Bongi Hlongwane clearly loves playing in Leagues Cup.

In the opening game of the tournament with Mexico’s Liga MX on Wednesday, Minnesota United’s attacking midfielder scored the opening goal and made a dangerous run to set up the Loons’ second in a 4-1 blowout win over Queteraro at Allianz Field.

It was the type of performance that harkened to Hlongwaane’s 2023 tournament form when he scored seven goals, second only to some player named Lionel Messi.

In the 11th minute, Hlongwane tapped in Joseph Rosales’ deflected cross for the opening goal. Then in the 19th, Hlongwane went on a 20-plus yard dribble straight through the Queretaro defense and was in on goal if not for a desperate foul from Omar Mendoza just outside of the box.

The threat of Hlongwane set up a free kick that Kelvin Yeboah curled around a Queretaro six-man wall that was less than fully committed to putting their bodies on the line. It helped allow Yeboah to score low and inside the right post for a 2-0 lead.

Queretaro was 0-3-0 in three games to start the Liga MX season and that poor run continued north of the border. Minnesota is dead last in MLS in possession (37%), but had the ball nearly 60% of the first half. The Loons ended with 52% possession.

The Mexican side cut United’s lead in half with a strong strike from Jhojan Julio into the top of the net in the 67th minute.

But two subs put it out of reach. Anthony Markanich created breathing room in the 79th minute and Tani Oluwaseyi turned it into a blowout with a goal in the 90th minute.

Hlongwane nearly had more goals before his teammates put out of reach. Another shot on a breakaway was denied by goalkeeper Jose Hernandez in the 57th minute and another run in behind ended when he was hauled down on the edge of the box. .

The Loons will close out Phase One of the tournament with Mexico’s Liga MX against Club America in Houston on Saturday at Atletico de San Luis in St. Paul next Wednesday.

MNUFC head coach Eric Ramsay estimated his team would need at least seven points in order to be included in the four of 18 MLS clubs who will advance to the quarterfinal knockout round.

The Loons got off to a strong start Wednesday.  The Loons’ plus-3 goal differential could be key in advancing to the quarterfinals.

Jhoan Duran came to the Minnesota Twins as a 20-year old prospect from the Arizona Diamondbacks as part of a package for infielder Eduardo Escobar at the 2018 trade deadline.

Seven years later, Duran is again on the move at the trade deadline, as the Twins are selling off again, though this time he is the headliner in the deal.

The Twins are trading their hard-throwing closer in the midst of what is potentially the best season of his career on Wednesday evening to the Philadelphia Phillies, a source confirmed. In return, they are landing catching prospect Eduardo Tait and right-handed pitcher Mick Abel.

When Duran, 27, acknowledged the possibility of a trade just about an hour before news broke, he expressed sadness over the idea of leaving the Twins organization.

“That’d be hard,” Duran said of a potential trade just hours before he was sent to Philadelphia. “I got a couple years here, and I feel like here is my family. So if that happens, that’s maybe breaking my heart a little bit.”

The reliever was considered the best available on the trade market, particularly after Cleveland Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase was placed on non-disciplinary paid leave earlier this week as Major League Baseball investigates whether he violated its gambling policy.

Duran, who has a 2.01 earned-run average and 53 strikeouts across 49 1/3 innings this season, debuted in 2022 and has been among the best relievers in the game since. He has become a fan favorite at Target Field over the past four seasons for good reason.

The Twins’ asking price for Duran, who still has two years of team control remaining after 2025, was said to be two top-100 prospects. They appear to have gotten that with both Tait (No. 56) and Abel (No. 92) included on MLB Pipeline’s list.

Tait, an 18-year-old catcher, is currently hitting .255 with a .753 OPS and 11 home runs across Class-A and Class-A Advanced this season. Abel, 23, was the Phillies’ first-round selection in the 2020 draft and debuted this season. He has started six games as a major leaguer this year and has a 5.04 earned-run average. He has performed well at Triple-A, with a 2.31 ERA and 81 strikeouts across 74 innings.

The move is the second in what is expected for the Twins to be a busy deadline — all trades must be completed by 5 p.m. CDT on Thursday. The Twins, who are 51-57 and have lost all four series they’ve played since the all-star break, traded starting pitcher Chris Paddack to Detroit on Monday.

