament favorite and backed up that billing with a 65 that puts him firmly into the mix as he looks to head to his title defense at Bethpage with a bit of extra momentum.
Shot of the day: Playing on a sponsor exemption, former quarterback Tony Romo gave the Dallas fans plenty to cheer about when he pitched in for eagle from in front of the green on the par-5 seventh.
Quote of the day: "I got a yardage book." - Koepka, whose front-nine practice round was rained out Wednesday. He responded by making five birdies over the nine-hole stretch in the opening round.
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Glen Day was 7 under through 16 holes to top the Regions Tradition leaderboard Thursday when bad weather halted the opening round of the first PGA Tour Champions major of the year.
After a two-tee start to try to beat the weather, lightning stopped play just after noon when Day was aiming for his second straight long birdie putt on Greystone's Founders Course. Tour officials announced more than four hours later that the first round would resume early Friday.
Defending champion Miguel Angel Jimenez and David Toms were two strokes back. Jimenez played 17 holes, and Toms finished 13.
Day made a third straight birdie on No. 16 and was lining up for a shot at another one when play was suspended.
Day predicted that ''the scores will go way low'' before the tournament is over - weather permitting.
Glen Day was 7 under through 16 holes to top the Regions Tradition leaderboard Thursday when bad weather halted the opening round of the first PGA Tour Champions major of the year.''Now, if we want to call the tournament right now, I'm all for it,'' he said, laughing. ''I mean, we can call it now. But if we get in four rounds, there will be a lot of birdies made.
''Plus, with the weather that's coming in, the golf course will be soft, the greens will be holding. They just firmed up a little bit and they're going to be really good. I think the scores will go way low.''
Day is seeking his first win on the senior tour. His only PGA Tour victory came in 1999.
Jimenez, who started on the 10th hole, shot 37 on the first nine. He then had birdies on six of his next seven. He won his first senior major last year at the Regions Tradition, when he held or shared the lead after all four rounds.
Billy Andrade finished with a 4-under 68 after posting six birdies and a pair of bogeys. Two-time champion Bernhard Langer, winner of a record 10 senior major championships, was 3 under with one hole to play.
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Jordan Spieth couldn't sustain a hot start once the wind kicked up at the AT&T Byron Nelson.
Spieth made the most of the easiest portion of Trinity Forest, carding five birdies in his first seven holes to rocket up the early leaderboard. But he made a double bogey on the difficult ninth hole, then shot even on the back to finish the day with a 3-under 68. It left him five shots behind Denny McCarthy and in a tie for 37th on a day when more than half the field broke par.
After the round, Spieth told reporters that he was pleased with his ball-striking, especially off the tee. But he felt the wind started to freshen on the par-3 eighth hole and struggled to manufacture birdie opportunities coming home.
"We knew ahead going into it, it was forecast to be pretty tough for our wave," Spieth said. "Sometimes you get the good end, you get on the bad end sometimes. Certainly tomorrow morning looks to be pretty tough given that it's going to be 50 degrees and potential chance of rain and a 15 mph wind. It could be playing tough."
Spieth remains in search of his first top-20 finish of the season, having topped out with a T-21 finish at the Masters, and he is one of the headliners in the field this week in Dallas with many of the top names resting for next week's PGA Championship. But with another chance to complete the career Grand Slam waiting for him at Bethpage, Spieth continues to highlight the positives as he looks to get a lean year back on track.
"I've been in the last groups on Saturdays and I've told you guys ahead of time it's just a matter of time. This is different. I feel good," Spieth said. "I feel like I'm really in the right place. It stings because it may not show given the conditions that our wave faces. That's OK. I'll take it better next week than this week."
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Tony Romo authored an early highlight, but the former quarterback ultimately succumbed to some difficult conditions at the end of his opening round at the AT&T Byron Nelson.
Romo played his entire NFL career for the Dallas Cowboys, and he is a member at Trinity Forest which is hosting the event for the second consecutive year. That local knowledge paid off on the par-5 seventh hole, where Romo chipped in from in front of the green for eagle to reach 2 under on his round and give the partisan crowds plenty to cheer about.
