SEVILLE: Real Sociedad coach Pellegrino Matarazzo was elated after his side defeated Atletico Madrid to win the Copa del Rey on Saturday, making him the first American coach to claim a major trophy with a club from Europe’s top five leagues.

La Real triumphed 4-3 in the shoot-out following a pulsating 2-2 draw after extra-time, to win the trophy for only the fourth time in the club’s history.

Ander Barrenetxea had given Sociedad the lead after 14 seconds but Ademola Lookman levelled in the 19th minute. Mikel Oyarzabal then put the Basque side back in front with a penalty on the stroke of halftime.

Alvarez drew Atletico level with seven minutes remaining to force the extra period in a dramatic final.

Sociedad last won the Cup in 2021, when the delayed 2020 final was also played at the La Cartuja stadium in Seville, but there were no supporters present due to the Covid pandemic.

This time, the Basque side’s fans were behind the goal to witness goalkeeper Unai Marrero save Atletico’s first two penalties from Alexander Sorloth and Julian Alvarez.

Atletico keeper Juan Musso then stopped Orri Oskarsson’s kick but Pablo Marin kept his nerve to net the winning penalty.

When Matarazzo was appointed in December the Basque team were hovering above the relegation zone, but he has driven them up the table and now to cup glory.

“It’s probably the first (major trophy) for an Italian-American,” said Matarazzo, a New Jersey native born to Italian immigrant parents.

Matarazzo said it was not until Marin’s decisive penalty in the shoot-out hit the back of the net that he could really begin to take anything in.

“That was the moment where I realised this is real. It’s happening,” said the coach.

“You visualise success and you believe in it and you trust the players, but until you cross the finish line you don’t really have the feeling that what is happening (is happening), and then it happens. And with that penalty, it took a couple of moments to realise, but it’s just pure joy.”

Matarazzo insisted the team’s success over the past few months was not just down to him but the daily work that everyone put in, and the quality of the players he has available.

“We have fantastic players, unbelievable players on this squad with unbelievable character,” he said. “(Behind the success is) the daily work and the commitment that we all have to this team and for this club.”

Sociedad’s players, many of them who came through the club’s youth system, were also overjoyed.

“I’ve never walked on water but it has to be like this,” said Sociedad striker Oyarzabal. “It’s tricky to win a trophy with the team of your life. After this my career is complete and I can die happy.”

Atletico coach Diego Simeone, who last led his team to the Copa del Rey in 2013, rued the opportunities his side wasted to win the game before penalties.

“The chances didn’t want to go in,” said the coach.

The Rojiblancos still have a chance to lift a trophy this year — they face Arsenal in the Champions League semi-finals, a competition they have never won. However Simeone said he needed time to absorb the defeat in Seville.

“I’m not thinking about Arsenal, what happens today hurts me a lot. We needed to win and we couldn’t win,” said Simeone.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2026

KARACHI: When the entire world desperately wants peace in these depressing times that have seen the stands here at the National Bank Stadium turn deserted, roaring cheers at cricketing venues in Pakistan have become a rarity.

However, when Babar Azam hits a century, when he does that after more than two years and 67 T20 innings, when he launches four cracking sixes in his knock during the high-pressure death overs, celebrations become inevitable.

They celebrations elude no one, surely not the Peshawar Zalmi players jumping up and down like kids in the team’s dugout, not the VVIP guests who populate the special boxes and galleries of the new building at the venue, not even the Quetta Gladiators players who rushed to the middle to pat Bab­ar’s back when he completed the elusive three figures for the 12th time in the shortest format while sprinting back to the striker’s end for a couple on the last ball of the Zalmi innings.

The captain’s knock, accoun­ting for exactly 100 not out coming off 52 balls, along with Kusal Mendis 44-ball 83, boosted Zalmi to 255-3 – the third highest total in HBL Pakistan Super League history.

That was just too much for Gladiators to chase as they went down to a 118-run drubbing, their fifth loss of the ongoing tournament. Zalmi, meanwhile, remai­ned perfect, with seven wins in eight games.

Opening the innings with Mohammad Haris, Babar hardly took any risks, demonstrating trust in his natural game — as Zalmi batting coach Misbah-ul-Haq put it a few days ago, the right-hander was “timing the ball”.

Characteristic of his reputation, Babar facilitated the striker on the other end to launch the fireworks, relying on singles and doubles when his natural flow of the bat wasn’t resulting in boundaries.