Paddack, along with five others — Willi Castro, Harrison Bader, Danny Coulombe, Ty France and Christian Vázquez — are free agents at season’s end, making them the most likely to be moved.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former NBA star Gilbert Arenas was arrested Wednesday along with five other people, including a suspected member of an Israeli organized crime group, on suspicion of hosting illegal high-stakes poker games at a Los Angeles mansion owned by Arenas, federal prosecutors said.

All six defendants are charged with one count of conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business and one count of operating an illegal gambling business, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. They are all scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon.

Messages seeking comment were sent to an attorney and PR firm that represented Arenas. Online court records don’t identify an attorney for him.

Arenas, 43, is also charged with making false statements to federal investigators, the statement said. He is named in the indictment as ”Agent Zero,” a nickname from his playing days with the Washington Wizards.

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The other five defendants are residents of Los Angeles ranging in age from 27 to 52. Among them is a 49-year-old man described by prosecutors as “a suspected organized crime figure from Israel.”

The indictment says that from September 2021 to July 2022, the defendants staged the home in the Encino neighborhood to host “Pot Limit Omaha” poker games and other illegal gambling activity. The poker players paid a “rake,” a fee charged as a percentage or fixed amount from each hand gambled, court documents claim.

One of the defendants hired young women who, in exchange for tips, served drinks and provided massages and “offered companionship” to the poker players, according to prosecutors.

“The women were charged a ‘tax’ – a percentage of their earnings from working the games. Chefs, valets, and armed security guards also were hired to staff these illegal poker games,” the statement said.

The Israeli man faces separate charges including marriage fraud and lying on immigration documents. He is suspected of conspiring with a 35-year-old Los Angeles woman to enter into a sham marriage for the purposes of obtaining permanent legal status in the U.S.

If convicted, the defendants would face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for each count, prosecutors said.

Arenas averaged 20.7 points during an 11-year career with four teams, most notably a seven-plus season stint in Washington from 2004-11.

Charismatic and mercurial, Arenas — who counted “Agent Zero” (representing his number) and “Hibachi” for the way he could heat up during a game among his many nicknames — was a three-time All-Star, a gifted scorer and one of the key cogs in a handful of Wizards teams that enjoyed modest success in the mid-to-late 2000s.

Yet Arenas’ run in Washington ended in disgrace. Arenas and teammate Javaris Crittenton were suspended for the balance of the NBA season in January 2010 following a locker-room incident in which both players pulled guns on each other.

Arenas returned to play briefly for Washington the following season before being traded to Orlando. He then bounced to Memphis in 2011, coming off the bench for 17 games before stepping away to play in the Chinese Basketball Association in 2012-13. He never returned to the NBA.

His son, Alijah Arenas, was a Los Angeles high school basketball star who is a highly touted freshman player for the University of Southern California. His college career is on hold pending knee surgery and rehab is expected to take months, the school said last week.

It was almost lights out for the Washington County Fair this year.

The fairgrounds, located in Baytown Township, lost power at 11:17 p.m. during severe weather on Monday night. With the fair set to open at 7 a.m. Wednesday morning, crews scrambled to come up with a plan, said Fair Manager Doris Ostertag.

“What’s the level above stressed? That’s what I was,” she said.

Fair officials brought in generators to run lights and operate a well so the fairgrounds would have water, she said.

“That’s all we were doing yesterday, running around,” she said. “We lost our setup time.”

Fortunately, crews from Xcel Energy, which had originally predicted power could be out until 5:15 p.m. Thursday, were able to restore electric service around 11:45 p.m. Tuesday, just 7 hours and 15 minutes before the gates opened.

“We all wrote it down in our books (for 2025) because we’ve never had that happen before,” Ostertag said.

Back-to-back storms earlier this week brought lightning, heavy rain, hail and winds up to 65 mph to the area, damaging electric infrastructure and causing outages for about 300,000 customers across Minnesota, primarily in the Twin Cities metro and western Wisconsin, according to Xcel officials.

Crews on Wednesday were working to restore power to the remaining 3,000 customers, primarily in the east metro, and hoped to have them back online by Wednesday night.

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