But that proved to be the last highlight on an otherwise difficult day, as Romo made a double bogey two holes later endured a five-hole stretch from Nos. 13-17 in which he was 5 over. Romo ultimately signed for a 5-over 76, which exceeded expectations in Las Vegas where the over/under was set at 77.5, but it left him ahead of just four players in the 155-man field.
"Couple of the tee shots really cost me just because they're penal in those areas. You can't miss them there," Romo told reporters. "The separation between these guys is the ability to do it for long stretches, consistency. I think just a few tee shots really cost me the round today."
Romo plays to a scratch handicap and is making his third career PGA Tour start as an amateur, having missed the cut each of the last two years in the Dominican Republic. While he was listed as a 10,000-to-1 longshot, Romo was a popular bet this week: the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook received more bets, both in terms of individual wagers and total money wagered, on Romo than on any other player in the field.
He'll have his work cut out just to make the cut with cooler temps expected Friday morning, but Romo remains optimistic about the gains his game has made in recent months.
"You work hard enough to put yourself in a position to hopefully continue to improve. I've improved from two months ago," he said. "I've got to continue to get more consistent and trust it. I think sometimes a little bit out there there's a trust factor of letting it go. When you play at the highest level of sport, you're going to let it go and play intelligently. Their swings are freed up."
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Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech is relishing playing his former club Chelsea in the Europa League final, which could make for a "remarkable end" to his glittering career.
He helped his side reach the final in Baku on May 29 with a thumping 7-3 aggregate victory over Valencia on Thursday, while Chelsea saw off Eintracht Frankfurt on penalties to set up an all-London showdown.
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"It would be a remarkable end to my career if I play a European final against my former team," Cech, who made 333 appearances for Chelsea between 2004 and 2015, told BT Sport.
"You have days when you play well and you think you could continue but I've made the decision to retire with a lot of thought. I could possibly go on another two years but I'd rather retire too early than too late. I wanted to do it on my terms."
Cech, who started the season as the club's No. 1 but lost his place to Bernd Leno, has played in every Europa League knockout round, keeping two clean sheets against Napoli in the quarterfinals.
With Arsenal all but out of the running for a top-four finish in the Premier League -- they require an eight-goal swing and for fourth-placed Tottenham to lose -- manager Unai Emery must decide whether to give Cech an extra 90 minutes of football in the final league match to prepare for Baku.
"With all my experience I can compensate for the match rhythm with my preparation," said the 36-year-old former Czech international, who announced in January that he would retire at the end of the season.
"The key is always how you prepare in training and I always behave the same whether I am starting or on the bench. I always feel confident that I'm ready to play.
"The last dream was to play this European final and it has come true. Now the dream is to win it."
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England became the first country to provide two finalists in both European competitions in the same season after Chelsea and Arsenal made it through to the title match in the Europa League on Thursday.
It adds up to a season of domination for English clubs in Europe, with Liverpool and Tottenham reaching the final of the Champions League this week by overturning three-goal aggregate deficits at various stages of their semifinals against Barcelona and Ajax, respectively.
Chelsea beat Eintracht Frankfurt 4-3 in a penalty shootout at Stamford Bridge, after a second straight 1-1 draw between the teams in the semifinals.
Arsenal's path to the final was more straightforward, beating Valencia 4-2 thanks to a hat trick from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to complete a 7-3 win on aggregate.
Ames on Chelsea: In likely swan song, Hazard shows poise
Cox on Arsenal: Aubameyang lifts club to promised land
Ogden on Tottenham: In season of close calls, Spurs still survive
Ogden on Liverpool: Barca bore witness to Anfield magic
The Champions League final will take place in Madrid on June 1. This is the seventh time two teams from the same country will meet in the Champions League final, and the fourth time in the past seven seasons. It is the second time two English clubs have met in the UCL final, the last coming in 2008 between Manchester United and Chelsea.
The Europa League final will be staged in Baku, Azerbaijan, on May 29. It is the first time since the 1972 UEFA Cup -- when Wolverhampton Wanderers took on Tottenham -- that two English teams squared off for the title in any of that competition's various guises.
Arsenal will likely need to win the game to get into next season's Champions League as it probably won't finish in the top four of the Premier League. Chelsea is already guaranteed a top-four finish heading into the final round of fixtures this weekend.
