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According to captain Ben Spencer, Bath will unavoidably deliver a performance similar to the one that earned them the European Challenge Cup on Friday.

At the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Bath won their first European championship game with a score of 34-12 over French Top 14 side Lyon.

The Premiership leaders scored four tries in the first half, which saw two players sin-binned and comfortably defeat their French foes.

Spencer claimed that the performance of tonight was something that had been developing for a very long time.

“It was unbelievable to witness this group’s struggle and hunger.

When England head coach Steve Borthwick led Bath to its final major silverware, it was in the same European competition in 2008.

Following their domestic success in February with the Premiership Rugby Cup and as favorites to win the Premiership title, Bath are still in the running for a treble this year.

Finn Russell, the flyhalf’s signing in 2023, was a key player in Bath’s transformation under Johann van Graan, who praised the victory as a “big step in the right direction” of the club’s direction.

After twice losing Champions Cup finals to former club Racing 92, Russell won his first major European title with four conversions and three penalties on the night.

It’s been a long time coming for Bath to win this title, Russell said on BBC Points West. “We’ve worked so hard as a team to get where we are right now,” Russell said.

Although the work is still ongoing, it is amazing to have this trophy.

Tom Dunn, a stalwart of Hooker and Bath, made his debut in 2012 with the statement, “We talk about continuous improvement.

Despite being briefly reduced to 13 players after Sam Underhill and Will Muir received yellow cards, Bath took the lead with the scores of Dunn and Max Ojomoh.

Beno Obano and Spencer scored tries to keep them out of sight, but Arno Botha pulled another back for Lyon, who finished the night comfortably.

One of Bath’s yellow cards, according to Lyon coach Karim Ghezal, was “rather dodgy,” but he wouldn’t object to refereeing.

When they were adrift, “we didn’t score.” He claimed that they received two yellow cards.

We must confront the reality because Bath is a very capable team and we knew they were very effective.

As the Premiership season draws to a close, Bath will now have to wait another two weeks.

On Saturday, May 31st, they travel to Saracens for the final round of the competition, followed by a home semi-final on Friday, June 6th, to qualify for the Twickenham final.

Van Graan and Van Graan are enjoying their “journey” together and said the Challenge Cup trophy was a credit to each and every player on the club.

“We’ll enjoy [Friday], we’ll enjoy what this trophy represents, incredible hard work by a lot of people,” Van Graan said. “We’ll come back on Tuesday morning and we’ll move on.”

We are enjoying our journey together, not pursuing anything.

In light of the significant issues surrounding the new Professional Rugby Agreement (PRA) of the Welsh Rugby Union, Paul Thorburn believes Welsh rugby needs a “full shake-up.”

Following confirmation that Scarlets and Ospreys chose not to play for Cardiff and Dragons in signing the new deal, the nation’s four regions are currently divided.

Thorburn, 62, a former Wales captain, believes that the WRU must have regional dominance to restore the team’s success.

“I think the governing body needs a little shake-up in terms of how it runs the professional game,” says the governing body.

Wales face Japan on July 5 and 12, in a bid to end a string of 17 successive Test defeats, which is the worst in its history.

This year, Scarlets were the only Welsh side to reach the United Rugby Championship play-offs, which has also been a struggle.

Thorburn, a former Wales full-back who won 37 caps between 1985 and 1991, insists that axing a region is necessary if doing so benefits the game in Wales.

In the end, if cutting a region is what is needed for the future and the sustainability of international rugby and the game in general, Thorburn said, “so be it.”

Let’s put all of these antiquated stereotypes aside, he said, and let’s figure out what will best help sustain international rugby and help it develop.

They ascribe that what rises must fall.

And it’s happened to all three teams getting promoted from the Championship to the Premier League over the course of the years.

However, this wasn’t always the case.

The first season saw the elimination of all of England’s top teams from the top division, with only 27 years remaining to date, 1997-98. It never occurred for the previous 99 seasons, including all those pre-Premier League years.

Therefore, it is odd to see it repeated.

Relegation play-offs, which allow a team to finish in the bottom three but still manage to survive, add to the complexity of some European leagues.

All three promoted teams, Fulham, Bournemouth, and Nottingham Forest, were the only ones who were still in the Premier League two years ago, in 2022-23. That trio’s situation has only improved.

Fulham and Bournemouth were in contention for European spots this season, while Forest are on the verge of playing in the Champions League. They are excellent examples of what can happen if you can consolidate your Premier League position and make the most of the increased revenues that result.

