Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice, the first a penalty and the second a booming long-range shot, to give Juventus a 2-1 win at Empoli on Saturday after their lowly Serie A opponents took a shock first-half lead. Promoted Empoli, with one win all season and 18th in the 20-team table, stunned the visitors with a Francesco Caputo goal — the first time Juve had trailed at half-time this season. But the champions turned the match around after the break as Ronaldo took his league tally to seven and left his side top with 28 points out of a possible 30, seven…
Author: David Folami
Pep Guardiola has challenged Manchester City to prove they are still the Premier League’s preeminent force as the champions face a key test against title rivals Tottenham on Monday. Since losing to Lyon in the Champions League in September, Guardiola’s side have gone on a seven-game unbeaten run in all competitions. City have won six of those matches, with the only draw a goalless stalemate against Liverpool that ranked as an impressive result given their struggles at Anfield last season. An eye-catching 3-0 win at Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League on Tuesday prompted Guardiola to hail the performance as…
Ernesto Valverde has said the absence of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in a Clasico for the first time in 11 years takes none of the gloss away from Sunday’s match. Ronaldo left Madrid in the summer to join Juventus, and Messi fractured a bone in his arm last weekend against Sevilla, ruling him out for three weeks. Messi and Ronaldo’s rivalry has come to define the fixture so much over the last decade that it was suggested to Valverde this weekend’s meeting between the two sides has an underwhelming feel to it. “No, it won’t be any less of…
Atletico Madrid climbed to the top of La Liga with a comfortable 2-0 win at home to Real Sociedad on Saturday, easing the pain of their humbling 4-0 defeat at Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League in midweek. Defender Diego Godin broke the deadlock right at the end of the first half, sliding to the ground to pounce on a loose ball after the visitors had failed to properly clear a pass from Argentine Angel Correa. Brazilian left-back Filipe Luis sealed the win on the hour mark, smashing the ball into the top corner with his right foot after creeping…
Julen Lopetegui has said speculation over his future will not affect his team’s preparation for Sunday’s Clasico away at Barcelona. “I expect to keep breathing whatever happens,” Lopetegui said. “I’m not going to die. I am 100 percent focused on helping my team for tomorrow, nothing more. So I will not dedicate even 0.1 percent of my energy to that question. “Real Madrid is still alive. This is still October, we have done some good things, made a lot of chances, and we will try and improve and be more effective. We are ready to play a game of this…
An early goal from Mohamed Salah and a brace from Sadio Mane helped Liverpool beat Cardiff 4-1 to move to the top of the Premier League. Salah scored for the third game in a row as he reacted quickest to put his side ahead from close range after 10 minutes at Anfield. Mane eventually doubled the lead for Liverpool midway through the second half, before Callum Paterson scored to pull Cardiff back to within a goal’s reach after 77 minutes. However, Xherdan Shaqiri’s first goal for the club gave them breathing space again, and Mane’s 50th Premier League goal –…
Bayern Munich cut the gap to leaders Borussia Dortmund but were far from impressive in their 2-1 victory at Mainz 05 on Saturday as they made it three wins in three matches in all competitions following their early-season dip in form. Leon Goretzka put the visitors ahead in the 39th minute after an earlier effort by Thiago Alcantara was ruled out following the use of the video assistant referee. Mainz did not have to wait long for an equaliser, with Jean-Paul Boetius striding into the box in the 48th to drill in a cross after being left completely unmarked. Spaniard…
Andrea Agnelli is standing by Cristiano Ronaldo as the superstar faces an accusation of rape in the United States. Agnelli, the son of former Fiat CEO Umberto Agnelli and a member of the Italian car maker’s board, spoke Thursday at a club shareholders meeting in Turin and threw his support behind the five-time Ballon d’Or winner. “I’m very calm, having spoken to him directly as soon as the case emerged, on his position,” Agnelli said. “And his behavior in the days and weeks that followed only confirm my initial feeling.” Some of Ronaldo’s corporate sponsors, including Nike and video game…
Juventus are not scoring enough goals considering the number of chances they create, coach Massimiliano Allegri said on Friday. The Serie A leaders have 25 points from nine games, four points clear of Napoli, and are the top scorers in the league with 19 goals, but Allegri said there was still a lot to improve on, especially after they dropped their first points in a 1-1 draw with Genoa last Saturday. “We are coming from a wonderful win against Manchester United but also a draw against Genoa in the league,” said Allegri, whose side won 1-0 at Old Trafford in…
Angel Di Maria spectacularly salvaged Paris Saint-Germain a point at home to Napoli in Champions League Group C with a late equaliser on Wednesday. Lorenzo Insigne and Dries Mertens twice put the Italians in front at Parc des Princes but a Mario Rui own goal and Di Maria’s dramatic leveller in the third minute of five added on keeps the French giants within two points of group leaders Liverpool. Just when it looked like it was not going to happen, Di Maria popped up with a moment of magic to spare PSG’s blushes. Had Napoli held out and left Paris…
