Juventus manager Andrea Pirlo has revealed striker Gonzalo Higuain will leave the club.

Andrea Pirlo’s coaching career has started right at the top

Former Juve midfielder Pirlo, 41, was holding his first news conference since he replaced the sacked Maurizio Sarri on 8 August for his first senior job.

He said Paulo Dybala, 26, will remain at the club but fellow Argentine forward Higuain, 32, will go.

“He was a great champion, a great player but the cycle is over,” Pirlo said.

“We looked each other in the eyes, we talked and we made this decision. I admire him a lot, but we have decided that the paths will separate.”

Juve made Higuain the third most expensive transfer ever when they paid £75m to sign him from Napoli in 2016.

He scored 66 goals in 149 games – as well as having loan spells at AC Milan and Chelsea – but never quite lived up to expectations.

Dybala has been linked to other clubs but Pirlo plans on keeping the number 10, and star frontman Cristiano Ronaldo.

“Dybala has never been on the market. For me he is an important player. As soon as he returns, he will be part of the project,” Pirlo said.

“We have already chatted with Ronaldo and we will have time to talk about tactics and roles.”

‘I’m in the right place at the right time’

Pirlo, who won four Serie A titles as a player with Juve, was named as their under-23 boss at the end of July.

A week later he was their senior manager after the club sacked Sarri, who left despite winning the Serie A title in his first season in charge.

“I didn’t have time to think,” said Pirlo.

“It was all very fast, I threw myself into it, but if I made this choice it is because I am convinced that I am in the right place at the right time.”

He says he will be flexible with tactics but the important thing is that the team plays “with joy”.

“To bring enthusiasm you have to work, talk to the players, make them participate and make them understand our new way of playing,” he said.

“I want to bring back the DNA of work and sacrifice.”

Source – BBC News

Inter Milan and coach Antonio Conte will “continue the project together” after “constructive” talks on Tuesday.

Inter missed out on their first trophy in nine years as they lost the Europa League final and were runners-up in Serie A

The 33-year-old has spent his entire career at Camp Nou, winning the Ballon d’Or on six occasions – but now looks set to leave.

Photo by Getty

Lionel Messi has demanded to leave Barcelona by activating a clause in his contract that would allow him to leave on a free transfer.

The 33-year-old has sent a fax to Barcelona communicating his intention to leave behind the club he’s played at for 20 years.

Although his contract is set to expire at the end of the 2020-21 season, Messi and his legal team believe the clause will allow him to terminate his deal unilaterally.

Rumours of Messi’s unhappiness have been swirling since Bayern Munich humiliated Barcelona 8-2 in the Champions League quarter-final earlier in August, ending a season that saw the club fail to win any trophies.

Following that match, a source tells Goal they had never seen Messi so dejected and frustrated, which the Argentine immediately communicated to several club executives.

In the aftermath of the Bayern defeat, Barcelona sacked head coach Quique Setien as well as technical manager Eric Abidal.

They subsequently hired Ronald Koeman to replace Setien, with the Dutchman expressing his desire to keep the Argentine star at Camp Nou.

Messi cut his vacation short to meet with Koeman last week, telling the Dutchman in their meeting that he no longer believed in the club’s project.

Though many at Barca hoped Messi’s frustration would cool with time after the Bayern defeat, his decision to leave had already been made and communicated with friends and family members.

Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu has previously insisted that Messi will end his career at Camp Nou as his own future continues to be questioned.

Bartomeu has moved Barca’s presidential elections forward to March as he looks to keep hold of a position that would become even more precarious if he is to oversee Messi’s departure.

With his desire to leave confirmed, attention will turn to Messi’s potential next destination, with very few clubs likely able to afford the Argentine’s wages.

Inter, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City have been mooted as possible landing spots, and a move to Major League Soccer or the Chinese Super League has also been discussed.

Messi has established himself as one of football’s all-time greatest players after initially making the breakthrough with Barcelona in 2004.

He has won La Liga on 10 occasions and lifted the Champions League four times – though Barca have been shut out from European club football’s biggest prize since the 2014-15 season.

On an individual level, Messi has won the Ballon d’Or a record six times, including a run of four straight between 2009 and 2012 as well as the most recent award in 2019.

Source – Goal.com

The German side were not at their best in Tuesday’s semi-final win over Barcelona – but on their day, they are capable of beating anyone.

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Lyon might have won the Women’s Champions League for the last four years running, but Wolfsburg don’t stop their dominance this year, it’ll be their biggest missed opportunity yet.

