Armenian U20 national defeated Azerbaijan 82-80 in a match for 17 place at the FIBA U20 European Championship Division B 2017 that is hosted by Romania.
Armenia’s national is the last in Group A after losing three matches and winning two.
Turkey: ‘Fighters’ speak out after Irish boxer tourist beats up Turkish shopkeepers
Fırat Alkaç – ISTANBUL
Fadel Dobbous, R, and the local store owner, Şenol Palan.
‘They picked the wrong man,’ says the Irish-Kuwaiti tourist who took down an army of shopkeepers in Istanbul, becoming a hero on Turkish social media. One of the attacking shopkeepers says it was ‘like he was made of concrete’
A Kuwait-born Irish tourist who was captured on video beating up an army of Istanbul shopkeepers after being attacked with sticks and stools has become an online hero in Turkey – but both he and his assailants struck a somber note in their first interviews after the incident.
“They just picked the wrong man,” Mohammed Fadel Dobbous told private broadcaster Show TV on Aug. 26.
“I was not drunk. I wanted to apologize [for the incident] but they attacked me with sticks. Who are they? Shopkeepers or butchers?” he added, referring to the incident that was sparked after he accidentally spilled a fridge full of water bottles.
Turkish social media users have likened Dobbous to a number of fictional figures, including a Spartan facing 300 Persians, the Hulk, Jackie Chan, and Neo from the Matrix.
Some Turks suggested that he should be awarded for “speaking the language of rude shopkeepers,” while one social media user said he would vote for Dobbous if he forms a political party.
Dabbous ‘in training’
The tourist told the broadcaster that he was not frightened when assailed by the 15 local shopkeepers, some holding sticks and machetes. Although rumored to be a professional boxer on Turkish social media, he said he was not a professional but only “in training.”
Dobbous said his arm was broken, his shoulder blade cracked, his waist stabbed, and his cellphone and golden necklace lost, “just for a bottle of water.”
After the punch, the dazed man stumbled to the sidewalk before checking the two teeth he lost in the bout. “It seems like he has fallen into an existential vacuum,” one social media user quipped on Aug. 26.
One local restaurant owner told daily Hürriyet that Dobbous came back to continue the bout twice.
“After hitting Şeref, the tourist went back to his hotel. He rested there a little. Then he returned to the street and started taking on the stick-holding shopkeepers again. He came back twice,” he said.
The full picture may be revealed during the investigation, as police are probing longer footage of the whole incident.
Armenia Beats Emirates 4 – 3
GENEVA—Armenia’s national soccer team won their friendly face-off against the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday in Switzerland with a final score of 4 – 3 at Geneva’s Stade 
de la Fontenette Carouge.
The score line was opened by Armenia’s Levon Hayrapetyan with a goal at the 37th minutes, but the two teams would stay level pegging for much of the game. First came a response by the Emirates’ Ismail Ahmed making it 1 – 1, then Dortmund playmaker Henrikh Mkhitaryan with a goal in net to make it 2 – 1 before half-time.
At the outset of the second half, the UAE’s Omar Abdulrahman equalized again before Armenia took the lead by two goals from striker Yura Movsisyan and midfielder Rumyan Hovsepyan who scored within four minutes of one another.
The UAE’s Mohanad Salem found the target at the 85th minute, but it was too late for an equalizer and the score was 4 – 3 for Armenia at the full-time whistle.
The match was the first for Armenia’s new coach Bernard Challandes, who has scheduled two more friendly matches before the start of the World Cup and before the start of Armenia’s next Euro 2016 qualifying campaign, which will start in September.
Armenia will face Algeria next on Saturday, May 31, and then Germany on Friday, June 6, just ahead of the start of the World Cup.