The 23rd most expensive club in the world, with Bournemouth 26th and Fulham 33rd, are the lowest of the 17 remaining English top clubs this season, according to Transfermarkt.

However, promoted clubs have had a mixed history, and the financial disparity only seems to be growing. For instance, none of the Championship clubs this season’s top 60 teams are included in that list.

Perhaps the gap between established Premier League teams and the rest of English football is growing, or perhaps these past two seasons are passing anomalies.

intensity . a Premier League product. According to Italian football journalist Vincenzo Credendino, this may be an explanation for the difficulty some teams are having once they have advanced to the top of the English league.

He claims that Serie A is “more tactical league” played at a slower pace. Promoted teams might have less of a chance to bridge a fictitious gap between them and Serie A on the pitch.

The only time all three promoted teams returned to Serie B is when Pisa, Bari, and Lecce were the unfortunate trio 39 years ago.

Off the field, Credendino points to the ability of well-established, financially supported clubs to advance and compete in a league.

Como, for instance, came out strong in their season-ending 10th place finish.

Credendino mentions Palermo, who are largely owned by City Football Group and have this year qualified for the Serie B play-offs.

“Club ascenseur” The club for elevators.

Raphael Jucobin, a journalist for French football, uses a phrase to describe how Lorient and other teams bounce between leagues. He claims that he is “too good for Ligue 2 and not good enough for Ligue 1.”

There is no sign of that changing in Ligue 1’s 93 years, though, in which all promoted clubs were immediately relegated.

Rival leagues swooping in to claim top talent and halting some sides’ upward trend, according to Jucobin, who describes the Ligue 1 environment as volatile.

Following the collapse of the domestic TV deal with DAZN, the financial situation in Ligue 1 is worse.

When there is so much uncertainty, he says, “It’s quite difficult to have any long-term planning.”

Regarding ownership, Jucobin thinks it’s getting harder for clubs to break into the leagues and form a lasting presence in Ligue 1.

Once promoted, a club with financial boosters will have a stronger chance to stay in the top flight.

Real Madrid, the reigning champion of Europe, won the league title in 1967.

Nothing unusual there, but this was a historically unprecedented season for Spanish football: the teams that rose quickly fell.

The teams in question were Granada, Hercules, Deportivo la Coruna, and Hercules, both of whom had won their respective regional second divisions, promoted through the play-offs.

Although it is worth noting that this year’s crop of promoted teams came close to doing it, it has never happened since.

Real Valladolid, which has lost just four games since being promoted and is currently at the bottom of La Liga, has grown unpopular with some fans.

One of Leganes or Espanyol, the other two who came up last summer, will also be relegated on the final day because Las Palmas, which was promoted two seasons ago, is already down.

Guillem Balague, a columnist for BBC Sport, claims that “the trend is similar.” 15 teams have essentially stayed in the division for the past few years, while five have gone up and down, including a team like Espanyol, who might lose for the third time in five years.

It all depends on the finances. You can’t give a team a capital injection that will enable them to transition from being very small to being very big, or to live much more clearly in FFP.

The Premier League’s parachute money is also substantial, “and there’s that.” There is a small amount of TV rights in Spain, depending on how many years you have been playing La Liga, between three teams that lose, which allows you to determine your spending limit, but not much more.

Only two promoted clubs entered the 1992-93 season as a result of the switch from 20 to 18 Bundesliga teams.

Unfortunately, they finished 17th and 18th place in the relegation zone for Bayer 05 Uerdingen and Saarbucken.

However, that was the last time a phenomenon like that had occurred in one of Europe’s top five leagues outside of England.

The second tier is currently rife with “sleeping giants” who have the platform to compete.

Both Köln and Hamburg, the former champions of Europe, have reclaimed promotion to the Bundesliga. Even more prestigious were divisions with sizable fan bases like Schalke and Hertha Berlin.

French Open 2025

Location: Roland Garros, May 25 – June

Will Iga Swiatek win the French Open, or will one of her rivals take the reign?

The 23-year-old has won four of his past five titles there, making him the three-time defending champion.

However, Poland’s former world number one doesn’t show up at Roland Garros sporting her trademark invincibility.

By the end of 2024, Sabalenka had won two of the four Grand Slams that year, taking Swiatek’s place as the world’s number one.

The Belarusian, who finished second at the Australian Open in January, is in top form. In the run-up to Roland Garros, she won the Madrid Open and has now won 34 of her 40 matches.

In her previous four French Open appearances, American Gauff has not lost before the quarter-finals.

In a dominating 2024 season, Italy’s Jasmine Paolini defeated Gauff to win the Italian Open title in May, and lost to Swiatek in Paris.

