Category: Football News

This weekend was filled with football matches from across Europe.La Liga saw both of it’s giants in action as Barcelona visited Elche and Real Madrid hosted Real Sociedad. 

As Vinicius and Benzema led Real to a great performance in the Santiago Bernabeu with a thrilling 4-1 victory, Barcelona struggled but eventually managed to get the ever important 3 points. 

Before this match, Barcelona had started to show dominance as they scored around 22 goals in just 6 matches. Now after they struggled last night to beat Elche, they need to figure out their defence as teams find it easy to catch them on the counter attack. 

Barcelona now however, stand on 3rd place firmly as they look to beat out Real Betis for 2nd and eventually Real Madrid for 1st place if luck stays with La Blaugrana. 

Over in the United Kingdom, the Manchester Derby kicked off as Pep Guardiola’s City thrashed a shadow of itself United. 

Without the likes of Ronaldo or Cavani, United found it very hard to start great attacks and capitalise as Pep’s City carried the ball all the way to the back of United’s net four times and even were up by a goal in the first 5 minutes.

With the Europa league and Uefa League Round of 16 up ahead, it’ll be interesting to see how teams pace themselves this week.

Manchester City star Oleksandr Zichenko, the Ukrainian fullback has finally broken his silence and given his two cents on the Ukraine-Russia war going on right now. 

The Russian-Ukrainian war saw the sports world affected a lot as multiple sporting organizations including the UEFA and FIFA committees have banned all Russian sides from competing there and have allowed Russian athletes to continue playing under a neutral flag. 

“At midnight UK time, my wife woke me up and she was crying,” Zinchenko told BBC.

“I was in shock. She showed me the videos, the pictures, what’s going on now in Ukraine. Maybe the most closest feeling is when someone from your circle is dying. You know, this feeling like you feel so bad inside. But this is even much more worse. I’m just crying,” he said. “So already a week, I’m not counting, but even I can drive the car from the training ground, or it doesn’t matter where, I can just cry from nothing.

“It’s everything in my head. Imagine the place where you was born, where you was growing up. And there is just empty ground.”

“I’ll be honest, if not for my daughter, my family, I would be there,” he said.

“I’m just born like that. I know the people from my country, the mentality of them, and all of them, they think exactly the same.

“I know the people, the mentality of my people from my country, they prefer to die, and they will die. But they’re not going to give [up].”

“I’m so grateful,” he said. “I’m so grateful to all these people for the support I’m getting here. I didn’t realise it’s going to be like that in this way. So I would like to say all of them big thanks. I appreciate it.

The Arsenal Winger, Gabrielle Martinellli has made a point to indicate his future plans to his club and his fans. 

The young player wants to stay at Arsenal and continue playing with them for as long as he possibly can. 

“We have a young group, we have a lot of time ahead of us, players with a lot of quality, I think we will achieve great things,” Martinelli told ESPN Brazil.

“Our focus is the Champions League. Fighting for that top four. A club like Arsenal has to be in the Champions League. It’s our total focus.

“We always want more. Of course, Arsenal are a giant team. If I can, I’ll stay here my whole life. I want to conquer things, as I said, I want to stay here and win titles, with these wonderful fans, my team-mates.”

“It was a giant leap for me,” he said. “I was at Ituano, I lived in Itu, and I came to play at Arsenal, living in London. It was a little complicated, but my family was always with me, they always helped me at all times, off and on the pitch as well.

“At the club, I always had [Emiliano Martinez’s] support as well. He helped a lot, he always helped me. His wife speaks Portuguese, so does he. He was very important to me, he helped me adapt to the club, to the country.

“With my family here, it became a little easier. But it was a big leap, it was just a bit of a good one.

“It’s a thud. You leave Itu, 30 degrees every day, playing at Ituano, and come to London. But with all the people, Emi, my family, they made it a little easier for me.”

The former Barcelona manager, Ronald Koeman departed at the beginning of this season when his side of Barcelona were on a losing streak and on the 9th spot in the La Liga.

Now Koeman has finally come back to the world with his controversial interview with a German publication. 

“It was at the insistence of the club’s management that I agreed to the departure of some players to put the finances in order.

“But then when you see that they go and sign a player for €55million (Torres) shortly after letting Lionel Messi go…

“Then you wonder if there wasn’t something else going on. Why did Messi have to leave?”

The Dutch man seemed to be jealous of the free reign Xavi has been handed when it comes to choosing players to play and sign. However his question still remains a good one.
Why did Messi have to leave? 

Barcelona tried to clear those doubts by giving justifications about Ferran Torres and more. They said these new players were only added to the wage bill after multiple cuts in pay and players which made those additions possible in the first place.

However, whatever the case is now, fans of Barcelona have made peace with Messi’s departure and would love for Xavi to turn things around as he’s attempting to do and win something big. 

In a quick and shocking turn of events that have unfolded over the past few days, Chelsea football club is now up for sale. 

As the world bears witness to one of the most destructive and unnatural events taking place over in Ukraine and Russia, the football world was shaken up with multiple effects showing. First, FIFA and UEFA discussed eliminating Russia and their clubs from all of their events. Then, Abramovich was being looked at for corruption charges and also for being a major player from the Russian side in terms of financing. After these two events, FIFA and UEFA banned all Russian clubs and the national team from their events. Abramovich was then banned from staying in England, post which he eventually stepped down from the executive position in Chelsea. 

Now, Abramovic has confirmed he has put Chelsea up for sale and the proceeds from the sale will be transferred to the Ukrainian government directly or the victims through a specific organisation. 

A statement on the club’s website on Wednesday read: “I would like to address the speculation in media over the past few days in relation to my ownership of Chelsea FC.