Haris’ 16 off five, that included two sixes in the very first over off Jahandad Khan, gave Zalmi the platform to cruise to 80 in powerplay, with Mendis taking over after Haris departed in the second over.

Mendis, in the form of his life, hit three fours and two sixes making use of the field restrictions. Babar, meanwhile, had cracked only two boundaries in the first six overs.

The 31-year-old continued to avoid the main role, with Mendis taking charge as the pair stitched together a 135-run second-wicket stand — the 47th century partnership of Babar’s T20 career — that completely dismantled the chase before it even began.

The stand was a masterclass in contrasting styles.

Mendis was the aggressor, punishing anything short or wide with disdain. He brought up his fifty off just 24 balls with a crisp cut off Usman Tariq and later drilled Saud Shakeel straight down the ground and through backward point with authority.

One of his most audacious strokes came against the same bowler when he danced down the track and thumped a slower ball flat past long-off.

Babar, on the other hand, kept playing the perfect foil in the early phase, content with rotating strike and picking singles and doubles while his partner launched the fireworks.

Babar had struck only five fours by the middle of the 17th over, relying on timing and pla­cement rather than brute force.

But once Mendis — caught at deep midwicket off Usman Tariq — and Farhan Yousaf’s, smashing 19 off eight balls, departed, Babar turned the game on its head with Aaron Ha­r­­die joining the party at number five and unleashing a brutal onslaught.

Hardie smashed three sixes in his unbeaten 26 off 10, including a monstrous straight hit off Jahandad that helped Zalmi post their highest score of the season in Karachi.

Babar, sensing the finish line, launched into the bowlers with vintage authority. He cleared long-on with a stand-and-deliver six off Usman, hammered another over the same region against Abrar Ahmed, and produced a flat six over long-on off Alzarri Joseph.

The defining moment came on the last ball when he rushed back for a desperate two to bri­ng up his hundred, diving full stretch amid wild celebrations.

The target always looked beyond the Gladiators on a pitch that offered pace and bounce. Their chase collapsed spectacularly as Zalmi’s young pace duo of Mohammad Basit and Ali Raza ran riot.

Basit, operating with clever variations, struck twice in the fourth over, removing captain Saud and Rilee Rossouw off successive deliveries.

Saud holed out to a substitute fielder at deep midwicket, while Rossouw departed for a golden duck, brilliantly caught by Michael Bracewell diving at mid-off. Basit finished with impressive figures of 3-26, his variations proving too much for the top order.

Ali complemented him beautifully with pace and hostile short-pitched stuff. He accou­nted for Hasan Nawaz, who skied a pull to Haris at deep square leg, and later dismissed Abrar and Usman with sharp deliveries that found the edge or induced mistimed shots.

Amid the wreckage, Bevon Jacobs offered the only semblance of resistance with a gritty 34 that included three sixes. The rest of the Gladiators batting folded meekly.

SCOREBOARD

PESHAWAR ZALMI:

Mohammad Haris c Chandimal b Joseph 16

Babar Azam not out 100

Kusal Mendis c Hasan b Usman 83

Farhan Yousaf c Hasan b Abrar 19

Aaron Hardie not out 26

EXTRAS (B-1, LB-1, W-9) 11

TOTAL (for three wkts, 20 overs) 255

DID NOT BAT: Michael Bracewell, Iftikhar Ahmed, Abdul Samad, Sufiyan Muqeem, Mohammad Basit, Ali Raza

FALL OF WICKETS: 1-30 (Haris), 2-165 (Mendis), 3-189 (Farhan)

BOWLING: Jahandad 4-0-53-0 (1w), Joseph 4-0-59-1 (4w), Abrar 4-0-44-1, Saud 2-0-25-0, Usman 4-0-50-1, Saqib 2-0-22-0

QUETTA GLADIATORS:

Shamyl Hussain c Babar b Bracewell 21

Saud Shakeel c (sub) b Basit 12

Rilee Rossouw c Bracewell b Basit 0

Hasan Nawaz c Haris b Ali 5

Dinesh Chandimal c Farhan b Sufiyan 19

Bevon Jacobs c Iftikhar b Basit 34

Jahandad Khan c Mendis b Hardie 3

Saqib Khan c Haris b Hardie 4

Alzarri Joseph not out 19

Abrar Ahmed c Mendis b Ali 1

Usman Tariq c Farhan b Ali 7

EXTRAS (B-4, LB-5, W-3) 12

TOTAL (all out, 18.1 overs) 137

FALL OF WICKETS: 1-22 (Saud), 2-22 (Rossouw), 3-36 (Hasan), 4-44 (Shamyl), 5-73 (Chandimal), 6-78 (Jahandad), 7-82 (Saqib), 8-120 (Jacobs), 9-123 (Abrar)