There is guaranteed to be an all-English UEFA Super Cup in August in Istanbul as that match will pit the winners of the competitions.
"It's not easy for an English team to arrive in the last month in a good condition physically," Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri said of his side after Thursday's win. "We play more than other countries. We played match 61 today. It's a big difference with other countries."
Chelsea have the final match of the Premier League against Leicester City on Sunday then a friendly to play in the United States before earning 10 days' rest to prepare for the final in Baku.
A game between London rivals Chelsea and Arsenal normally covers a distance of six miles. For the May 29 final, they will need to travel 2,469 miles to Azerbaijan.
"Here [in England] the level is very high," Sarri added. "To get into the League Cup final [in February], we had to play Liverpool and Tottenham and then played the best team in Europe, Manchester City. The Premier League is the best league in the world."
Information from Reuters was used in this report.
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LONDON -- Eden Hazard vowed to try and sign off with a trophy if the Europa League final proves to be his last game to Chelsea after scoring the winning penalty in a dramatic shootout win over Eintracht Frankfurt at Stamford Bridge.
Kepa Arrizabalaga saved two spot kicks after Luka Jovic's 49th-minute strike had cancelled out Ruben Loftus-Cheek's first-half opener, leaving Hazard to coolly send Eintracht goalkeeper Kevin Trapp the wrong way from 12 yards and set up a mouthwatering final with London rivals Arsenal in Baku.
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How Prem clubs' European qualification will play out
Sources have told ESPN FC that Hazard wants his desired summer transfer to Real Madrid finalised as soon as possible, but after the match the Belgian refused to confirm if the Europa League final will be his last match for Chelsea.
"If it's my last game I will try to do everything for this club to win a trophy," Hazard told BT Sport. "In my mind I don't know yet. I don't think about that. I'm only thinking about winning something for this club and this squad."
Asked about his decisive penalty, Hazard added: "I always take my responsibility when I have to. Today we are happy but it's not finished. We have another game to play against Arsenal. We need to go there and play with quality and win the game."
Kepa emerged as Chelsea's other hero after 120 gruelling minutes against Eintracht, but after the match the Spain international played down his own contribution to the victory.
"Penalties are down to luck," said Kepa. "Today we won and in the Carabao Cup final we lost, but this is football. Today was really good and we played against a very difficult team and we are very happy.
"We always prepare for the penalty shooters before each game and today we are lucky. Wembley is in the past and I learned from it. I said I was sorry but we always keep moving forward and today was another game and we are happy to get to the final."
The win also preserves Maurizio Sarri's hopes of claiming silverware in his first season at Chelsea, but first the Italian must take his squad to the United States next week for a friendly against New England Revolution to raise money and awareness for the fight against anti-Semitism.
"We played 61 matches, so it's very difficult," Sarri admitted. "We need to rest, of course. Unfortunately we have to go to the U.S. to play a match. And then we have, after the U.S., 10 days to prepare the last match.
"We played the first final [this season] against Manchester City and lost. So now we want to win. In our opinion, our group deserves to win. We were in trouble three months ago and, here in England, if you're in trouble the level of opponents is very high and it's not easy to overcome difficulties. We were able to do it. So now we deserve to win a trophy."
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LONDON -- Eden Hazard was shot, knackered, spent. The Europa League is not his stage, not really; everybody knows that and it is one reason why, as Chelsea plugged along through their previous 15 outings in the competition, he had only been wheeled out for 228 minutes in total. Here he had dragged himself through an entire two hours of Thursday's semifinal second leg, those whirring legs slowing up to eventually resemble paddles sludging their way through mud. The juice had run out; the ideas had really too. Eintracht Frankfurt had brought this tie to a knife edge and, with it, had put Hazard's grand finale on the line.
Stamford Bridge is Hazard's stage. It has been for seven years now, no matter what the competition. Hazard's fire has raged during that time, ever so occasionally dying down to merely a flicker. He has slalomed his way to titles; bewitched his way to individual awards; carried dying teams on his shoulders; jinked into the club's pantheon of greats to such an extent that the drawn-out, opaque departure process he has undergone this season has drawn barely a murmur of disapproval from the stands.
