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Real Madrid’s Alonso maturing like a fine wine
Xabi Alonso’s 30th birthday on Friday has prompted an avalanche of praise for the Real Madrid midfielder and has also served to highlight the former Liverpool man’s importance in coach Jose Mourinho’s plans for Spanish and European domination.
Widely regarded as one of the finest players of his generation, as well as one of the most astute purchases by big-spending Real president Florentino Perez, the quietly-spoken Alonso has gone from strength to strength since joining Real for a fee of 35 million euros ($47 million) at the end of the 2008-09 season.
Spraying passes around the pitch from the centre of midfield with consumate ease and unleashing a crunching tackle when necessary, he is the well-oiled cog at the heart of Mourinho’s Real machine and it would be hard to see them mounting a realistic challenge to great rivals Barcelona without him.
Mourinho has used him more than any other player this season, more even than captain and goalkeeper Iker Casillas.
Alonso has spent 1,626 minutes on the pitch, (1,110 in La Liga, 421 in the Champions League and 95 in the Spanish Super Cup, compared with Casillas’s total of 1,592 minutes.
Alonso’s role in the Spain team is no less vital. Alongside Barcelona’s Xavi, the world and European champions surely have two of the best midfielders ever to have played the game, capable of orchestrating long periods of ball possession before unlocking the meanest defence in the blink of an eye.
Among Alonso’s attributes, Spanish media commentators picked out his calm demeanour, leadership qualities on the pitch and the fact that he is able to live his life away from soccer well outside the glare of the media spotlight.
Why Chelsea should keep Andre Villas-Boas
Three Premier League defeats in four games and Champions League last 16 qualification compromised. The last few weeks have been very tough for Chelsea coach Andre Villas-Boas.
Previous managers Jose Mourinho, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Avram Grant and Carlo Ancelotti were dismissed seemingly for less by ruthless owner Roman Abramovich.
Ancelotti won a league and cup double but was axed after the following season while Grant moved on despite being a John Terry penalty slip away from winning the Champions League.
However, there are several reasons to believe Villas-Boas may stay in his post long-term despite Wednesday’s 2-1 loss at Bayer Leverkusen.
The first is the 13 million pounds Abramovich shelled out to Porto so the Portuguese could move back to Stamford Bridge in the close season. It may seem like peanuts to the Russian billionaire but he also has business sense. Then again, Villas-Boas mentioning this as a reason to be kept on probably isn’t so wise.
Another factor is the merry-go-round of managers at Chelsea has to stop at some point. Alex Ferguson’s success at Manchester United and Arsene Wenger’s achievements at Arsenal, including pulling them out of their recent rut, demonstrate the pluses of longevity.
Chelsea invested in AVB for a reason and that reason can not have been completely destroyed by a bad patch of form less than halfway through the season.
he isn’t good enough for Chelsea, and Abramovich too.
Will Gasperini last at Inter?
Many sceptical Inter Milan fans will tell you they could see their dreadful start to the season coming as soon as Gian Piero Gasperini was surprisingly named as coach.
Unproven at the very top level and having always shown a penchant for a leaky three at the back, the former Genoa boss was undoubtedly not Inter’s first choice when Leonardo left after only six months to seek a new challenge in the boardroom at Paris St Germain.
For various reasons, Inter could not find anyone more accomplished and after going through Jose Mourinho, Rafa Benitez and Leonardo in just a year, the club thought an Italian coach who at least understood Serie A in detail would be a decent if unspectacular appointment.
However, three opening losses including Wednesday’s 1-0 defeat at home to Champions League group stage debutants Trabzonspor has prompted Italian media to suggest Gasperini will be sacked if the 2010 European Cup winners lose this weekend’s league clash with AS Roma.
Looking for a fifth boss in just over 12 months would not appeal to president Massimo Moratti, but neither would another season of woe.
His hands are tied by a rule which says Serie A bosses can not manage two top-flight Italian teams in one season so a move for Napoli’s Walter Mazzarri is impossible.
Some fans think Moratti should have made that move in the close season while Zenit St Petersburg’s Luciano Spalletti won many admirers in Italy with his Roma side’s stylish play.
Real fans still in love with controversial Mourinho
Jose Mourinho was given a rapturous reception by the Real Madrid faithful when his side entertained Galatasaray in a friendly on Wednesday.