BOWLING: Iftikhar 3-0-24-0, Basit 4-0-26-3 (2w), Ali 3.1-0-9-3, Bracewell 2-0-24-1 (1w), Sufiyan 4-0-34-1, Hardie 2-0-11-2

RESULT: Peshawar Zalmi won by 118 runs.

MAN-OF-THE-MATCH: Babar Azam

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2026

Dozens of Chinese-made humanoid robots showed off their fast-improving athleticism and autonomous navigation skills as they whizzed past ​human runners in a half-marathon race in Beijing on Sunday, highlighting the sector’s rapid technical advances.

The race’s inaugural edition last year was riddled with ‌mishaps, and most robots were unable to finish. Last year’s champion robot recorded a time of 2 hours 40 minutes, more than double the time of the human winner of the conventional race.

This year’s contrast was stark. Not only had the number of participating teams increased from 20 to more than 100, but several robot frontrunners were noticeably faster than professional athletes, beating the ​human winners by more than 10 minutes.

Unlike last year, nearly half of the robot entrants navigated the tougher terrain autonomously instead of being directed by ​remote control during the 21-km (13-mile) race. The robots and 12,000 men and women ran on parallel tracks to avoid collisions.

The winning ⁠robot, developed by Chinese smartphone brand Honour, finished the race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, several minutes faster than the half-marathon world record set by Ugandan ​runner Jacob Kiplimo in Lisbon last month.

Teams from Honour, a Huawei spin-off, took the three podium spots, all self-navigated and posting world-record-beating times. Du Xiaodi, an Honour engineer ​on the winning team, said its robot was in development for a year, fitted with legs 90 to 95 cm (35 to 37 inches) long to mimic elite human runners and liquid cooling technology used in its smartphones.

Du said the sector remained in a nascent phase, but he was confident humanoids would eventually reshape many industries, including manufacturing.

“Running faster may not seem meaningful at first, ​but it enables technology transfer, for example, into structural reliability and cooling, and eventually industrial applications,” Du said.

Robotics improvements

Spectators largely viewed the variety of humanoids of different ​sizes and gaits on display as evidence of China’s improvements in robotics.

“The humanoid robots’ running posture I saw was really quite impressive … considering that AI has only been developing for a ‌short time, ⁠I’m already very impressed that it can achieve this level of performance,” said Chu Tianqi, a 23-year-old engineering student at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

“The future will definitely be an AI era. If people don’t know how to use AI now, especially if some are still resistant to it, they will definitely become obsolete,” he said.

Another spectator, 11-year-old schoolboy Guo Yukun, said after watching the race, he was inspired to pursue a university degree in robotics in the future.

Guo said he takes regular ​classes in robotics theory and programming at ​his elite Beijing school, and is ⁠part of his school’s team for the International Olympiad in Informatics, a global programming competition for high schoolers.

Economically viable applications

While economically viable applications of humanoid robots mostly remain in a trial phase, the half-marathon’s showcasing of these machines’ physical prowess highlights their ​potential to reshape everything from dangerous jobs to battlefield combat.

However, Chinese robotics firms are still struggling to develop the AI ​software that would enable ⁠humanoids to match the efficiency of human factory workers.

Experts said the skills on display during the half-marathon, while entertaining, do not translate to the widespread commercialisation of humanoid robots in industrial settings, where manual dexterity, real-world perception and capabilities beyond small-scale, repetitive tasks are crucial.

China is seeking to become a global powerhouse in this frontier industry, and it has ⁠enacted a ​wide range of policies from subsidies to infrastructure projects to cultivate local firms.

The country’s most-watched TV ​show, the annual CCTV Spring Festival gala, in February showcased China’s push to dominate humanoid robots and the future of manufacturing.

That included a lengthy martial arts demonstration where over a dozen Unitree humanoids performed sophisticated fight ​sequences waving swords, poles and nunchucks in close proximity to human children performers.