Weve all read the stories about such and such a player being the new Zidane, but with one young man there’s really no denying it.

Enzo Zidane, named after his fathers idol, the graceful Uruguayan international Enzo Francescoli, is 12 years old and has started his footballing career on the right foot.

Young Enzo won his first trophy for one of Real Madrids youth teams last weekend when they beat arch-rivals Barcelona to win the Mediterranean International Cup in the Catalan coastal resort of Palamos.

Match reports said that Enzo, who plays in the same position as his dad, even dared to showcase one of his fathers trademark pirouettes as he slipped past an opponent in midfield.

“My father gave me a couple of tips on how to do the ‘ruleta’,” Zidane junior told Marca. “The rest is down to me.”

Whether he can go on and enjoy anything like the success of his father is quite another matter, of course. Few footballing sons have managed to live up to expectations and emulate or even better the achievements of famous fathers. Which ones have managed it, or even come close?

Simon Baskett is a Reuters sports correspondent based in Madrid

Manchester United are the flair team from Spain, Chelsea are the Italians, with their expertly managed bunch of big stars, and Liverpool are a late-model German outfit, with one or two outstanding players and a bunch of honest professionals to play their hearts out.

That’s the idea I put forward in our soccer column this week, which looks at the continental influence on the three English teams in the Champions League semi-finals.

So do you think there’s anything in it? Has Sir Alex Ferguson succeeded in emulating Real Madrid? Is Jose Mourinho the new Helenio Herrera? And are Liverpool a Bundesliga outfit in disguise?

Or perhaps you have other ideas…

Less than a month after taking over as Peru coach, Julio Cesar Uribe has been pictured sitting next to a glass containing an unidentified liquid with a mini-umbrella sticking out of the top.

It was enough for sections of the Peruvian media to work themselves into a frenzy, and to earn him a fine of 30 percent of his month’s wages.

Uribe, it appears, may have gone out for a drink following his team’s 2-0 defeat against Japan in a friendly last month and this, to some, constitutes a scandal.

From now until the end of the 2010 World Cup qualifiers, Uribe will be fair game for Peru’s tabloids who are known locally as the Chicha Press — chicha being the local term for cheap booze of dubious quality.

Almost uniquely in Latin America, the tabloids delve into the footballers’
private lives. Frequently, players have complained how a quiet beer has been transformed into stories of a drunken night on the town, with the breaking of some team curfew thrown in as an aggravating factor.

Peru have never been the most effective team but usually they could be depended on to at least play an attractive passing game, even if they could not turn their possession into goals. “We played like never before and lost as usual” has almost become a motto. Peru have not qualified for the World Cup since 1982.

In many ways, the media, with its unrealistically high expectations and personal attacks, resembles England — another country where the national team routinely churn out deflating performances. Could this be more than just coincidence?

Brian Homewood is a Reuters sports correspondent based in Rio de Janeiro 

With three Premier League teams into the Champions League semi-finals England coach Steve McClaren should be in joyous mood, shouldn’t he?

After the travails of Israel and Andorra and with a trip to Estonia to come McClaren must have been delighted by Manchester United’s 7-1 demolition of AS Roma, Chelsea’s stirring 2-1 win at Valencia and Liverpool’s cruise past PSV Eindhoven to join AC Milan in the last four.

However, all that glitters is not white gold for England.

True, there was much to please McClaren at Old Trafford, where five England internationals played a major part in putting the second-best team in Italy to the sword. Wayne Rooney, who scored in both legs, looked to have a real hunger and if he, and midfielder Michael Carrick, can deal so easily with the cream of Serie A then they really should have no excuses with the skimmed milk of the Baltics.

But Liverpool and Chelsea, one of whom will take a place in the Champions League final, started their semis with only five Englishman between them. The Londoners began with John Terry, Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole - Joe Cole later joined the fray - while Liverpool started with Peter Crouch and Jermaine Pennant, having rested Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard after virtually securing the tie with their 3-0 win in the first leg.

The three English teams are managed by men from Scotland, Spain and Portugal and owned by multi-millionaires from the United States and Russia.

Arsenal, who make up England’s current “big four”, have a French manager who regularly and unapologetically fields teams with little or no hint of Englishness, and the same approach can be found to varying degrees throughout the Premier League.