1Even in his absence, Lionel Messi was the centre of attention on Wednesday. The cameras panned to him, wearing a baseball cap and sitting next to the eldest of his three sons inside Camp Nou, before Barcelona’s Champions League game against Inter Milan and the chanting started. “Messsssi, Messsssi.” How would Barca cope without him? Just fine, as it turned out. The message from Barca had been that you cannot replace the irreplaceable. Ernesto Valverde and Jordi Alba stressed before the game that there is no substitute for Messi. Instead, the rallying cry was for the whole team to step…
Daniel Levy announced on Friday that the club will continue to play all its 2018 matches at Wembley Stadium, thus delaying the opening of the club’s new venue until next year. “I wish I was able to confirm an exact opening date and fixture. However, in light of factors completely outside of our control, contractors missing deadlines and possible future unforeseen issues, we are naturally being cautious in respect of our timetable for our test events and official opening game,” Levy said in a statement. Spurs’ new £850 million home on the site of their former ground was originally due…
Aaron Ramsey wants Arsenal to explain why they withdrew the offer of a contract extension, saying he hasn’t been told the reasons for the decision. Ramsey looks set to leave Arsenal when his current deal expires next summer, after the club rescinded an offer that had been on the table for weeks. The midfielder revealed after Arsenal’s 1-0 Europa League win over Sporting Lisbon on Thursday that he still doesn’t know what led to that decision. “Hopefully somebody will come up and tell me why,” he said, according to the Guardian. “I’ll accept that if there’s a reason. When the…
Cobi Jones said Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s superb play since joining the MLS side could be due to some divine intervention. “Any time that you have a player like Ibrahimovic, who seems to have been kissed by the gods right now, as far as timing of everything goes, anything can happen,” Jones said on The Totally Football Show. Ibrahimovic has taken MLS by storm since joining the Galaxy in March. The former Sweden international has 22 goals in 26 games, is a strong contender for MVP, and even has the top-selling jersey in MLS. The team, currently in 7th place in the…
Pep Guardiola has no doubts that Manchester City’s top-five rivals are capable of winning the Premier League title this season. The Premier League champions are top on goal difference but a defeat in Monday’s trip to Tottenham Hotspur along with victories for Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal would see City drop out of the top-four. “I don’t have doubt about that,” Guardiola told a news conference when asked if all of the top five could compete for the title. “There’s just two points difference between four, five or six teams and they are so strong — you see the lineup, the…
Thibaut Courtois says he is considering taking legal action against Spanish newspaper El Pais because of an article it published on Friday claiming he would not welcome the appointment of either Jose Mourinho or Antonio Conte as his club’s new coach. The Spanish giants have endured a nightmare start to La Liga under new coach Julen Lopetegui and there is speculation that a change at the helm is imminent with Courtois’ former Chelsea coaches Mourinho and Conte both linked with the Madrid job. A story published in El Pais suggested that perhaps Courtois, due to his “youth, or by his…
Jose Mourinho has ruled out bringing Zlatan Ibrahimovic back to Manchester United but admitted he has got striker problems ahead of the Premier League game against Everton. Mourinho said he will have to keep faith with out-of-form Romelu Lukaku at Old Trafford on Sunday because Alexis Sanchez, who missed the midweek defeat to Juventus, is likely to be ruled out again. The United boss also replied “no” when asked whether Ibrahimovic was an option to ease the goal-scoring burden on Lukaku, who has gone eight games without a goal. “Well, against Juventus to give him [Lukaku] a break, I don’t…
Muhammadu Buhari has said Nigeria is `too big and too diverse to blindly sign agreements’ without understanding the consequences of such actions. According to him, Nigeria is still assessing the impact of this agreement on its backward integration and import substitution policies. He said: “Specifically, the provisions on rules of origin and transhipment were matters of concern to us. “Already, some of the treaties we are party to have been significantly abused resulting in massive smuggling which has crippled many of our local industries and destroyed millions of jobs. “To avoid these past mistakes, we conducted vast consultations across the…
Prof. Yemi Osinbajo has said that over $183 million has been invested so far in the National School Feeding Programme in Nigeria. Osinbajo made the disclosure in Tunis, Tunisia, in a keynote address at the closing ceremony of the 20th Annual Global Child Nutrition Forum held at Four Seasons Hotel in Tunis. He said that over nine million primary pupils are benefitting in 26 states already. The vice president said that the programme has been, by all accounts, a remarkable success. He said that by the end of 2018, with more states in the country joining the National Homegrown School…
Muhammadu Buhari has expressed his disappointment in the Nigerian media for their refusal to adequately report the achievement of his administration in the agricultural sector. While hosting young political appointees and supporters of his administration during a dinner at the Presidential Villa on Wednesday, October 24, 2018, he said his government has not been given enough credit for achieving food security, according to a report by The Punch. He boasted that his administration’s “Go back to the land” programme made agriculture so attractive that people abandoned white collar jobs for farmlands. He said, “I’m very disappointed in the Nigerian press.…