Mirra Andreeva, a history-making teenager, is also up for the challenge. The 18-year-old Russian reached the semi-finals last year, and she could become the youngest woman to win a major since 2004. She won the WTA 1000 title in February.

The 28-year-old has never won a singles match at the French Open, but Katie Boulter is the top-ranked British woman in that category.

However, Boulter celebrated her first clay-court victory at a WTA 125 event in Paris last week by winning her first clay-court match in Madrid last month.

Emma Raducanu, the former US Open champion, said she was beginning to “build a relationship” with clay courts after finishing her Strasbourg preparations for the French Open, but she was injured in her second-round exit.

After returning to the top 50 of the world, reaching the fourth round of the Italian Open, and defeating Daria Kasatkina, the 17-year-old, on clay in recent months, Raducanu will hope to overcome any back issues quickly.

The women’s singles will feature fellow Britons Sonay Kartal and Jodie Burrage.

French Open 2025

Location: Roland Garros, May 25 – June

The French Open this year will start off somewhat strange.

Rafael Nadal, the man who won 14 singles titles and is a fixture of the tournament, has retired as Roland Garros for the first time.

There is a chance for someone to continue to strive to be the new “King of Clay” thanks to his abdication.

Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, who has long been the heir apparent, is the slight favorite to win this year’s competition.

The 22-year-old defending champion has a 15-1 win-loss record this year, and more match practice than Jannik Sinner, who is a natural clay-courter.

The other strong candidate is Sinner from Italy.

The world number one has dominated in the last 18 months, but he only recently came back from a three-month doping ban.

Sinner only lost one set to reach the Italian Open final, including Casper Ruud, who had previously lost in the French Open twice, in a brutal quarterfinal.

It is challenging to ignore the other leading seeds if Alcaraz and Sinner are not competing in a battle royale.

Novak Djokovic, who turned 38 on Thursday, has been battling it out for a 25th Grand Slam singles title, but he has recently seemed unmotivated.

However, a successful return to the Geneva final might be all the motivation needed for the three-time Paris champion.

Ruud, the seventh-seeded Norwegian, reaffirmed his clay-court prowess by defeating Draper to claim the Madrid title. Ruud lost to Nadal and Djokovic in the 2022 and 2023 finals.

And don’t forget Alexander Zverev, the third-seeded German, and Alexander Zverev, who finished last year.

Zverev is regaining confidence after finishing just short of his first Grand Slam title in January, and has reached at least the semi-finals four of his previous four appearances in Paris.

The main draw includes Cameron Norrie and Jacob Fearnley, who are also included in Draper.

Fearnley, 23, will make his French Open debut after a stunning year of growth for the former Texas Christian University student.

He won his first ATP Tour clay match in April, placing him 54th overall in the world after only a year as a professional, and has since won eight of his 13 matches.

Norrie, the former world no. 8, has since dropped down the rankings, but he made it to the Geneva Open semi-finals just before Roland Garros.

After winning Wimbledon and the Australian Open, Britain’s Henry Patten and Finn partner Harri Heliovaara are aiming for their third Grand Slam title together in 12 months.

Additionally in the draw are American Rajeev Ram and two all-British partners, Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool, and Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski.

Residents of Bielefeld are fed up with the city’s current online joke.

Nobody knows anyone from or has been to North-Rhine-Westphalia, so the Bielefeld Conspiracy makes the claim that the city isn’t actually there. Everyone from politicians to social media influencers refer to it.

The same can no longer be said of the city’s football club, Arminia Bielefeld.

The third division team will face top-flight VfB Stuttgart in the showpiece match at Berlin’s Olympiastadion on May 24 after defeating four Bundesliga clubs in the first DFB Pokal final in their history.

“I’ve gone through every ups and downs at this club, but this up is the most memorable.” For me, it’s very emotional.

That’s Ulrich Swetz – a lifelong Arminia fan and football commentator at Radio Bielefeld who has covered the club since 1994.

Eight Bundesliga promotions, eight relegations, and four distinct third-tier spells were among those ups and downs.

15 years ago, the club’s financial situation was terrible.

Arminia have only featured in 19 of the Bundesliga’s 62 seasons, never finishing higher than eighth, and last played in the top flight in 2021-22, before suffering back-to-back relegations and narrowly avoiding a first drop to the fourth tier.

After being promoted a week earlier, they won the third division title last Saturday, but nothing could possibly stop them from doing so.

Given where we came from and the relatively new team, no one really believed this was possible, according to Eva-Lotta Bohle, a season ticket holder for Arminia.