Last month McClaren was forced to dip into the second division to find a striker - Preston North End’s Dave Nugent - in what might become a regular routine.

It’s certainly been a great week for English teams but for English football? Not so much.

Mitch Phillips is Reuters UK head of sports reporting

Bayern Munich couldn’t stop AC Milan reaching the Champions League semi-finals but Lucio comfortably won his personal battle with fellow Brazilian Kaka in Wednesday night’s quarter-final, second leg.

There may be a lesson there for the watching Sir Alex Ferguson, and ultimately Rafael Benitez or Jose Mourinho, in how to neutralise the Champions League’s top scorer this season.

Perhaps still smarting from the penalty harshly awarded to Kaka in the first leg after his perfectly measured tackle, Lucio was all over Kaka from the kickoff and limited him to two shots all night.

From my vantage point high up in the top tier of the space-age Allianz Arena, the lanky defender seemed to be everywhere at once, making last-ditch challenges, surging out of defence to distribute the ball upfield and thwarting attack after Milan attack.

While waiting for kickoff, I chatted to a few Milan fans inside the stadium and Manchester Uniteds thumping 7-1 victory over AS Roma the previous night had certainly given them something to ponder for the semi-finals.

Adriano Soncini, a 42-year-old from Milan, said he had been surprised by Uniteds performance as he was used to English teams playing the long-ball game with passes pumped forward high into the box.

We will be much more careful than Roma when we play United, he said. Roma were presumptuous after winning the first leg and thought they were already in the semis but we wont make that mistake.

Iain Rogers is a Reuters correspondent based in Berlin

Alex Ferguson hailed Manchester Uniteds 7-1 victory over AS Roma as the greatest European night in the club’s history and few of the near-75,000 who were there on Tuesday would disagree.

Trailing 2-1 from the first leg United roared into a 3-0 lead inside 20 minutes then continued to pour on the style in an amazing performance to secure a remarkable 8-3 aggregate win.

The goals came from all areas, all of them expertly crafted and clinically finished as the talents of Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo and Ryan Giggs proved too much for a Roma team currently second in Serie A.

It was Uniteds biggest European win since they beat Waterford by the same score in 1968 but that was against a team of Irish amateurs - Tuesdays demolition was of the best defence in the Champions League quarter-finals and equal best in Serie A.

It also comes, neatly, in the year United are celebrating half a century of European soccer, which began with a 10-0 home win over Anderlecht in their first tie in the old European Cup in the 1956-57 season a game played at Maine Road.

So was Ferguson right? Was this the best European night United have ever had? To jog a few memories, here are some other games that might be contenders:

Benfica 1, United 5 European Cup quarter-final, second, leg, 1966. George Best scored twice as United swamped the previous seasons runners-up 8-3 on aggregate.

Real Madrid 3, United 3. European Cup semi-final, second leg, 1968. United trailed 3-1 at halftime but charged back to draw and go through to their first final 4-3 on aggregate.

United 4, Benfica 1. European Cup final, 1968. Uniteds finest hour as they triumphed after extra time at Wembley to become the first English side to win the trophy.

United 3, Barcelona 0. Cup Winners Cup quarter-final second leg 1984. Trailing 2-0 from the first leg in their first European quarter-final since 1969, United overcame Diego Maradonas Barcelona 3-0, inspirational captain Bryan Robson scoring twice.

United 2, Barcelona 1. Cup Winners Cup final, Rotterdam 1991. Two goals for Mark Hughes, including an exocet winner, gave United their first European triumph since 1968 and Englands first after the post-Heysel ban.

Juventus 2, United 3. Champions League semi-final second leg 1999. Trailing 2-0 and 3-1 on aggregate after 10 minutes to a Juve team chasing a fourth successive final appearance, a Roy Keane-inspired United roared back to snatch an improbable win.

United 2, Bayern Munich 1. Champions League final 1999. Outplayed and outclassed for 89 minutes United produced the comeback of comebacks as Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored at the death.

Mitch Phillips is Reuters UK head of sports reporting 

Watching Chelsea’s dramatic Champions League quarter-final victory against Valencia at the Mestalla there was one inescapable fact - the massive gulf in fitness and strength between the two sides.

In terms of quality and skill, everyone at the ground could see that Valencia were more than a match for the Londoners, in the first half anyway. But when it came to lasting the 90 minutes it was no contest.

