to blow the whistle but he didn't. finally it was the end and it was an explosion, a release for us. so no fans inside the parc des princes but there were plenty outside who celebrated their team moving through to the quarter—finals with around 3000 gathering to show their support. the players joined them afterwards to show their appreciation as they progressed to the last eight. as much as we can get, not a good game, we knew it was going to be tough andi game, we knew it was going to be tough and i am very disappointed. we let in two goals and did not scroll and went it is getting hard but we did not get the rhythm and the flow into the game and it is difficult because they are so good. meanwhile, in the usa, the golden state warriors have become the first nba team to stop fans attending home games. that's after officials in san francisco announced a ban on gatherings of more than 1,000 people, for the next two weeks, due to fears about the coronavirus. it means the warriors match at chase center against the brooklyn nets on thursday will be played in an empty arena. i think, when we found out they were not going to be any fans, we did not know how to expect. i have been in this league for a long time and never had to deal with anything like this. i obviously understand the perspective and the decision in terms of trying to do our part to stop the spread and keep people safe first and foremost and deal with the repercussions of what that means going forward. golf and the biggest tournament outside the majors gets underway on thursday. it's the players championship at sawgrass in florida where rory mcilroy is the defending champion. the world number one from northern ireland — who's looking for his first tour title of 2020 - is bidding to become the first golfer in the history of the players championship to win it two years in a row. if there has been no want to defend, it would be a nice time to start and have someone do that. this week last year was huge for me in terms of sort of getting the monkey off my back a little bit. i had a few close calls and i was not able to sort of walk through the door and cling to my way in. i was able to do it would be wonderful to replicate what happened last year. a notable absentee from the players championship this week is tiger woods — who's twice been a winner at sawgrass in 2001 and 2013. he's still troubled by the back injury that forced him to miss last week's arnold palmer invitational at bay hill and restricted him to just two tournaments so far this year. 0ur golf correspondent iain carter says woods‘ main priority is the defence of his masters title at augusta next month. undoubtedly, the masters is tiger woods priority. if there is a bigger priority it is retaining fitness. it isa priority it is retaining fitness. it is a fact of his life that the bank is a fact of his life that the bank is fragile and he has to ration the number of events that he plays. i think this is a big blow not to play the players championship because an event of huge prestige and he has one at before. the fact that he is not suggesting he will be short of stroke playing action heading into the first major of the year but that priority is agusta and being fit for agusta is right there. back to football — and they're approaching half—time in the final match of the shebelieves cup. the usa need only a draw againstjapan to win the competition for the third time. but the world champions lead 3—1 — with goals from megan rapinoe and christen press. there are four minutes remaining. earlier, spain beat last year's winners england. the only goal of the game was scored eight minutes from time by barcelona's alexia putellas — her second goal of the tournament. it means they won two out three matches on their debut in the annual four—team invitational competition. now to cycling where germany's max schachmann still leads heading into the 227 km stage five of the paris—nice on thursday. on wednesday denmark's sur—ren kragh andersen covered the 15.1km individual time trial course in 18 minutes and 51 seconds, holding off schachmann by six seconds as he extended his overall lead. cricket and bangladesh thrashed zimbabwe by 9 wickets in the 2nd t20 international in dhaka, to complete a 2—nil series win. the tourists batted first, and brendan taylor top—scored with 59 as they laboured to 119 for 7 from their 20 overs. liton das then steered bangladesh to victory with an unbeaten 60 off 45 balls — as the home side won with more than four overs to spare. horse racing, now and last yea r‘s runner—up politologue led from start to finish to win the queen mother champion chase on day two of the national hunt festival at cheltenham. harry skelton was on board the 6—1 shot on what was his first ride in the race. it was also the first winner of the 2020 festival for 11—times champion trainer paul nicholls. that is about all we have time for. go to the website for everything else. from me and the very good sports team it is goodbye for now. hello. meteorologically speaking, it is now the start of spring. but of course, winter is not that far behind us and i think we will get a reminder of that through the next couple of days. cold air flooding into the uk around an area of low pressure will bring us quite a few showers actually, on thursday, the most frequent closest to the low centre, so across the northern half of the uk. but can't rule out some pretty sharp ones whipping through on that strong wind further south, either. and as you can see, the blue has flooded its way right across the uk for today, but all sitting in the polar air. so it will add a definite chill to proceedings, even where we see some sunshine. after showers overnight and plunging temperatures, snow and ice a possible hazard as we start our morning commute. there could be some further falling snow through the earlier part of the day as well for scotland, for the higher ground of northern england and for northern ireland. we should see the snow levels rising as the day progresses, however. some showers to the south, though, could have a little bit of hail mixed in with them from time to time. there'll be quite squally winds here, too. but the showers should be more scattered, they'll tend to come in more persistent bands to the north of the uk, across northern ireland, parts of northern england and scotland. it will feel chilly and the wind, while the strongest across southern scotland, northern england, northern ireland and to the north—west of wales, gusts could touch up to 60 miles per hour here but gusts of a0 miles per hour quite widely. through thursday evening, still a lot of showers around, then we move into the small hours of friday and things start to become quieter. we pick up a northerly wind on the length of the north sea, that will feed some showers into eastern counties the uk, temperatures fall away across the northern half of the uk and in particular again into the small hours of friday. so ice a risk for the north of the uk for first thing on friday once again but our showers will tend to shift offshore quite quickly through friday morning as high pressure starts to build just a little ridge — a brief ridge of high pressure starts to buil for friday daytime. so the early showers clear, the northerly wind eases, there'll be pleasant sunshine the majority for a time at least before our next low starts to approach from the south—west as we get into friday afternoon. the wind will begin to pick up once again and we'll see the arrival of some further rainfall. and then it's another weekend, another area of low pressure. saturday the wettest of the weather to the north—west of the uk. for sunday, this front needs to make its way through so i suspect all of us will see some rain at some stage. so quite a bit of cloud around widely around the uk on saturday, rainfall fairly limited. sunday definitely looks like soggier prospects across the board. a very warm welcome to bbc news. our top stories: president trump bands or flights from mainland europe for 30 days to try to limit the coronavirus pandemic. to keep new cases from entering our shores, we will be suspending all travel from europe to the united states for the next 30 days. the new rules were going to affect friday at midnight. we have a special report from inside one of south korea's super labs where they are processing thousands of samples a day in the fight against the virus. in italy, the restrictions close all shops except food stores and pharmacies.