But Hazard had never faced a situation like this. He had watched Cesar Azpilicueta miss in the shootout and give Eintracht one foot on the final. He had then seen Kepa Arrizabalaga, wise to Martin Hinteregger's attempt to drill the ball down the middle, stand firm and wedge it between his legs. He knew his time was coming when Goncalo Paciencia, his stuttering run-up postage stamped with inevitability, let Kepa save again. Now, he had his chance: one last shot for one last final; one last shot in front of the crowd that he adores and who have, with no need for encouragement, reciprocated that in bundles; one last moment of high drama to bookend the lightning bolts of sheer magic.
Hazard did not miss. Nobody seriously thought he would; that he would score was probably the nearest thing to a certainty on a wild, snarling night that swung this way and that. He sent Kevin Trapp the wrong way, perhaps grateful for the 10 minutes he had been given to clear his mind since the end of extra time. It was a crisp, lucid finish; they usually are, and as most of his teammates flocked to mob Kepa, Hazard ran slightly behind, eyes trained on the Shed End's mass of part-relieved, part-delirious limbs.
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"I always take my responsibility," Hazard said afterward. His responsibility was to score, whether or not this was his last kick of a ball at Stamford Bridge; but if he is indeed to leave Chelsea this summer, there is something else at play too. He has helped them to hold their nerve domestically -- to a sounder degree than their rivals, in any case -- and quality for next season's Champions League. If he can send himself off with a second Europa League title, beating Arsenal in Baku and adding to the trophy won in 2012-13, then perhaps he can leave in the knowledge that a fractured club is finally beginning to heal.
Because, make no mistake, Chelsea's home is a complex, troubled place.
Five minutes before the end of normal time, Maurizio Sarri replaced Ruben Loftus-Cheek -- the scorer of their first-half opener but a diminishing influence as Eintracht clawed their way back into the tie -- with the fresher legs of Ross Barkley. Ordinarily, it should not have been a controversial move, but the disdain for Sarri, palpable since the winter, needed little excuse to rear its head even on what was, whether they liked it or not, Chelsea's biggest game of the season. The boos rang out from all four sides; it was far removed from the expectant, supportive environment that might be expected when things were going to the wire against excellent opponents, but nothing about this season in west London has fitted preconceived notions.
Everything feels on thin ice here. Sarri has steered them to a respectable finish and might well top that with a European trophy, but his philosophy, his preference for method over indignant, us-against-the-world belligerence, simply does not seem to fit. When Eintracht's brilliant young striker Luka Jovic equalised after half-time, the tension was that of a crowd waiting to turn.
"Over the 120 minutes, we were the better team and had the better chances," the Eintracht coach Adi Hutter claimed. He was probably right: The substitute Sebastien Haller saw two extra-time efforts cleared off the line; and from beginning to end, it was only the visiting supporters -- surely the loudest, most inventive bunch heard at any top-level match in England this year -- who seemed energised to offer unconditional support.
They and their vibrant team, which faces a breakup comparable to that of Champions League heroes Ajax, deserved more. But Chelsea themselves might lose a huge part of their modern identity come August. The chances of seeing anyone capable of such sustained brilliance as Hazard -- whose name was greeted with bellows of approval before kickoff as a flag bearing his image was passed along the Matthew Harding Stand -- gracing this turf in the foreseeable future are remote.
At least they could wring out every last drop here. It was Hazard who set up Loftus-Cheek's goal before, by his exacting standards, failing to match perspiration with end product. That was before he settled the issue, threw his shirt to the crowd and disappeared down the tunnel for what was surely the final time.
"In my mind, I don't know yet," he said, inscrutable as ever, when asked about his future. "If it is my last game [against Arsenal], I will try to do everything."
One last flourish could yet fix Chelsea and Sarri. But after delivering so poetically here, you wonder what more he could possibly do.
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Aubameyang lifts Arsenal within one game of the promised land
Published in
Soccer
Thursday, 09 May 2019 17:02
VALENCIA, Spain -- Unai Emery's first campaign will be deemed a success or a failure based upon the 58th and final game of Arsenal's season.
