Ricardo Pereira is one of a number of young prospects who were thrown in at the deep end at Vitória Guimarães – and grew up fast. The northern club was in financial meltdown in 2011 when newly appointed coach, the aptly named Rui Vitória, decided to start from scratch, relying on largely unknown youth players.
Sir Alex Ferguson would spend around £27 million on bringing Chris Smalling and Phil Jones to Manchester United within a year of each other at the start of the decade, later stating that he saw them as eventual successors to his last truly solid defensive pairing of Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand. It is now
Chelsea may have left Arsenal on Sunday afternoon with the Premier League all but in the trophy cabinet, the ten point lead the Blues have at the summit making it comfortable enough for Jose Mourinho to tease the Gunners over their decade-long barren run in search of the title, but the Portuguese, as he lavished
Just like that, it happened. You were at the family picnic, having a fine time playing softball with the nieces and nephews and while running to first base - POW! You felt a quick jolt of pain in the back of your leg which steadily increased, causing you to stumble about. You had difficulty extending
From the start, Sunday was an excellent day for Chelsea. After seeing 6 of their players picked for the PFA Premier League team of the year, they headed to Arsenal and ground out a 0-0 draw to retain a 10 point lead at the top of the table which is enforced by a game in
A series of star-studded Benfica sides have enjoyed considerable success domestically and abroad over recent seasons. In a club that employs a constant revolving door policy with regard to the playing squad, the unchanging pillars of the side, although few and far between, play a pivotal role. Captain Luisão and right-back Maxi Pereira are the
April 15, 2024 was a day that would prove vital in the history of Borussia Dortmund as the charismatic manager Jürgen Klopp announced in a press conference that he will be leaving the Black and Yellow at the end of the season by stating that he was not the perfect man for this honorable job
So all the four favourites made it through to semi-finals, but what can we make of what happened? On Tuesday night: - PSG showed the entire football world just how good, bad and limited their team is. Their first half at the Camp Nou was horrifying (entertaining if you are Barca fan), but in the
Clues Across 6 Mr Koné, Everton striker (6) 7 Homeland of Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez (5) 8 Mauricio, a summer loan signing for QPR from Juventus (4) 9 Highly-rated West Brom and England Under-21 striker (8) 10 Transfer window during which Chelsea bought Fiorentina’s Juan Cuadrado (7) 11 Ciaran, Aston Villa defender and Republic of Ireland
With seven games remaining in Serie A, Lazio have managed to leapfrog their bitter rivals Roma in second place, on goal difference. They are having a tremendous season under coach Stefano Pioli. They have some top performers; Antonio Candreva, Marco Parolo, Miroslav Klose and Stefan de Vrij to name a few. The stand-out player for
Things are always slightly easier when you have Lionel Messi in your team. It is why Luis Enrique was jumping up and down on the Nou Camp touchline as his Argentine striker broke clear on the half-way line before he even reached the box. His manager’s assuredness was stalled a moment as Diego Alves saved
The Sound of One Knee Popping The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) connects the femur to the tibia at the center of the knee. It is responsible for limiting rotation and forward motion of the tibia. An estimated 80,000-100,000 ACL tears occur annually in the general population. They are most common in: Skiing Football Soccer Gymnastics
The second leg of the quarter-final is here, so what should we look forward to: Tuesday’s match-ups Barca will hope to finish off ‘Ibra-less’ PSG when the two teams collide in the Camp Nou. Now it’s true that Barca is not unbeatable and PSG does have the capability to bring down Enrique’s men, but let’s be
So the weekend is over and it’s now time to analyse what happened, in the most honest, unbiased and fair way… Or just the opposite. It depends on how you see it. Barclays Premier League Chelsea stayed true to their ‘one goal margin’ name when they defeated Manchester at Stamford Bridge on Saturday. And
It is indeed odd for Jose Mourinho to react to the £4.5 million his club have spent this week on a player that “at the moment is not a player for my squad, he is not a player I am waiting for.” The player the Chelsea manager was referring to was the Brazilian Nathan, who
Many people believe sports and action photography isn’t possible without specialist equipment and years of experience. It’s actually quite easy to capture action in a picture if go about it the right way. Long lenses and professional digital SLR cameras are perfect tools for the job, but you can also produce great pictures with more
Here comes the weekend… On the Football front. Here comes another weekend of… OK let’s me just step right in: - Starting in England: The game everybody (unless you hate those teams or you just don’t care) is talking about this weekend is the derby between ‘one goal margin’ Chelsea and ‘the former
So the brilliant reign of Jürgen Klopp at Borussia Dortmund is at a close as the 47 year old will bow out at the end of this season following seven years at the club. In a press conference that was held on Wednesday Klopp announced that he had not received contact from another club but
The folly of Florentino Perez’s association with Real Madrid is probably best summed up by his decision to overlook Claude Makelele’s defensive contribution to his team upon selling him to Chelsea for £16.8 million in 2003. ‘’We will not miss Makélelé” said the Madrid president about the midfielder who became hugely important to Chelsea’s consecutive
Perhaps history wasn’t on the side of Manuel Pellegrini when he won Manchester City the Premier League title in his first season a year ago. In just 11 months City have gone from league champions to stumbling over the line in disarray, a decline that has borne striking similarities to the conclusion of the Roberto