The German side secured their place in the final on Tuesday, but haven’t been crowned champions of Europe since they won back-to-back titles in 2013 and 2014.

Since, they have developed a rivalry with the French giants that has been very one-sided.

In the last four years, the pair have met in every Champions League campaign. On every occasion, the result has been the same: Lyon win.

“Last year, we thought at Wolfsburg that we were closer than we were,” Caroline Graham Hansen, now of Barcelona, told Goal this week.

Graham Hansen was part of the Wolfsburg side who met Lyon in last year’s quarter-finals. It was a thrilling game for the neutral, finishing 6-3 on aggregate, but a bitterly disappointing result for Wolfsburg.

But this year is different. For the first time in several years, Lyon look beatable.

They were given a scare by Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals, narrowly coming through with a 2-1 win to set-up a semi-final tie with Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday.

They are without their star player, Ada Hegerberg, the UWCL’s all-time top-scorer.

Moreover, the impact of Covid-19 – with some teams rustier than others due to differing schedules – has thrown in another interesting factor when deciding the champions of Europe.

Wolfsburg, meanwhile, look stronger than they have in some time.

They’re coming into the tournament off the back of another league and cup double in Germany, trophies they secured with aplomb – scoring 93 goals in 22 games, conceding just eight.

Pernille Harder is the best player in the world right now. Ewa Pajor is exceptional, particularly with Harder pulling the strings. The signings of players like Ingrid Engen, a superbly talented midfielder, and Dominique Janssen, adding steel at centre-back, have strengthened them even further.

But Tuesday showed that they can still be their own worst enemy.

Whether it’s the rust of not playing competitively for a few months before these huge games, or perhaps even a hint of fatigue from being the first major women’s league to resume amid a global pandemic, they lacked the cutting edge that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing from them.

In reality, Barcelona dominated the game. The way they dominated the game was fantastic, but without the cutting edge to win it.

It was disappointing for them too. Barca reached the final of this competition last year and have also strengthened, with Graham Hansen and Jenni Hermoso – both named in last year’s Goal 50 – among their summer signings. But they were guilty of missing chance after chance.

It’s something Wolfsburg must learn from. On another day, it could’ve been the German side ruing their inability to put the ball in the back of the net.

Paris Saint-Germain, Lyon’s opponents in tomorrow’s semi-final, know that feeling all too well.

It’s just two weeks since they were beaten on penalties in the final of the French cup, after a goalless draw with their biggest rivals.

But Lyon know how to win. Compared to their past, they are not at their best, but that’s because their best is so good.

“I think there were people saying ‘ah, it’s not competitive’. I’m like, Barcelona are a good team,” Lyon right-back Lucy Bronze told Goal of last season’s UWCL final.

“We struggled against them [the year before] in the Champions League, narrowly beating them.

“I think maybe playing them the year before made us even more focused because we knew we had to play well to beat them.”

Lyon will not have forgotten that they conceded three times to Wolfsburg last year. They’re perfectionists and they always want to be better.

Every year that they win another Champions League title, defending it becomes harder. This year is no different.

PSG will put up a stern test on Wednesday, the same as they did earlier this month, and they will be even hungrier to win after the cruel shootout defeat.

But if Wolfsburg can raise their game back to the level it was at in the Bundesliga this season, they can beat anyone.

Source – Goal.com

Manchester United defender Victor Lindelof has been thanked by the Swedish police for catching a thief who robbed an elderly woman on Monday.

Victor Lindelof joined Manchester United from Benfica in 2017 for £31m

The incident occurred in Lindelof’s home city of Vasteras, 62 miles west of Sweden’s capital Stockholm.

A police statement said a man in his 30s riding a bike had snatched a bag belonging to a woman in her 90s.

Lindelof is said to have “run after the suspected perpetrator”, catching and holding him until the police arrived.

In a statement, Swedish police said they wanted to “take the opportunity and thank the witness for a quick and wise intervention to restore the plaintiff’s property”.

The woman who had her bag taken has reportedly offered to buy lunch for the 26-year-old Sweden international to thank him for his help.

The man who was arrested is suspected of aggravated theft and minor drug offences.

Lindelof made 35 Premier League appearances last season, helping United to a third-place finish.

Source – BBC News

Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak says he holds no grudges against Uefa.

Khaldoon Al Mubarak (left) held clear-the-air talks with Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin (right) last month

European football’s governing body gave City a two-year ban from their club competitions in February for “serious breaches” of Financial Fair Play regulations.

That ban was overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport last month.