Last summer, sporting director Michael Mutzel oversaw a squad overhaul that gave manager Michel Kniat, who has never managed above the 3. 13 new arrivals in Liga.

Arminia’s league form didn’t really come until February, but their cup campaign started last August with a 2-0 defeat of second-place Hanover 96.

Fans gathered close to the pitch create a vociferous and intimidating atmosphere at Arminia’s 99-year-old home, which is an old-school, English-style ground.

Leverkusen manager Xabi Alonso even compared it to Liverpool’s Anfield, such was the noise generated during the semi-final.

After 17 minutes, Leverkusen defender Jonathan Tah bundled home from Arminia for the first time in their cup run, but the underdogs continued to win.

By half-time, the hosts had turned the ball around through Maximilian Grosser, typifying their intensity and perseverance. Marius Worl grabbed a loose ball and curled a shot into the bottom corner.

Arminia rode their luck at times after the break – Patrick Schick hit the post with a header, prompting goalkeeper Jonas Kersken to kiss the woodwork in gratitude – but the holders could not find a way through.

I felt like I was going to break down when the game came to an end and we had defeated them,” says Ulrich.

This was not the Arminia that young fans were familiar with, according to Eva.

At the full-time whistle, substitutes, coaches and fans streamed onto the pitch to get the party started.

According to Arminia captain Mael Corboz, “One player was in the nightclub with his five-month-old baby because they had no one to watch over the child at home.”

After the game, I forgot to eat, so I quickly became intoxicated. That wasn’t the smartest decision. The stadium was where we had a great night’s sleep. The city was on fire, and it was a good time.

Defeat Stuttgart at Berlin’s Olympiastadion, and Arminia will become the first third division side to win the Pokal.

It never will sink in, Corboz said, “perhaps it will only do so when we’re on the field in Berlin.”

We’ll look back and say, “I can’t believe we actually did that in five, ten, twenty years.”

Arminia became the first third-division club to eliminate four Bundesliga sides in a single Pokal campaign after finishing just six points above the relegation zone last year.

” Every round after the Hannover game, we felt that we didn’t have anything to fear, “Mutzel told BBC Sport.

“Sometimes the league games were more challenging than the cup games. We played better teams every game.

While Arminia are arguably the fittest team in the third tier and have several exciting young talents – they began the season as the third-youngest side in the division – a sense of unity and belief has helped them against the elite.

When you play against these teams, you physically and technically exceed your limits, Corboz said.

Head coach Kniat has made a significant impact since joining Mutzel in 2023.

Before each cup game, Mosesel said, “He was so confident in winning,” and he later shared that with the team.

” He believes we can beat anyone. We normally wouldn’t have a chance, but we are certain we can defeat Stuttgart.

Bastian Schweinsteiger, who provided commentary on the semi-final for broadcaster ARD, best summed up Arminia’s ability to improve their performance against the best teams.

” I didn’t see a two-league difference between the teams today, “he said”. I didn’t even notice a single league difference, really.

For a third division club, Arminia’s total revenue from the competition this season would be estimated at £10 million.

Victory in Berlin would secure the club a place in next season’s Europa League which, according to football finance publication the Swiss Ramble, would earn Arminia a further £10m approximately.

Mutzel’s main concern is keeping a talented squad together for the upcoming season, but these sums are eye-watering amounts.

Everyone in Germany has watched the cup matches, and of course the players — some of whom are still young and talented.

For Corboz – a Lyon fan born in the United States to French parents – playing in the Europa League is a dream he never thought might become reality.

He said, “It would be unbelievable to play against teams I used to watch as a fan.” It would represent my career’s pinnacle.

The biggest sporting and cultural moment in Bielefeld’s history is here.

Arminia’s club shop has completely sold out of home shirts, while giant screens have been erected in Bielefeld’s Jahnplatz.

At least 20, 000 fans who purchased tickets are anticipated to travel to Berlin anyway, using any means available. Some people have walked and cycled to raise money for charities.

“We have this one-in-a-lifetime chance of winning the cup, winning a lot of money and going to Europa League which would be incredible for the club and the city”, said Ulrich.

Regardless of the outcome, this is my career’s highlight.

Arminia fans have been raving about this final for a long time.

“One day, the German Sport Club (DSC) will play in the final, the final in Berlin.

Generations have passed away without playing this game.

Our children will sing this song about thousands of Arminia fans in the capital to celebrate this incredible victory if we pass away one day.

In recent weeks the words ‘ one day is now ‘ has been spotted graffitied across the city.