Early Goals Help England End USWNT Win Streak

The first goal was a build-up that led Beth Mead from the right flank to send a cross to the goal box that U.S.
defender Alana Cook mishandled. Hemp pounced and used her left foot to slot the ball past goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher.

"I have no doubt making the BDR compulsory for licensees, giving police more agility and the courts more scope to place problem drinkers on the BDR will lead to a reduction in alcohol-related harm and crime."

HONG KONG, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Tencent is resetting its M&A strategy to put more focus on buying majority stakes mainly in overseas gaming companies, as the tech giant eyes global expansion to offset slowing growth at home in China, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

From 2015 to 2020, the owner of China's number one messaging app WeChat 150 investments at home totalling $75 billion, compared to 102 deals worth $33 billion in overseas markets, according to Refinitiv data.

Tencent in September raised its stake in Ubisoft in a deal that made the Chinese firm the single biggest shareholder of the top French games developer, with a stake of 11% which can be further increased to as much as 17%.

This is partly because of its blockbusting scale. Even the Marvel Cinematic Universe struggles to compete with this grand comic-book story, told across about 20 hours, and full of both spectacle and (brilliantly voice-acted) character work.

In Europe, except for Blog.Platewire.com its purchase of majority stake in "Clash of Clans" mobile game maker Supercell for $8.6 billion in 2016, Tencent has for years mostly cut minority deals including its purchase of 9% of British gaming firm Frontier Developments.

was not at full strength with goal-scoring star Alex Morgan sidelined with a knee injury and Mallory Pugh out due to a family commitment. Meanwhile, England captain Leah Williamson was unavailable due to injury.

England was guilty of sloppy passing in front of its own net that led to the equalizer. Lindsey Horan forced a turnover by Stanway and quickly passed ahead to Smith, who calmly delivered her 10th goal of 2022.
Apart from the core gaming sector, Tencent is also looking to snap up global assets, in particular in Europe, related to the so-called metaverse, said one of the sources and another source with direct knowledge of the matter.

First-year coach Nathaniel Hackett and quarterback Russell Wilson sat near the nine-time Pro Bowler's locker after Thursday's 12-9 loss to dissect what transpired without counting missed opportunities against the Colts.

"I think it's a combination of everybody getting used to each other down in that region. You can never practice that region enough and we have to execute better, we have to coach better, we have to come up with better plays and we have to run the ball more.

The Ubisoft deal comes just after deep-pocketed Tencent in June acquired Copenhagen-based Sybo Games, the developer of hit mobile game Subway Surfer, and in August took a 16.25% stake in Japan's "Elden Ring" developer FromSoftware.

Also, with Beijing strictly restricting game approvals at home and still suspending approvals for games of foreign IPs, Tencent is forced to move towards gaining control of foreign game companies and their IPs, said the four sources.

Tencent's pursuit of bigger stakes in its existing gaming portfolio or new targets would give the company a bigger say in such firms' businesses and also help it secure the intellectual property rights of popular games, said the four sources.

Wilson was still in his uniform replaying the loss that included a fourth-and-1 at the Indianapolis 5 in overtime. Wilson's pass was knocked down in the end zone to end the game, as teammate KJ Hamler slammed his helmet repeatedly into the end zone turf. Hamler came open on an in-cutting route for a potential game-winning TD, but Wilson was looking to his left.

"Of course, right now, I would much rather have run the ball and then kicked the field goal to take more time off, but in that situation, I thought it was a good play call. It was my decision to do that and (we) just need to execute better."

Tencent's new strategy indicates how China's tech titans are looking to emerge from the regulatory shadows after two years of crackdown and uncertainty that weighed on their sales at home and triggered a massive selloff in their stocks.

"When we built the system, we built the system that was a combination of both our stuff and his stuff," Hackett said of Wilson. "We wanted to be sure that we were doing it -- a lot of the stuff carried over. ... I think we definitely want to take a hard look at everything that he's done successfully and make sure we're accommodating him as much as possible so that he feels comfortable. But at the same time, we want to do things that our players do. It's a different team than the team that he was on in the past. So we just want to make sure we're doing all the right stuff."

In that situation," Hackett said of the fourth-down call, "I wanted to have a very good protection, wanted to get a first down to finish the game and not just a field goal. The defense had been playing great and wanted to finish it off for them. I wanted to be somewhat aggressive, but not too aggressive and in the end, we have to execute the play better.