“As I have stated before, I have always taken decisions with the Club’s best interest at heart.

“In the current situation, I have therefore taken the decision to sell the Club, as I believe this is in the best interest of the Club, the fans, the employees, as well as the Club’s sponsors and partners.”The sale of the Club will not be fast-tracked but will follow due process. I will not be asking for any loans to be repaid.”This has never been about business nor money for me, but about pure passion for the game and Club.”Moreover, I have instructed my team to set up a charitable foundation where all net proceeds from the sale will be donated.

“The foundation will be for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine. This includes providing critical funds towards the urgent and immediate needs of victims, as well as supporting the long-term work of recovery.

“Please know that this has been an incredibly difficult decision to make, and it pains me to part with the Club in this manner.

“However, I do believe this is in the best interest of the Club. I hope that I will be able to visit Stamford Bridge one last time to say goodbye to all of you in person.

“It has been a privilege of a lifetime to be part of Chelsea FC and I am proud of all our joint achievements. Chelsea Football Club and its supporters will always be in my heart.”

Manchester City have been on fire since the last couple of seasons and have been in the title race for longer. The rebranding and restructuring of the Manchester side late in the 2010s helped out the club to a great extent. 

After the Arabian owners brought in the money to back up the club, City brought in Pep Guardiola to back up the players. Guardiola, probably one of the best to ever manage a football club, struck hard as he customised his team and came up with probably the best side in Europe right now. 

Recently, City purchased a young British striker by the name of Jack Graelish after his incredible show for the national team and his premier league side. 

Jack Graelish since then hasn’t had the best of statistics with only 3 goals and 3 assists so far. 

“I think the main [statistics] are the goals and the assists,” he said in December. “They are the ones I am trying to work on the most.”

But Guardiola disagrees.

“Maybe he listened too much to what the people say,” Guardiola told reporters ahead of Tuesday’s FA Cup clash with Peterborough.

“It’s wrong but the statistics are better and he plays quite similar to Aston Villa in terms of ball contact.

“He had the chances against Crystal Palace in 20 minutes to score three goals. It didn’t happen but it’s going to happen. We didn’t buy him to score 45 goals.”

“It’s how you play today if you perform to your maximum, to your best, help your team-mates to make the process defensively and offensively better, it’s enough,” the City boss added. “Thanks to that we are going to win.

“Everyone has agents and managers and everything, and say what they have to do better and they listen to a lot of things about what they have to do. He’s playing well. If he wasn’t, I would tell him. That is not the case.”

FIFA and UEFA have collectively banned the all Russian national and international teams from continuing to take part in any of their tournaments. With a heavy EU influence on the UEFA organisation it comes with very less surprise that the Russian clubs will now be eliminated from the ongoing tournaments and will not be allowed in for the foreseeable future. 

As the EU has an effect on UEFA, the UEFA federation has an effect on FIFA who also announced that they will not be allowing Russia to take part in any further matches in terms of qualifiers or the actual world cup in Qatar scheduled for 2022 November. 

“Following the initial decisions adopted by the FIFA Council and the UEFA Executive Committee, which envisaged the adoption of additional measures, FIFA and UEFA have today decided together that all Russian teams, whether national representative teams or club teams, shall be suspended from participation in both FIFA and UEFA competitions until further notice,” a joint statement issued by FIFA and UEFA on Monday signalled.

“These decisions were adopted today by the Bureau of the FIFA Council and the Executive Committee of UEFA, respectively the highest decision-making bodies of both institutions on such urgent matters.

“Football is fully united here and in full solidarity with all the people affected in Ukraine. Both Presidents hope that the situation in Ukraine will improve significantly and rapidly so that football can again be a vector for unity and peace amongst people.”

Russia responded with a statement of their own, 

“The Russian Football Union categorically disagrees with the decision of FIFA and UEFA to suspend all Russian teams,” reads the statement. “We reserve the right to challenge the decision of FIFA and UEFA in accordance with international sports law.

“We believe that this decision is contrary to the norms and principles of international competition, as well as the spirit of sports. It has an obvious discriminatory character and harms a huge number of athletes, coaches, employees of clubs and national teams, and most importantly, millions of Russian and foreign fans, whose interests international sports organizations must protect in the first place.

“Such actions are dividing the world sports community, which has always adhered to the principles of equality, mutual respect and independence from politics.”

FCBarcelona have got off to a flyer of a 2022 after consecutive wins against some of the best football clubs in Europe. 

La blaugrana have now scored a whopping 20 goals in the past 7 matches including 2 Europa League matches against Napoli. 

Barcelona under Xavi, have seen a considerable change in the direction and style of overall play. Attacking aggressively when without the ball and making quick runs for the goal and catching the other team with a surprise. 

After a thrilling 4-0 win against Athletic Club last night, Barcelona have now solidified their 4th place spot in the La Liga table. With Atletico Madrid still at 45 points, same as Barcelona, but with one more match played, it’s a clear advantage for La Blaugrana. 

In casual interviews, Barcelona legend Puyol did mention how he still believes that if anyone can win the Liga from this point onwards and from a position like Barcelona are in right now, it’s Xavi. The Barcelona manager, humble as ever, replied by mentioning how they will keep fighting until the mathematics tells them that it’s really impossible. 

Mathematically, Barcelona might still have a chance to win the Liga if Real Madrid encounters some bad luck on the way, however realistically, Barcelona can still claim second place and come back stronger in the next season.

Claiming second place after being 9th in the beginning of the season would be a great feet to achieve not to mention the management change in between the season and a number of injuries, changes to squads, big departures and massive arrivals and most importantly, the elimination from the Champions League into the Europa League.