MADRID: Real Madrid fell to a damaging 1-0 defeat by Getafe at home in La Liga on Monday, leaving them four points behind leaders Barcelona.

Alvaro Arbeloa’s side, beaten by a superb volley from Martin Satriano, suffered a second consecutive loss in the Spanish top flight for the first time since 2020.

Real forward Franco Mastantuono was sent off in stoppage time for apparent dissent to make a bad night worse for Los Blancos.

“Obviously it’s a match where we could have done things better, but I think my players tried and we had more clear chances than them,” Arbeloa told reporters. “However in football deserving isn’t enough, and Getafe played a great game.”

With French superstar Kylian Mbappe in France to treat a knee sprain, Real lined up with Gonzalo Garcia in attack alongside Vinicius Jr at Santiago Bernabeu.

Real were beaten at Osasuna last weekend, allowing rivals Barca to overtake them in the title race, and Hansi Flick’s side stretched their lead by thrashing Villarreal on Saturday.

Vinicius, in excellent form in 2026 after an inconsistent start to the season, spurned a fine early chance.

The winger burst through on goal but David Soria saved well with his leg.

A brilliant roulette from Arda Guler nearly earned Real the breakthrough but Soria tipped over the Turkish forward’s strike.

Getafe were upset by a painful collision between Real’s defender Antonio Rudiger and Diego Rico, in which the German’s knee knocked the Spaniard’s head.

Uruguayan forward Satriano broke the deadlock with a delicious strike from the edge of the box after compatriot Mauro Arambarri nodded the ball into his path.

Soria, who had a fine game, saved from Vinicius in the second half and the Brazilian called for more support from Real’s fans.

However the team were not giving them much to get excited about, although Rudiger came close to levelling with a header.

It was a disjointed display from a Real side who visit Celta Vigo on Friday in La Liga, before hosting Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City in the Champions League last 16, unsure if top scorer Mbappe will be fit to play.

In stoppage time Mastantuono was dismissed, seemingly for something he said to the referee, before Getafe were also reduced to 10 men when Adrian Liso kicked the ball away and was shown a second yellow card.

“Nobody here is throwing in the towel, this is Real Madrid, you don’t give up until the last game,” added Arbeloa.

“Four points is a distance that we can cut back and we will fight for that.”

Jose Bordalas’s Getafe rose to 11th and were able to celebrate their first win at the Bernabeu since 2008.

“It’s very hard to get points when you come here, I have to congratulate the team for the work in defence, then we got our goal and we could even have scored another in the end,” said Getafe defender Kiko Femenia.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2026

LONDON: Fast bowler Haris Rauf has been designated a marquee player as six Pakistan international cricketers made the top 50 “hero” list for this year’s men’s Hundred auction.

Fourteen Pakistan men’s players in all are included in the long list of 247, despite reports their players would not be considered by the four Indian-owned franchises amid geopolitical tensions between the two neighbouring nuclear-armed countries. This year’s Hundred also clashes with a Pakistan Test series.

Right-armer Haris, 32, joins South Africa pair of Aiden Markram and David Miller, New Zealand’s Daryl Mitc­hell and West Indies spinner Sunil Narine in the group labelled “Mar­quee Players Intern­ational”, and carries the maximum reserve price of £100,000.

Players were required to submit themselves for entry into the auction, with the eight franchises each submitting a list of 75-100 player nominations from which the longlist was decided.

The top 50 “hero” players were broken down into categories, with Pakistan paceman Shaheen Shah Afridi, all-rounder Shadab Khan and spinner Usman Tariq each listed in tier one while all-rounder Saim Ayub and spinner Abrar Ahmed feature in tier two. Saim nonetheless opted for the top reserve price.

Pakistan actually has the most representatives of any overseas nation among the top 50, one ahead of South Africa.

