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Ajax crashes out of Europa League after late Rosenborg heroics

Rosenborg super substitute Samuel Adegbenro scored twice in the final 10 minutes of Thursday’s Europa League qualifier against Ajax to send the Dutch club crashing out of the competition.

Having already been eliminated by OGC Nice in the third round of the Champions League, Ajax lost 3-2 in Norway after losing the first leg to Rosenborg at home.

It’s the first time Ajax has failed to qualify for the main draw of a European competition since 1965-66, according to ESPN’s Paul Carr. Back then, a teenaged Johan Cruyff was only in his second season with the Amsterdam outfit.

“There will be long weeks,” defender Joel Veltman said after the match.

It’s been a disappointing start to the 2017-18 season, especially after reaching the Europa League final in May. The departures of Bertrand Traore, Davy Klaassen, and Davinson Sanchez, along with manager Peter Bosz, have had a negative effect on Ajax’s outlook.

Unfortunately, this is now life for the four-time European champion, which cannot expect to compete financially with Europe’s elite.

The loss of Champions League and Europa League revenue will only weaken Ajax’s spending power for the campaign ahead.

NFL

Jags QB Henne gets next start over Bortles

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Quarterback Chad Henne has been named the starter for the Jacksonville Jaguars’ preseason game against the Carolina Panthers on Thursday, a move that puts Blake Bortles’ future with the team in question.

Coach Doug Marrone made the announcement Wednesday evening after Henne and Bortles split reps with the first team over the past five practices. Marrone decided to have the two compete for the starting job after another lackluster performance by Bortles in last week’s loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Marrone also announced that Bortles will get first-ream reps against the Panthers. Marrone will address the quarterback situation after the game and whether this is a permanent move for the regular season.

Chad Henne has started 22 games (5-17) in four seasons with the Jaguars and has appeared in seven others, but he has taken only one regular-season snap since he was benched in favor of Blake Bortles at halftime of Week 3 in 2014. Reinhold Matay/USA TODAY Sports

Henne, 32, has started 22 games (5-17) in four seasons with the Jaguars and has appeared in seven others. He has thrown 27 touchdown passes and 16 interceptions but has taken only one regular-season snap since he was benched in favor of Bortles at halftime of Week 3 in 2014.

In 65 career games, Henne has thrown 58 touchdown passes and 63 interceptions. He was a second-round pick by Miami in 2008 and started 31 games for the Dolphins from 2008-11 before signing a free-agent contract with the Jaguars in 2012.

If Jacksonville opts to go with Henne as the regular-season starter, the team must decide what to do with Bortles. The Jaguars could keep him on the roster to give them an experienced backup familiar with the offensive system in case Henne were to be injured. That presents an expensive problem, though.

The Jaguars picked up Bortles’ fifth-year option, which would pay him $19.053 million in 2018. That amount is guaranteed for injury only, meaning that if Bortles were to suffer an injury that made him unable to pass a physical next year, the Jaguars would have to pay him that amount even if he cannot play.

The other option would be cutting Bortles, which would mean yet another miss on a first-round draft pick for a franchise that hasn’t had a winning record since 2007 and has finished with double-digit losses for six consecutive seasons.

Bortles was the third overall pick in 2014 and threw 11 touchdown passes and 17 interceptions as a rookie. He had what appeared to be a breakout season in 2015, setting single-season franchise records in passing yards (4,428) and passing touchdowns (35), but regressed last year.

His mechanics, which he worked to improve in his first offseason, degraded to the point where his throwing motion was unrecognizable by his college offensive coordinator. Bortles threw 23 touchdown passes and 16 interceptions as the Jaguars finished 3-13.

Bortles’ biggest issue has been turnovers. Since he entered the league he has committed an NFL-high 63 turnovers, and his 51 interceptions rank second most in that span behind Philip Rivers (52). Even more troubling is that Bortles has 11 pick sixes — which corresponds to his number of victories as a starter (11-34).

Bortles does have 69 touchdown passes, but only five of those have come when the Jaguars were leading the game.

Bortles was put on notice in the spring by executive vice president of football operations Tom Coughlin about his turnover problem. Bortles looked pretty good on the first two days of training camp but threw five interceptions in the third practice, which was the first time the team was in full pads.

He had several other poor practices — including a 5-for-17 day in 11-on-11 work during a joint practice with New England — and threw a pair of interceptions during an Aug. 13 practice, which prompted Marrone to give Henne work with the first-team offense against the Bucs on Aug. 17.

Bortles completed 8-of-13 passes for 65 yards and three times misfired on passes to Allen Robinson, including two in which Robinson was wide open. Marrone said after the game that Bortles and Henne would compete for the starting job.

Soccer

Liverpool's concerted chaos books group-stage spot at Hoffenheim's expense

Philippe Coutinho is missing out on all the fun.