It was a show of unity likely to leave club president Florentino Perez in no doubt that whatever reservations he might have over his stubbornly controversial coach the majority of Madrid supporters love him.
Mourinho may have shocked even the most loyal of Madrid fans when he calmly jabbed a finger in the eye of Barca assistant coach Tito Vilanova during the mass confrontation between the sides at the end of last week’s Spanish Super Cup match.
Bizarrely, Mourinho denied any knowledge of the incident and the war of words was taken up by the local media along the battle lines already drawn up from last season’s increasingly acrimonious run of ‘clasicos’.
One of the many banners on display in the Bernabeu on Wednesday was one reading: “Mou, your finger shows us the way.”
Some commentators have been saying that it is time Florentino Perez reigned in his coach to prevent him damaging the club’s reputation but the silence from the club president has been deafening.
A story started circulating on Tuesday the Portuguese was thinking of quitting.
Villas Boas ticks all Chelsea boxes except top prize
By Shrikesh Laxmidas and Daniel Alvarenga
Unlike his mentor Jose Mourinho, Andre Villas Boas does not have a Champions League title on his resume as he moves to Chelsea but he ticks every other box on the London club’s wishlist.
The 33-year-old’s short career — which spans just 20 months as head coach — and lack of Champions League experience means he is a gamble for Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, for whom clinching Europe’s top club trophy seems to have become an obsession.
None of the experienced coaches the Russian oligarch has employed since taking over the club in 2003 have won the trophy with Chelsea, including Mourinho, World Cup winner Luiz Felipe Scolari and twice European champion Carlo Ancelotti, with the unlucky Avram Grant coming within one penalty kick of doing so.
Abramovich, whose efforts to bring Dutchman Guus Hiddink back to the club stalled, may have been swayed to take a new approach by Villas Boas’s precocious competence in leading Porto to their Europa League triumph last month.
The Russian has always wanted Chelsea to win with style, and Villas Boas’s rampant Porto showed immense attacking flair to win the Portuguese League undefeated and thrash serious rivals like Spain’s Villarreal in the Europa League.
The Portuguese has cited former England coach Bobby Robson, who gave him his first break at Porto as a keen 16-year-old, as a major influence in his passion for attacking football.
Xavi’s Wembley tears turn to triumph
In our latest post on Spanish soccer, Iain Rogers in Madrid muses on the brilliance of the peerless Xavi and Real Madrid’s decision to hand more power to coach Jose Mourinho at the expense of sacked director general Jorge Valdano.
Xavi’s Wembley tears turn to triumph
Lionel Messi rightly grabbed most of the headlines for his latest European masterclass in Barcelona’s 3-1 Champions League final humbling of Manchester United on Saturday.
However, the Argentine World Player of the Year’s superbly-struck goal, his 53rd of the season in all competitions, and his all-round brilliance distracted attention from the man who has been at the heart of the phenomenal success achieved by Barca and Spain in recent years: Xavi.
Regularly nailing more than 100 passes per game, with a completion rate in excess of 90 percent, the 31-year-old has perfected the playmaker’s art.
United were powerless to prevent him seizing control of the match as he sprayed the ball left and right, twisting and turning his way into space and leaving the English club’s players chasing shadows across the immaculate Wembley turf.
One amazing statistic from this year’s edition of Europe’s elite club competition, courtesy of Opta, is that in 953 minutes of football he did not concede a single foul.
Mourinho begins strengthening for next season
In our latest Monday post on Spanish soccer, Iain Rogers in Madrid looks at Real’s first signing for next season and the return of “The Beast” to save Malaga.
Mourinho begins strengthening for next season
Jose Mourinho has acquired the first new weapon in his arsenal for the 2011/12 campaign as his Real Madrid side seek to loosen Barcelona’s stranglehold over the domestic title and dream of a 10th triumph in Europe’s elite club competition.
Nuri Sahin, the 22-year-old Turkish playmaker who helped Borussia Dortmund to the Bundesliga title this season, signed a six-year deal with the Spanish giants on Monday for a fee of around 10 million euros ($14.3 million).
German-born Sahin set the record as the youngest player to appear in the Bundesliga when he debuted for Dortmund in 2005 and went on to become the youngest scorer in Germany’s top league.