Sahibzada Farhan, the runaway leading run scorer at the ongoing T20 World Cup, is a notable absentee with the contingent of 14 Pakistan players completed by all-rounders Mohammad Nawaz, Usama Mir and Imad Wasim and pace bowlers Mohammad Amir, Naseem Shah, Zaman Khan, Akif Javed and Salman Mirza.

The four Indian-owned franchises are MI London, Sunrisers Leeds, Manchester Super Giants and Southern Brave.

A total of 63 men and four women from Pakistan applied for inclusion in the respective auctions, with spinner Sadia Iqbal and all-rounder Fatima Sana making the women’s longlist at reserve prices of £15,000 apiece.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2026

PARIS: The war in the Middle East triggered by US and Israeli strikes on Iran has raised the question of whether the Iranian national team will take part in the World Cup later this year, during which it is due to play group games in the United States.

The possibility of a boycott of the World Cup has been raised in Iran.

Within hours of the joint US-Israeli strikes beginning on Saturday, Iranian Football Federation president Mehdi Taj told Iranian television: “What is certain at the present time is that with this attack and this cruelty, we cannot look forward to the World Cup with hope.”

Taj also announced that the Iranian domestic league had been suspended.

“Team Melli”, as the Iranian national team are known, secured qualification in March last year for a seventh World Cup, and a fourth in a row.

Iran have been drawn in Group ‘G’ with Belgium, Egypt and New Zealand and are due to play two games in Los Angeles and one in Seattle.

A large Iranian diaspora has lived in Los Angeles since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. A large part of that diaspora backed the Pahlavi dynasty which was overthrown in the revolution.

World football’s governing body is remaining cautious regarding the possibility of Iran pulling out of the World Cup.

“We had a meeting… and it is premature to comment in detail, but we will monitor developments around all issues around the world,” FIFA secretary general Mattias Grafstrom said on Saturday.

A source close to FIFA said no discussions had yet taken place with the Iranian Football Federation regarding a possible withdrawal of the team from the tournament.

Tuesday marks exactly 100 days to the tournament’s opening game and the situation in Iran could become acutely uncomfortable for FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who has been keen to show that he has a close relationship with US President Donald Trump.

All the more so as other countries in the Gulf who are due to take part in the World Cup have been drawn into the war, with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan all being targeted by retaliatory Iranian strikes.

FIFA’s regulations do not provide for the possibility of a boycott of the World Cup by a qualified team. A source close to world football’s governing body said “specific decisions” would have to be taken to replace Iran with another team if necessary.

Article 6 of the regulations for the 2026 World Cup says that “if a participating member association withdraws…as a result of force majeure,” FIFA “shall decide on the matter at its sole discretion and take whatever action is deemed necessary.”

If a team withdraws or is excluded from the competition, FIFA therefore has the freedom to take whatever decision it sees fit and “may decide to replace the participating member association in question with another association.”

It would seem logical that an eventual absence of Iran from the competition would open the way for another Asian nation to take their place.

At the moment eight Asian teams have qualified for the first World Cup to feature 48 teams in total. There could yet be a ninth Asian team, if Iraq win an intercontinental play-off against either Bolivia or Suriname, scheduled to be played on March 31 in Monterrey, Mexico.

There have been boycotts of the Olympics, impacting most notably the Games in Moscow in 1980 and in Los Angeles four years later, during the Cold War. But there has not yet been an equivalent situation at a World Cup.

Several qualified teams withdrew from the 1950 World Cup, but for different reasons. Turkey cited financial reasons, while Scotland said they would only go if they won the 1949/50 British Home Championship — FIFA said the top two out of the four teams would qualify, but Scotland finished second to England and so refused to go.

Yugoslavia qualified for the 1992 European Championship but the outbreak of war in the Balkans led to UEFA replacing them with Denmark — who had finished behind Yugoslavia in their qualifying group — barely two weeks before the tournament began. Denmark went on to win the trophy.

Russian clubs and national teams have been suspended from all international competitions by FIFA and UEFA since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2026