Boss Pep Guardiola said in July City deserved an apology, but Khaldoon said: “Life is too short to carry grudges.”

Speaking to club media, he added: “It is one of the most prestigious competitions in the world of sports and it is a competition we want to win and it is a competition we have to respect in order to win.

“And this was a challenge, it’s behind us, end of story. I am focused on one thing: how I can help this club compete in this competition and win it and how to have a constructive relationship with Uefa. I think it’s the only way to go.”

City target more transfer signings

City’s hopes of winning the Champions League this year were ended by Lyon who beat them 3-1 in the quarter-finals, while they finished second in the Premier League, 18 points behind champions Liverpool.

Guardiola has already started strengthening his side for a renewed assault on both the Premier League and the Champions League next season, which begins this weekend with the traditional curtain-raiser – the Community Shield.

Guardiola moved quickly to strengthen his defence by signing Nathan Ake from Bournemouth earlier this month

Defender Nathan Ake has joined from Bournemouth for £40m while winger Ferran Torres arrived from Valencia at the start of August for £20.87m.

Guardiola is keen to bring in a right-sided central defender, with Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly a player the club is keen on, although no official bid has been made yet.

Khaldoon said there will be more arrivals at Etihad Stadium this summer.

He added: “We don’t take a one-year view, we take a three, five, 10 year-view and when we look at what changes or improvements we have to make for this squad, we are going to make them.

“We’ll be sensible and pragmatic about it but we will do what it takes, I think you’ve seen when it comes to the two acquisitions we have made, Ake and Ferran Torres, we moved quickly.

“There are additional players we will be bringing in and we will stick to the plan, obviously within the realities of the market that we live in today.”

Source – BBC News

Raheem Sterling has tested negative for coronavirus after attending a party with Usain Bolt, who has tested positive according to reports, in Jamaica on Friday.

Raheem Sterling attended a party with Usain Bolt in Jamaica on Friday

The eight-time Olympic champion announced on social media on Monday he was self-isolating as a precaution while awaiting the result of his coronavirus test, but Jamaica’s Minister of Health Dr Christopher Tufton confirmed Bolt has tested positive, according to the the Jamaica Observer.

The Jamaican newspaper also reported the country’s Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, said the police are investigating the circumstances surrounding Bolt’s party.

Sterling, meanwhile, has returned a negative result after undergoing the test in Jamaica and will hope to be named in the England squad for next month’s Nations League fixtures, which is announced at 2pm on Tuesday.

Usain Bolt said he is awaiting the results of a coronavirus test, but Dr Christopher Tufton has reportedly confirmed a positive result

Sterling will take another test upon his return to the UK but a source close to the Manchester City winger told Sky Sports News: “Raheem feels fine and is showing no symptoms of coronavirus.”

All England players called up by Gareth Southgate on Tuesday will have to test negative for coronavirus before they are allowed into camp on Monday.

Source – Sky Sports

The Dutch boss revealed a list of players that he was hoping to bring to Old Trafford during his tenure.

Photo by Getty/Goal

Having been out of management ever since, the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss revealed that he tried to bring some major stars to Manchester during his time with the club, although he was unsuccessful with most.

“I wanted Robert Lewandowski, but when this proved difficult I tried to get Gonzalo Higuain instead,” he told FourFourTwo.

“Before I had arrived, I also spoke with the board about Neymar. If you are at United, you have to think big.

“He was also interesting for the club in terms of selling shirts, and I wanted to have quick wingers. For that reason, I also tried to get Sadio Mane and Riyad Mahrez.

“Thomas Muller was on my wish list, too, and in central midfield I wanted N’Golo Kante.

“I even tried to sign James Milner, who was already quite old but very multi-functional and possessed leadership skills.

“For the defence, I wanted Sergio Ramos and Mats Hummels, because ours wasn’t the strongest in building from the back.”

Van Gaal, who revealed that Daniel Levy and Tottenham missed a chance to hire him prior to his United tenure, also revealed that he previously had talks with Liverpool over a sporting director role.

The Dutchman was never considered for a managerial post at Anfield, although he did meet with former Liverpool executive Ian Ayre to discuss a potential position before he returned for his second stint as Netherlands national team boss in 2012.

“Yes, their managing director [Ayre] came over to Portugal where I have a house, and we held lengthy talks – he even stayed on to have dinner,” he said.

“After he left, though, I never actually heard anything again. I don’t imagine he would have come out to Portugal if they weren’t serious about it, but later I heard I was apparently too arrogant or something. I don’t know.”

Source – Goal.com