S'pore junior football sides to play in HK

Singapore's Under-15 and U-17 national football teams will travel to Hong Kong for this week's Jockey Club International Youth Invitational.

The March 23-25 event at Po Kong Village Road Park features the hosts and sides from Chinese Taipei, India, Malaysia and Myanmar.

Astori honoured with training ground name

LONDON • Italian Serie A club Fiorentina are to rename their training ground the "Centro Sportivo Davide Astori" in honour of their former captain, who died suddenly at the age of 31 this month.

Astori, who played 289 Serie A matches over 10 seasons and won 14 caps for Italy, died of a cardiac arrest in his hotel room ahead of a league game against Udinese.

Fiorentina president Mario Cognigni told Italian media outlet Mediaset that the decision was made because "honouring him is the right thing to do".

REUTERS

Brazil to lock in their pre-Cup friendlies

LONDON • Brazil will finalise their World Cup preparations with friendlies against Croatia and Austria, the Brazilian Football Confederation said on Monday.

The Selecao will meet Croatia in England on June 3, followed by a clash against Austria on June 10.

They will also use Tottenham's facilities for their pre-Finals training base. Their campaign kicks off against the Swiss on June 17.

XINHUA

Schuster takes reins at Dalian Yifang

LONDON • Former Real Madrid boss Bernd Schuster has been named coach of Dalian Yifang as the newly promoted club looks to recover from a poor start to the Chinese Super League despite £50 million (S$91 million) spent on Yannick Carrasco, Nicolas Gaitan and Jose Fonte in the transfer window.

The German replaces China's Ma Lin, who oversaw three successive defeats, leaving last year's China League One champions rock-bottom .

REUTERS