After the dreadful performance in a 1-1 draw at Brighton on Sunday effectively confirmed that Arsenal would miss out on Champions League qualification through the conventional route, this hugely impressive 4-2 victory away at the Mestalla means they'll travel to Baku, Azerbaijan, later this month to face rivals Chelsea to earn a place in Europe's premier competition for 2019-20.
It was Emery's prowess in the Europa League that led to his appointment in the first place. His three straight triumphs with Sevilla between 2014 and 2016 made him an ideal candidate for the role, and while Arsenal's recent slump means their league finish is a disappointment, it's worth remembering that Arsenal started the campaign as very much sixth favourites for the top four.
The Europa League always seemed of huge importance to Arsenal this season, and Emery has successfully steered Arsenal through tricky ties against Napoli and Valencia, where Arsenal have taken two-goal first-leg leads away from home and not merely defended them, but added to their margins of victory.
This was a huge test for Emery, against the club with which he spent a four-year spell and made his name as top-level coach. The home supporters' welcome wasn't friendly, with anti-Emery chants as the Arsenal coach arrived, boos when Emery emerged from the tunnel and an electric atmosphere from the outset.
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Initially, this looked like being a long night for Arsenal. Kevin Gameiro's opener arrived in just the 11th minute, then five minutes later, Rodrigo sent a fizzing half-volley narrowly wide of the far post from outside the box. It would have put Valencia ahead in the tie. Arsenal were hanging on.
But then Arsenal burst into life with a goal out of absolutely nothing. There was a clever touch from Alexandre Lacazette to provide the assist, but this was really all about the finish, swept into the net from outside the box, with the outside of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's right foot. It was an unusual, elegant finish and contrasted sharply with his late miss against Brighton at the weekend, when he tried to engineer an outside-of-the-boot finish with an elaborate scissor-kick. In some ways, these incidents summarise Aubameyang, a prolific striker who nevertheless sometimes struggles to convert the easiest of chances.
On this day, he was clinical, but it wasn't just the goals that he and his strike partner earned praise from Emery for: "They are very good strikers, but I am proud of them because of how they worked defensively. We needed that today, and the big players can be good as strikers, but [I am happy] when their commitment is like today, defensively."
But this was his best performance in an Arsenal shirt. It was a game that suited him; with Valencia forced to do the running and Arsenal allowed to play on the counterattack, this meant Aubameyang could concentrate on using his speed into the channels. He and Lacazette rotated positions but positioned themselves wide rather than as a central strike duo, with Mesut Ozil prowling behind in a 3-4-1-2.
Aubameyang, as ever, missed chances. His headed effort from a corner was wayward, his left-footed effort after good interplay on the edge of the box was tame. But this always felt like his game. Toward the end of the first half, he sped down the right and cut the ball back for Lacazette, who swept a shot against the outside of the post. It felt like Arsenal might live to regret that.
Lacazette can let his head drop after that type of miss, but Aubameyang always remains bright, lively and energetic, and it was his determination and ambition that created Arsenal's second, with Lacazette the beneficiary. Aubameyang hesitated when confronted with Jose Gaya, knowing the full-back could match him for pace. And sure enough, his knock past the left-back was reached first by Gaya, but Aubameyang won back possession immediately, the ball fell to Torreira and he transferred it into Lacazette, who made no mistake. Aubameyang had successfully counterpressed his own concession of possession. Valencia now needed four goals, and a once-raucous Mestalla started to empty.
The Gabon international wasn't finished, though. His second came from a classic near-post run across the opposition centre-backs to convert a low ball from Ainsley Maitland-Niles. The 21-year-old had spent the first half under pressure as Valencia concentrated their attacks down his flank but ended the game having provided the most memorable moment of his Arsenal career to date.
And Aubameyang can say the same, after he completed his hat trick with two minutes remaining, slamming the ball into the top of the net from a tight angle on the right. It felt like confirmation of his brilliance, the type of moment Thierry Henry used to provide away from home on European nights in that same No. 14 shirt -- away at Inter, away at Roma and away at Real Madrid, to mention a few.
Those were all Champions League nights, and no Europa League game can ever be considered on the same level. But that, of course, is the whole point: Arsenal desperately yearn for a return to that competition, and on this occasion, Aubameyang looked like a Champions League player in a Europa League tie. Another performance like that in Baku and Arsenal will be back in the big time.
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