Again without its Brazilian attacker in the lineup amid interest from Barcelona, Liverpool stormed to a 4-2 defeat of Hoffenheim on Wednesday, advancing to the Champions League group stages with a 6-3 aggregate victory.

The Reds are in the process of re-establishing themselves as the Premier League’s greatest entertainers, and did their notoriety on the continental front no harm in an outing that saw the attacking triumvirate of Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino, and Mohamed Salah run riot.

Salah and Firmino both weighed in with goals, and Emre Can added a brace from midfield. The home side is seldom commended for its defending, though, and unsurprisingly surrendered tallies to Mark Uth and Sandro Wagner during the test.

Liverpool will finally compete in the Champions League under Jurgen Klopp, and for the first time since the 2014-15 campaign’s disappointing elimination under Real Madrid and FC Basel in Group B when Brendan Rodgers was in charge.

Hoffenheim, meanwhile, drops into the Europa League.

The red-clad masses at Anfield collectively gasped early on when Wagner peeled away from the Reds’ defence and squared for Serge Gnabry. With the goal at the unmarked ex-Arsenal winger’s mercy, he somehow sent his effort wide, but his blushes were spared by the linesman’s flag.

Liverpool took advantage of its superiority after 10 minutes. A galloping Mane couldn’t reach the momentum required to lose the attentions of Pavel Kaderabek, so he held up the ball before releasing an overlapping Can with a deft backheel. The German’s deflected effort wrong-footed goalkeeper Oliver Baumann.

The home side was purring, and by 21 minutes it was 3-0 up after Salah and Can (again) got on the scoresheet. The latter effort was extremely pleasing on the eye, with a stunning team move concluded by ex-Hoffenheim favourite Firmino fluttering a cross over to Can to volley in at the back stick.

Related – Watch: Can gem caps Liverpool’s 21-minute treble

Hoffenheim was reeling, prompting Julian Nagelsmann to substitute West Ham United flop Havard Nordtveit after 24 minutes and reassess his team’s approach. Nordtveit’s replacement, Uth, scored before the half-hour mark, but Liverpool was undeterred and looked the likeliest to add to its tally before the break.

Liverpool’s defence continued to look susceptible in the second stanza, but its fluid and persistent strikeforce was rewarded when Firmino claimed a deserved goal with an easy side-footed finish. Credit to Jordan Henderson for the assist, who hounded the ball off Kevin Vogt before sliding it across to Firmino.

Wagner, who was busy in the Hoffenheim frontline, produced a consolation on 79 minutes with a well-executed header.

Liverpool is now expected to fall into pot three for Thursday’s Champions League group-stage draw, but whether Coutinho will be representing the Scouse club for that conquest remains to be seen.

NFL

Jets' Forte back at practice, hopes to play Sat.

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — After sitting out three weeks with a strained hamstring, New York Jets running back Matt Forte returned to practice Tuesday and claimed he will be ready for the season opener against the Buffalo Bills.

“No doubt,” he said.

Forte, 31, said he hopes to play Saturday night against the New York Giants, but that hasn’t been confirmed yet. The Jets want to see how he progresses throughout the week before making that determination.

“That’s my goal,” Forte said. “I don’t know what the coaches’ plan is, but that’s my plan.”

Forte, injured July 31 in the third practice of training camp, went through a similar ordeal last summer. He injured the same hamstring in a pre-camp workout and missed the first two preseason games. It was actually a torn hamstring, he revealed Tuesday, one that required an injection of platelet-rich plasma.

Matt Forte has been sidelined since July 31 with a hamstring injury. Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire

“This one, there was no tear in it, it was just a [grade I] strain,” he said. “It took about the same amount of time to actually heal up. … To get back to full speed, it took a couple weeks, which I wasn’t expecting. You can’t predict that type of stuff.”

Forte and fellow running back Bilal Powell are the most accomplished players on an inexperienced offense, and the Jets have big plans for both.

Forte, one of the few veterans who survived the offseason roster purge, rushed for a team-high 813 yards last season, missing the final two games due to a knee scope.

He and Powell are surrounded by uncertainty at the skill positions, starting at quarterback. Veteran Josh McCown is the presumptive starter, but he took only three practice reps on Tuesday — highly unusual for the week of the third preseason game. Christian Hackenberg and Bryce Petty split the majority of the reps; McCown ran sprints off to the side to keep busy.

Coach Todd Bowles, who said he’ll reveal his regular-season quarterback choice on Monday, has grown weary of quarterback questions.

“He got reps the whole first half of camp and y’all complained he got too many,” said Bowles, who wouldn’t say who will start against the Giants. “Now he’s getting too little. What do you want me to do?”

Asked if there’s a happy medium, Bowles bristled, “Yeah, there is, and I’m taking care of that.”

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Soccer