Yes, Valencia almost took the game into extra-time, but you could see they were on their last legs when Michael Essien battered his shot into the net in the final minute. There only looked like being one winner.

It was the same story in the last round when Liverpool disposed of Barcelona. The Catalans were unable to match the intensity and determination of Rafa Benitezs side over the two legs.

Many a foreign player who has come to Spain has commented on the lack of fitness training, the lower intensity of the sessions compared to their previous clubs. Careful not to criticise, they say that in Spain the fitness is done by training with the ball.

Inevitably there are times when skill and touch will carry sides through, but in matches when there is little to separate the sides it is fitness, concentration levels and an ability to produce your best from first to last that counts.

Chelsea showed on Tuesday, Spanish sides will need to take a leaf out of their book if they are to break what could be an English stranglehold on the competition in years to come.

Simon Baskett is a Reuters sports correspondent based in Madrid

Romario’s attempt to score the so-called 1,000th goal of his career is causing problems for his club, Vasco da Gama.

Vasco have altered their playing style and match venues in an attempt to help Romario, stuck on 999 goals for the last two games according to the apparently random criteria he uses, reach the milestone at the Maracana stadium, his favourite venue.

But the circus surrounding Romario’s quest — their game against Botafogo a week ago kicked off 20 minutes late because of the number of reporters trying to interview the former Brazil striker on the pitch — appears to have affected the team, who have lost their last three games.

Striker Leandro Amaral said as much after Vasco were dumped out of the Copa Brasil by second division Gama last Wednesday. Romario sat out Sunday’s 2-1 defeat to modest Cabofriense because it was not at the Maracana and then poured more fuel on the fire.

“Of course, responsibility is a problem for some players and if he (Leandro Amaral) says it’s a problem, he should go and play for a smaller club,” said Romario.

Romario, whose count includes goals scored in all sorts of weird and wonderful testimonial and friendly games, could have ended the saga then and there by accepting a report in the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant which said he had overlooked a goal scored in a friendly during his PSV Eindhoven days.

Instead, he prefers to try again at the Maracana against Botafogo on Wednesday.

“Circus is the best word to describe this whole story about the goal, which they want to make eternal,” wrote Marcelo Damato, columnist in the sports daily Lance. “One day, we will discover the correct number but it’s already clear that there’s no criteria apart from ‘that’s the way I want it’, which happens to make the next one number 1,000.

Brian Homewood is a Reuters sports correspondent based in Rio de Janeiro

My wife is due to give birth to our second child any day now and it looks like the new arrival will be up against some pretty stiff competition when it comes to kindergarten places and the like.

It’s exactly nine months since the end of the World Cup and Germany is experiencing a baby boom.

The sunshine, the street parties, the beer and Germany’s good results helped inspire a 24 percent increase in March births, according to the latest figures from the northern city of Kassel.

We first wrote about this story in February, after the Dr Koch clinic delivered its first World Cup baby, conceived after Germany’s exhilarating 1-0 win over Poland.

“I remember it perfectly,” Pia Schmidt, 27, said from her hospital bed after giving birth to daughter Farina. “There was a great atmosphere, we had friends over and later the celebrations continued in the bedroom.”

We haven’t decided on a name yet, but I expect half our new baby’s classmates will be called Jens, Lukas or Bastian.

Villarreal have cried foul after a 1-0 defeat by Atletico Madrid because the goal was scored while one of their players was lying on the ground in the area.

Villarreal coach Manuel Pellegrini and president Fernando Roig say that Atletico should have kicked the ball out of play when forward Guillermo Franco went to ground on the goal line. To add to Villarreal frustration, it was the prostrate Franco who played Fabiano Eller onside as he headed over the line.

Last season, Arsenal’s Premiership match against Tottenham caused a showdown between managers Arsene Wenger and Martin Jol. Wenger was furious when Spurs didn’t kick the ball out of player after two of his players were injured in the build-up to a Robbie Keane goal.

It has long been established “fair play” for teams to kick the ball out of play if an opposing player is down injured. Yet FIFA noted after the World Cup that some players were deliberately interrupting games by feigning injury. FIFA describes it as a “deplorable habit“. But should players be responsible for putting the ball out in such circumstances? Or should stopping play be at the referee’s discretion alone?

Simon Baskett is a Reuters sports correspondent based in Madrid