A left-footer, he also became the youngest scorer for his country when he netted the second in a 2-1 win over Germany in Istanbul in 2005.
Here’s what Real said about their new signing on their website: “The German-born Turk has a knack for distributing the ball as well as recovering it. With a powerful left foot and an eye for ball placement, he is also a master at free-kicks.”
Bad Spanish blood boils over into Champions League “Clasico”
In our latest Monday post on Spanish soccer, Iain Rogers in Barcelona muses on the ill-tempered Champions League clash between arch rivals Barcelona and Real Madrid and the possible repercussions for the Spanish national team and looks at the unrivalled brilliance of World Player of the Year Lionel Messi.
Bad Spanish blood boils over into Champions League “Clasico”
Last week’s Champions League semi-final first leg between Real Madrid and Barcelona made headlines for all the wrong reasons.
The bad blood that had boiled up between the arch rivals before the game at the Bernabeu, watched by millions around the world, spilled over into some ugly scenes on the pitch.
Tension had been building between the Spanish giants after last month’s 1-1 La Liga draw in Madrid and the King’s Cup final in Valencia, which Real won 1-0 in dramatic style thanks to Cristiano Ronaldo’s header in extra time.
Real’s outspoken coach Jose Mourinho upped the ante before the Champions League game by baiting his Barca counterpart Pep Guardiola, who abandoned his customary restraint and lashed back at the Portuguese at his own pre-match news conference.
European soccer’s governing body UEFA opened probes into both clubs the day after the match, which included a scuffle at halftime that resulted in a red card for Barca reserve goalkeeper Jose Manuel Pinto, the sending off of Real’s Pepe for a wild tackle on Daniel Alves and Mourinho being dismissed from the bench for protesting the decision.
Soccer Break Wednesday – Real v Barca. Take three.
Growing tired of Real Madrid and Barcelona playing each other? Not here we aren’t. And nor is an octopus named Iker (see picture).
The Champions League is the biggest club competition in the world and generally where players peak, so Wednesday’s semi-final first leg should be the best of the recent encounters between the Spanish rivals.
A place in the final, most probably against Manchester United after their barnstorming performance on Tuesday albeit against a lacklustre Schalke 04, will be at stake. Will the third ‘clasico’ in 12 days be an all-out attack fest or a nervy 0-0?
Who is your favourite of the two sides? Barcelona for their slick-passing panache or Real for their watchability factor, in which coach Jose Mourinho plays a large role.
A player in form in the Champions League is Schalke keeper Manuel Neuer. Alex Ferguson heavily praised the German but it seems he is set for Bayern Munich as Neuer himself has ruled out a move to the Premier League.
Finally, in England Stoke City edged further away from the relegation zone with a 3-0 defeat of Wolverhampton Wanderers on Tuesday and Wolves find themselves deep in trouble. Can they stay up? But at what cost to the FA Cup finalists Stoke after influential midfielder Matthew Etherington went off with a hamstring problem?
Discuss all these topics and other stories in world soccer on the Reuters Soccer Facebook page. And please feel free to send us recommendations for your pick of the day’s stories.
Soccer Break Tuesday – Bad omens for United
The semi-finals of the Champions League are upon us and the omens are not good for Manchester United ahead of their double-header against Schalke 04.
They might be running away with the Premier League title and facing a side who are 10th in their own table (ok, those portents look pretty rosy), but they have come unstuck the last two times they have lined up against German rivals in the semi-finals.
And these particular German rivals have Raul, the pocket poacher who proved far too wily an opponent when they lost to Real Madrid in the quarter-finals in 2000.
But the motivation is there for manager Alex Ferguson, who after 25 years spent overhauling Liverpool’s domestic record, has admitted he is more than a little envious of their red rivals’ European success.
If this clash doesn’t whet the appetite then you only have 24 hours to wait for Real Madrid’s semi with Barcelona – and if you are not looking forward to that then I’m guessing you’ve clicked this link by mistake.
Real boss Jose Mourinho has a knack of rubbing Barcelona up the wrong way and after last season’s semi-final victory with Inter Milan, he has been struck off many a Catalan’s christmas card list.
And for those of you who don’t know your ‘Cules’ from your ‘Meringues’, we have prepared a little pocket phrasebook to accompany the ‘Clasico’.
